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SIG:AR:TYR – Citadel of Stars Review
By Steel Druhm
Though I’m far from a black metal enthusiast, I grew up with the mighty sounds of Bathory ringing throughout my teen years. We didn’t call them black metal back then as Venom had co-opted that term for their rowdy, faux-Satan cock rock metal, but I loved what Bathory was doing regardless of genre label. Albums like The Return, Under the Sign of the Black Mark, and Blood Fire Death were so savage and massive, they set us up for what black metal would become in the 90s. It was always the epic edge of Bathory’s sound that truly seized my metal heart. The sounds of Blood Fire Death and especially Hammerheart spoke to the indomitable warrior within us all. When SIG:AR:TYR came along many years later, they clicked for me immediately in a way few black metal acts ever did because they were flying the same foundational battle standards as Bathory before them. Albums like Beyond the North Winds, Godsaga and Norther are dearly loved, and the latter was my Record o’ the Year for 2016. It’s been seven long years since Norther and for a time it seemed there would never be another SIG:AR:TYR release, but 2024 finally delivers Citadel of Stars. Will this be another grand voyage into high adventure for the faithful? Gird thy loins and let’s set sail.
I’ll say this: I don’t believe SIG:AR:TYR is capable of a bad album. Solo musician and brain trust Daemonskald is simply too talented and too capable to deliver something unworthy. On Citadel of Stars, he cobbles all the key SIG:AR:TYR elements together once again and hammers out an epic, powerful saga that feels majestic and glorious. The Bathory and Immortal influences are ever-present but the music is no mere homage. 10-plus minute opener “Awaiting the Last Dawn” is a sweeping mission statement rife with the classic sound functioning exactly as it should. It’s atmo-black Pagan/Viking metal pulsating with an epic vibe that feels vast and incalculably massive. The riffs are thoughtful and deliberate, forceful and mighty. The plodding pace feels like a military march through mud and snow as a mighty host heaves its way toward a final conflagration, and you’ll want to carry a banner alongside your brothers. Daemonskald’s blackened rasp is as effective as ever and the minutes roll by almost unnoticed as you stride with the bold. Few bands can capture this level of hypnotic atmosphere, dragging you into another realm so completely. It’s a long song that feels fleeting. “Beyond the Stars Unknown” continues the steep climb to the heavens with a hard-charging battle gallop and relentlessly churning riffs. This is the stuff to make you hunger for glory on the battlefield in a way Amon Amarth only hints at. Daemonskald’s guitar work is amazing, spinning from burly riffage to Yngwie-like neo-classical shredding and back in a way that feels just right. This is a masterwork of a true artist and Song o’ the Year material. The show stopper for me comes with “I Sail on, Eternal,” which is just a monstrously badass piece that condensces everything good in black metal into one massive missive that will add 2 inches to your biceps and several lengths to your back pelt. The spirit of Hammerheart era Bathory lives large in the music and Quorthon gazes down upon it approvingly. It’s plodding, inexorable, and inevitable, and I want it to be 40 minutes long. I’ve had this on repeat for gym sessions and it instills a quivering Norse rage in my loin biceps.
“From the Land of the North” is another ginmorous epic with pulsating energy and an Immortal-esque gravitas I can’t get enough of. Album closer “Where the Sun Never Sets” is another 10-plus minute monolith and it too conjures the spirits of great heroes and warriors through the ages. There’s so much magic in these pieces that it’s a tragic shame there are a few lesser moments that drag the album back down to Midgard. “The Blood That Came Before You” is good but less dynamic and stirring, and “Ascending the Stellar Throne” is better but also ends up feeling a bit spare compared to the masterful moments around it. The album includes 2 long-form instrumentals and though this is a SIG:AR:TYR staple, here they don’t feel as integrated and essential, fracturing the album’s momentum and lingering too long. At an hour long, the album has 12 or so minutes that feel less essential, although nothing ranks as filler.
I’ve praised Daemonskald in several reviews now, and I continue to be in awe of his abilities as a musician. His guitar playing can be stunningly beautiful then turn on a dime to become deadly. He’s a master at crafting folk-filled moments in otherwise grindingly heavy battle anthems and his delicate playing is a thing of wonder. His sense of composition is stellar and he can create truly grandiose, sweeping pieces of music blending raw force with melancholic musings. There are 5 such pieces here that I will cherish forevermore. The album has a few inconsistencies that result in lesser moments, but even these are vastly better than what most black metal acts could ever dream of conjuring.
Citadel of Stars is another winning SIG:AR:TYR album. It’s not as consistent as past triumphs and suffers some flat spots, but damn the highs are stratospheric! No one can do what SIG:AR:TYR does nearly as well, and there are songs here that will be among the best metal moments you’ll experience this year. Even if you don’t love black metal, you should give this and the whole SIG:AR:TYR catalog a deep listen. You will not be disappointed. Glory to the brave, glory to Daemonskald. Hails into eternity.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Hammerheart
Websites: sigartyr.com | sigartyr.bandcamp.com/music | facebook.com/sigartyr
Releases Worldwide: May 31st, 2024#2024 #35 #Bathory #BlackMetal #CanadianMetal #CitadelOfStars #FolkMetal #Hammerheart #HammerheartRecords #Immortal #May24 #Norther #Review #Reviews #SIGARTYR
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Necrot – Lifeless Birth Review
By Eldritch Elitist
When it comes to the new school of old school death metal, Necrot occupies a refreshing niche. By that, I mean that they don’t much fall into a specific niche at all. None too interested in the bleeding edge of the style and similarly distant from its grimiest, slimiest depths, Necrot stands alone, simply wanting to rock. 2020’s Mortal has aged remarkably well in its own no-frills marinade, packed with catchy riffage that I still recall with clarity despite years since my last visit. Of course, I might not have spent years away had it been a more distinct offering. Necrot is one of those acts that effortlessly coasts on charm and raw talent, rarely if ever hinting at grand ambitions. It came as a pleasant surprise, then, that Lifeless Birth sees Necrot in a state of chrysalitic emergence. I don’t believe their final form has taken full shape, but Lifeless Birth is nonetheless a vital evolutionary step.
Not that you need to care about any of that to appreciate Lifeless Birth. This is still a Necrot record in all its catchy, groove-oriented goodness. Yet even at its most straightforward, Necrot exercises a newfound obsession with throwing rhythmic curveballs. Riffs often begin life via standard death metal note progressions before unraveling into unexpected progressive tangents, often invoking the deceptive technicality of Cannibal Corpse’s best efforts. These riff structures serve as microcosms of Lifeless Birth’s greatest songwriting feats. From “Drill the Skull” onwards, these compositions pivot well outside traditional death metal in their back halves. “Winds of Hell” stealthily stacks blackened riffs before exploding into harmonized black metal catharsis and “The Curse” deals in burly gallops that echo Amon Amarth. These experimental ventures are often accompanied by unprecedented levels of major key melodics, resulting in a death metal record that feels bolder than most, especially because it isn’t obsessed with sounding mean for its entire runtime.
The only thing holding Lifeless Birth back from feeling utterly revelatory is that Necrot often feels withholding during its best moments. The album’s genre-bending heights are often short-lived, reverting to standard death metal fare before the band can properly stretch their experimental legs. This half-commitment ultimately invokes not incompetence but obligation, an acknowledgement by Necrot that they are not abandoning their roots, even if Lifeless Birth would be a better record without self-imposed restraints. To be clear, Lifeless Birth still comes across as impassioned, world-class death metal throughout, even if its purest moments never quite reach the heights of, say, “Sinister Will”1 from Mortal. Lifeless Birth’s first three tracks in general feel a touch repetitive, but I never once thought of skipping them to rush to my favorite bits.
Outside of its boldest passages, Lifeless Birth still feels iterative in Necrot’s catalog thanks to its guitar solos, which have received a bluesy melodic overhaul. These solos are such a marked departure for Necrot that I was legitimately surprised to find that their implementation was not accompanied by a line-up change. What guitarists Luca Indrio and Sonny Reinhardt have crafted here are unquestionably some of my favorite solos in the realm of old school death metal, with the extended dueling harmonies of “Dead Memories” in particular sounding more akin to power metal in their exuberant tone. Moments like these could have shone with radiance were the album’s production similarly ambitious, but Lifeless Birth’s engineering comes across as a fairly standard interpretation of the modern OSDM sound. It’s a good-sounding record, to be sure, but its soundscape feels a bit obvious and lacking in depth.
Perhaps all these new melodic and genre-hopping tricks shouldn’t come as a surprise. Necrot has always bolstered a sort of pop-like accessibility and addictiveness – relative to death metal, that is – and Lifeless Birth’s melodic focus should prove even more appealing to all but the staunchest death metal purists. I only hope that Necrot’s next outing finds them venturing more frequently into uncharted tonal territory. Lykathea Aflame should have been the band that blew the doors off the notion that death metal has to sound deathly serious at all times, but we’re nearly twenty-five years on from Elvenefris, and many of the most popular bands in the genre feel regressive for nostalgia’s sake. With Lifeless Birth, Necrot is showing a willingness to be an exception to this rule with the strongest identity the band has ever had.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tankcrimes Official | Bandcamp
Websites: necrot.bandcamp.com/music | facebook.com/cyclesofpain
Releases Worldwide: April 12th, 2024#2024 #35 #AmericanMetal #AmonAmarth #Apr24 #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #LifelessBirth #LykatheaAflame #Necrot #Review #Reviews #Tankcrimes
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Necrot – Lifeless Birth Review
By Eldritch Elitist
When it comes to the new school of old school death metal, Necrot occupies a refreshing niche. By that, I mean that they don’t much fall into a specific niche at all. None too interested in the bleeding edge of the style and similarly distant from its grimiest, slimiest depths, Necrot stands alone, simply wanting to rock. 2020’s Mortal has aged remarkably well in its own no-frills marinade, packed with catchy riffage that I still recall with clarity despite years since my last visit. Of course, I might not have spent years away had it been a more distinct offering. Necrot is one of those acts that effortlessly coasts on charm and raw talent, rarely if ever hinting at grand ambitions. It came as a pleasant surprise, then, that Lifeless Birth sees Necrot in a state of chrysalitic emergence. I don’t believe their final form has taken full shape, but Lifeless Birth is nonetheless a vital evolutionary step.
Not that you need to care about any of that to appreciate Lifeless Birth. This is still a Necrot record in all its catchy, groove-oriented goodness. Yet even at its most straightforward, Necrot exercises a newfound obsession with throwing rhythmic curveballs. Riffs often begin life via standard death metal note progressions before unraveling into unexpected progressive tangents, often invoking the deceptive technicality of Cannibal Corpse’s best efforts. These riff structures serve as microcosms of Lifeless Birth’s greatest songwriting feats. From “Drill the Skull” onwards, these compositions pivot well outside traditional death metal in their back halves. “Winds of Hell” stealthily stacks blackened riffs before exploding into harmonized black metal catharsis and “The Curse” deals in burly gallops that echo Amon Amarth. These experimental ventures are often accompanied by unprecedented levels of major key melodics, resulting in a death metal record that feels bolder than most, especially because it isn’t obsessed with sounding mean for its entire runtime.
The only thing holding Lifeless Birth back from feeling utterly revelatory is that Necrot often feels withholding during its best moments. The album’s genre-bending heights are often short-lived, reverting to standard death metal fare before the band can properly stretch their experimental legs. This half-commitment ultimately invokes not incompetence but obligation, an acknowledgement by Necrot that they are not abandoning their roots, even if Lifeless Birth would be a better record without self-imposed restraints. To be clear, Lifeless Birth still comes across as impassioned, world-class death metal throughout, even if its purest moments never quite reach the heights of, say, “Sinister Will”1 from Mortal. Lifeless Birth’s first three tracks in general feel a touch repetitive, but I never once thought of skipping them to rush to my favorite bits.
Outside of its boldest passages, Lifeless Birth still feels iterative in Necrot’s catalog thanks to its guitar solos, which have received a bluesy melodic overhaul. These solos are such a marked departure for Necrot that I was legitimately surprised to find that their implementation was not accompanied by a line-up change. What guitarists Luca Indrio and Sonny Reinhardt have crafted here are unquestionably some of my favorite solos in the realm of old school death metal, with the extended dueling harmonies of “Dead Memories” in particular sounding more akin to power metal in their exuberant tone. Moments like these could have shone with radiance were the album’s production similarly ambitious, but Lifeless Birth’s engineering comes across as a fairly standard interpretation of the modern OSDM sound. It’s a good-sounding record, to be sure, but its soundscape feels a bit obvious and lacking in depth.
Perhaps all these new melodic and genre-hopping tricks shouldn’t come as a surprise. Necrot has always bolstered a sort of pop-like accessibility and addictiveness – relative to death metal, that is – and Lifeless Birth’s melodic focus should prove even more appealing to all but the staunchest death metal purists. I only hope that Necrot’s next outing finds them venturing more frequently into uncharted tonal territory. Lykathea Aflame should have been the band that blew the doors off the notion that death metal has to sound deathly serious at all times, but we’re nearly twenty-five years on from Elvenefris, and many of the most popular bands in the genre feel regressive for nostalgia’s sake. With Lifeless Birth, Necrot is showing a willingness to be an exception to this rule with the strongest identity the band has ever had.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tankcrimes Official | Bandcamp
Websites: necrot.bandcamp.com/music | facebook.com/cyclesofpain
Releases Worldwide: April 12th, 2024#2024 #35 #AmericanMetal #AmonAmarth #Apr24 #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #LifelessBirth #LykatheaAflame #Necrot #Review #Reviews #Tankcrimes
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Necrot – Lifeless Birth Review
By Eldritch Elitist
When it comes to the new school of old school death metal, Necrot occupies a refreshing niche. By that, I mean that they don’t much fall into a specific niche at all. None too interested in the bleeding edge of the style and similarly distant from its grimiest, slimiest depths, Necrot stands alone, simply wanting to rock. 2020’s Mortal has aged remarkably well in its own no-frills marinade, packed with catchy riffage that I still recall with clarity despite years since my last visit. Of course, I might not have spent years away had it been a more distinct offering. Necrot is one of those acts that effortlessly coasts on charm and raw talent, rarely if ever hinting at grand ambitions. It came as a pleasant surprise, then, that Lifeless Birth sees Necrot in a state of chrysalitic emergence. I don’t believe their final form has taken full shape, but Lifeless Birth is nonetheless a vital evolutionary step.
Not that you need to care about any of that to appreciate Lifeless Birth. This is still a Necrot record in all its catchy, groove-oriented goodness. Yet even at its most straightforward, Necrot exercises a newfound obsession with throwing rhythmic curveballs. Riffs often begin life via standard death metal note progressions before unraveling into unexpected progressive tangents, often invoking the deceptive technicality of Cannibal Corpse’s best efforts. These riff structures serve as microcosms of Lifeless Birth’s greatest songwriting feats. From “Drill the Skull” onwards, these compositions pivot well outside traditional death metal in their back halves. “Winds of Hell” stealthily stacks blackened riffs before exploding into harmonized black metal catharsis and “The Curse” deals in burly gallops that echo Amon Amarth. These experimental ventures are often accompanied by unprecedented levels of major key melodics, resulting in a death metal record that feels bolder than most, especially because it isn’t obsessed with sounding mean for its entire runtime.
The only thing holding Lifeless Birth back from feeling utterly revelatory is that Necrot often feels withholding during its best moments. The album’s genre-bending heights are often short-lived, reverting to standard death metal fare before the band can properly stretch their experimental legs. This half-commitment ultimately invokes not incompetence but obligation, an acknowledgement by Necrot that they are not abandoning their roots, even if Lifeless Birth would be a better record without self-imposed restraints. To be clear, Lifeless Birth still comes across as impassioned, world-class death metal throughout, even if its purest moments never quite reach the heights of, say, “Sinister Will”1 from Mortal. Lifeless Birth’s first three tracks in general feel a touch repetitive, but I never once thought of skipping them to rush to my favorite bits.
Outside of its boldest passages, Lifeless Birth still feels iterative in Necrot’s catalog thanks to its guitar solos, which have received a bluesy melodic overhaul. These solos are such a marked departure for Necrot that I was legitimately surprised to find that their implementation was not accompanied by a line-up change. What guitarists Luca Indrio and Sonny Reinhardt have crafted here are unquestionably some of my favorite solos in the realm of old school death metal, with the extended dueling harmonies of “Dead Memories” in particular sounding more akin to power metal in their exuberant tone. Moments like these could have shone with radiance were the album’s production similarly ambitious, but Lifeless Birth’s engineering comes across as a fairly standard interpretation of the modern OSDM sound. It’s a good-sounding record, to be sure, but its soundscape feels a bit obvious and lacking in depth.
Perhaps all these new melodic and genre-hopping tricks shouldn’t come as a surprise. Necrot has always bolstered a sort of pop-like accessibility and addictiveness – relative to death metal, that is – and Lifeless Birth’s melodic focus should prove even more appealing to all but the staunchest death metal purists. I only hope that Necrot’s next outing finds them venturing more frequently into uncharted tonal territory. Lykathea Aflame should have been the band that blew the doors off the notion that death metal has to sound deathly serious at all times, but we’re nearly twenty-five years on from Elvenefris, and many of the most popular bands in the genre feel regressive for nostalgia’s sake. With Lifeless Birth, Necrot is showing a willingness to be an exception to this rule with the strongest identity the band has ever had.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tankcrimes Official | Bandcamp
Websites: necrot.bandcamp.com/music | facebook.com/cyclesofpain
Releases Worldwide: April 12th, 2024#2024 #35 #AmericanMetal #AmonAmarth #Apr24 #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #LifelessBirth #LykatheaAflame #Necrot #Review #Reviews #Tankcrimes
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Hand of Kalliach – Corryvreckan Review
By Eldritch Elitist
I loathe the unspoken limitations of genre qualifiers. I am telling you right now that I’m presenting you with a specimen of melodic death/folk metal. As you read that phrase, your brain probably immediately jumped to Ensiferum. I can’t say I blame you, as Ensiferum was one of the first and arguably the best at hybridizing melodeath and folk music. But that same presumption might lead your expectations towards Hand of Kalliach astray. A Scottish husband and wife duo, Hand of Kalliach is self-described as melodic death metal that is interwoven with Celtic and Gaelic folk music and has been making wholly distinct music defying implied genre confines since 2020. Their yet-brief existence has already spawned an independent EP and LP, and now a sophomore full-length under the Prosthetic Records banner. Swift underground successes and unique sonic signifiers are all well and good, but when it comes to Corryvreckan, does innovation translate to a worthwhile listen?
To some of those expecting more traditional melodeath thrills, the answer may well be “no.” Yet as someone who traditionally prefers melodeath when it sticks to the hits, my answer is nonetheless a resounding “fuck yes.” Hand of Kalliach plays what I can best describe as atmospheric melodic death metal—hammer-on licks dance with crunchy, utilitarian death metal riffs amidst backdrops of ethereal vocals, to borderline hypnotic effect. If I allow myself a crumb of reductiveness, this approach sounds like a hybrid of Amon Amarth’s instrumentation and Sojourner’s spellbinding, Summoning-adjacent aesthetic. Hand of Kalliach nailed this approach with 2021’s Samhainn, and Corryvreckan enshrines the formula as well as any sophomore record ever has. Its writing feels tighter, song-to-song quality is more consistent, and in general, it gives me exactly what I wanted coming off of the preceding Samhainn: more.
While Corryvreckan provides exactly what I hoped, I can’t deny its potential for further refinement. This record may excel through consistency, but in retrospect, Samhainn had brighter highlights. That record’s best songs (“Beneath Starlit Waters” and “Each Uisge”) remain Hand of Kalliach’s most ambitious; Corryvreckan’s “Three Seas” and “Of Twilight and the Pyre” aim for similarly lofty heights, but take a bit too long getting to the point. Corryvreckan’s strengths, then, lie in its short-form material. “Deathless” and “The Cauldron” are masterfully condensed attacks at three minutes apiece, with the former’s knuckle-dragging, fighting game-ready riffs making it my favorite cut of the record. If those superficial thrills were spliced with Samhainn’s towering epics, Corryvreckan could have been the superior record. As-is, I find the two records on equal footing, with differing areas of specialization.
Much of what makes Hand of Kalliach so compelling lies in the contrasting vocal talents of Sophie and John Fraser. The former’s airy, Celtic folk-derived melodies imbue the proceedings with a downright mystical quality, while the latter’s full-throated death metal roars add a significant edge to the already substantial core execution. Together, they make one of the best “beauty and beast” vocal duos I’ve heard. While the vocals are typically lauded as one of Hand of Kalliach’s primary strengths, their engineering jobs are more divisive. Though sorely lacking in dynamism, I kinda love the way this record sounds. Its melodies feel grounded in landscapes and myth, and yet the drums and guitars feel unapologetically synthetic, with the latter’s blunt, sawing tones giving the record a nearly industrial metal vibe. This dichotomy of nature and electricity adds yet another intriguing wrinkle to an already fascinating soundscape.
Bands like Hand of Kalliach are vital to the metal ecosystem, those acts that take a somewhat avant-garde approach in style and songcraft while simultaneously delivering traditional immediacy and pure aggression. I have minor nitpicks with their songwriting – primarily, I wish they’d learn how to end songs in ways that don’t involve an abrupt cutoff – but I remain content, yet ever-curious about how the Frasers’ singular project will evolve going forward. Since I first heard Samhainn, I’ve believed that Hand of Kalliach has a masterpiece tucked away within their craft that will inevitably be unlocked by time and resilience. Corryvreckan may not be revelatory, but it is still a vital step in Hand of Kalliach’s creative journey and solidifies them as one of the most exciting metal bands working today.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records | Bandcamp
Websites: handofkalliach.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/handofkalliach | twitter.com/HKalliach
Releases Worldwide: February 23rd, 2024#2024 #35 #AmonAmarth #Corryvreckan #Ensiferum #Feb24 #FolkMetal #HandOfKalliach #MelodicDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #ScottishMetal #Sojourner #Summoning
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Hand of Kalliach – Corryvreckan Review
By Eldritch Elitist
I loathe the unspoken limitations of genre qualifiers. I am telling you right now that I’m presenting you with a specimen of melodic death/folk metal. As you read that phrase, your brain probably immediately jumped to Ensiferum. I can’t say I blame you, as Ensiferum was one of the first and arguably the best at hybridizing melodeath and folk music. But that same presumption might lead your expectations towards Hand of Kalliach astray. A Scottish husband and wife duo, Hand of Kalliach is self-described as melodic death metal that is interwoven with Celtic and Gaelic folk music and has been making wholly distinct music defying implied genre confines since 2020. Their yet-brief existence has already spawned an independent EP and LP, and now a sophomore full-length under the Prosthetic Records banner. Swift underground successes and unique sonic signifiers are all well and good, but when it comes to Corryvreckan, does innovation translate to a worthwhile listen?
To some of those expecting more traditional melodeath thrills, the answer may well be “no.” Yet as someone who traditionally prefers melodeath when it sticks to the hits, my answer is nonetheless a resounding “fuck yes.” Hand of Kalliach plays what I can best describe as atmospheric melodic death metal—hammer-on licks dance with crunchy, utilitarian death metal riffs amidst backdrops of ethereal vocals, to borderline hypnotic effect. If I allow myself a crumb of reductiveness, this approach sounds like a hybrid of Amon Amarth’s instrumentation and Sojourner’s spellbinding, Summoning-adjacent aesthetic. Hand of Kalliach nailed this approach with 2021’s Samhainn, and Corryvreckan enshrines the formula as well as any sophomore record ever has. Its writing feels tighter, song-to-song quality is more consistent, and in general, it gives me exactly what I wanted coming off of the preceding Samhainn: more.
While Corryvreckan provides exactly what I hoped, I can’t deny its potential for further refinement. This record may excel through consistency, but in retrospect, Samhainn had brighter highlights. That record’s best songs (“Beneath Starlit Waters” and “Each Uisge”) remain Hand of Kalliach’s most ambitious; Corryvreckan’s “Three Seas” and “Of Twilight and the Pyre” aim for similarly lofty heights, but take a bit too long getting to the point. Corryvreckan’s strengths, then, lie in its short-form material. “Deathless” and “The Cauldron” are masterfully condensed attacks at three minutes apiece, with the former’s knuckle-dragging, fighting game-ready riffs making it my favorite cut of the record. If those superficial thrills were spliced with Samhainn’s towering epics, Corryvreckan could have been the superior record. As-is, I find the two records on equal footing, with differing areas of specialization.
Much of what makes Hand of Kalliach so compelling lies in the contrasting vocal talents of Sophie and John Fraser. The former’s airy, Celtic folk-derived melodies imbue the proceedings with a downright mystical quality, while the latter’s full-throated death metal roars add a significant edge to the already substantial core execution. Together, they make one of the best “beauty and beast” vocal duos I’ve heard. While the vocals are typically lauded as one of Hand of Kalliach’s primary strengths, their engineering jobs are more divisive. Though sorely lacking in dynamism, I kinda love the way this record sounds. Its melodies feel grounded in landscapes and myth, and yet the drums and guitars feel unapologetically synthetic, with the latter’s blunt, sawing tones giving the record a nearly industrial metal vibe. This dichotomy of nature and electricity adds yet another intriguing wrinkle to an already fascinating soundscape.
Bands like Hand of Kalliach are vital to the metal ecosystem, those acts that take a somewhat avant-garde approach in style and songcraft while simultaneously delivering traditional immediacy and pure aggression. I have minor nitpicks with their songwriting – primarily, I wish they’d learn how to end songs in ways that don’t involve an abrupt cutoff – but I remain content, yet ever-curious about how the Frasers’ singular project will evolve going forward. Since I first heard Samhainn, I’ve believed that Hand of Kalliach has a masterpiece tucked away within their craft that will inevitably be unlocked by time and resilience. Corryvreckan may not be revelatory, but it is still a vital step in Hand of Kalliach’s creative journey and solidifies them as one of the most exciting metal bands working today.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records | Bandcamp
Websites: handofkalliach.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/handofkalliach | twitter.com/HKalliach
Releases Worldwide: February 23rd, 2024#2024 #35 #AmonAmarth #Corryvreckan #Ensiferum #Feb24 #FolkMetal #HandOfKalliach #MelodicDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #ScottishMetal #Sojourner #Summoning
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Full Assault – Dying World Review
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Though Germany’s Full Assault has been around for over fifteen years, I’ve never heard of them. I was even surprised they’ve never been reviewed before in these halls. But that might be the lack of a label—until now. Their Iron Shields debut, Dying World, arrives with neothrash tendencies that combine a Crisix-like vocal approach with At the Gates thrashery. Standing as their third full-length release, Dying World comes seven years after their last (and undoubtedly best) album, War Blooded. Though their debut record, Forgotten Blood Tales, had some highlights, its successor is far superior in every way. While you won’t find anything new that hasn’t been done before, this three-piece outfit was firing on all cylinders when they recorded that album. They even evolved their sound from unhinged bruisers, like “Unleashed Warbeast,” to Amon Amarthy melodic numbers, like “City of No Hope.” And now the band pushes farther into those melodic influences with this new record.
How far they go and how far it’ll take them probably depends on the listener. Fans of the band will find some differences between Dying World and their last album. While War Blooded had inklings of that melodeath sound, this new record goes all in. While still invoking the spirit of old-school At the Gates, the band even adds some of the melodies of Kreator to the mix. The result is a combination of overly technical thrash licks and dramatic choruses. At times, the band even extends their song lengths beyond what’s typical for them to capture (if anything) the grandioseness of their melodic builds. Other times, it feels like they aren’t quite up to the challenge, slowing songs down that would otherwise be shredders. It’s an odd conglomeration that will either be adored by their fanbase or left by the wayside.
“Edge of a Collapse” is one of the better tracks on the album, tearing its way through a killer riff while borrowing its melodic qualities from the likes of Trivium and Kreator. The fitting solo at the halfway point does wonders for the song, enhancing the emotion as it soars to its conclusion. Its only real flaw is that it overstays its welcome just a little bit. “All Hope Is Gone” is another that shares some similarities to Kreator, particularly in its mighty chorus. It has great energy, and even when it stops to let the drums set up the next phase of the song, the harmonizing guitar leads and soaring solo bring it back into action.
The opener, “Final Dawn of Light,” is one of those songs that struggles to keep pace. After the almost Viking-like introduction, the intricate riffage fights and struggles to get rolling. More than on previous albums, the vocals have a sharper, Crisix-like edge that swings from one ear to the other during the chorus. And, like most of the songs on the album, there’s a dramatic turn after the midpoint, chugging its way back to life until it closes with the chorus. “Signs of the End” also struggles to keep pace. While the melodic riffage is beefy and the guitars alternate between ripping thrash licks and old-school Metallica sustains, the drums do very little to add to the charge. Well, other than just being there as a really loud metronome.
While there’s some great stuff on Dying World, and impressive guitar work, the album drags on too long. This is not helped by songs like “Planet Grave” and “Piece of Cloth.” While the fretwork in the first is badass, it transitions to a pointless bass lead and these annoying fade-ins and fade-outs before finally ending a minute too late. “Piece of Cloth,” on the other hand, never gets going in the first place. Instead, it drawls on and on, ending the album on a low point. Though Dying World isn’t a disappointment in Full Assault standards, it’s not at the same level of hookiness as its predecessor. That said, if you like the namedrops in this review, there’s potential you might enjoy Dying World. For me, I’ll stick with the slick and snappy War Blooded.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Iron Shield Records
Websites: fullassault.bandcamp.com1 | facebook.com/fullassaultofficial
Releases Worldwide: February 9th, 2024#25 #2024 #AmonAmarth #AtTheGates #Crisix #DyingWorld #Feb24 #FullAssault #GermanMetal #IronShieldRecords #Kreator #Metallica #Review #Reviews #ThrashMetal #Trivium #Warbringer
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Full Assault – Dying World Review
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Though Germany’s Full Assault has been around for over fifteen years, I’ve never heard of them. I was even surprised they’ve never been reviewed before in these halls. But that might be the lack of a label—until now. Their Iron Shields debut, Dying World, arrives with neothrash tendencies that combine a Crisix-like vocal approach with At the Gates thrashery. Standing as their third full-length release, Dying World comes seven years after their last (and undoubtedly best) album, War Blooded. Though their debut record, Forgotten Blood Tales, had some highlights, its successor is far superior in every way. While you won’t find anything new that hasn’t been done before, this three-piece outfit was firing on all cylinders when they recorded that album. They even evolved their sound from unhinged bruisers, like “Unleashed Warbeast,” to Amon Amarthy melodic numbers, like “City of No Hope.” And now the band pushes farther into those melodic influences with this new record.
How far they go and how far it’ll take them probably depends on the listener. Fans of the band will find some differences between Dying World and their last album. While War Blooded had inklings of that melodeath sound, this new record goes all in. While still invoking the spirit of old-school At the Gates, the band even adds some of the melodies of Kreator to the mix. The result is a combination of overly technical thrash licks and dramatic choruses. At times, the band even extends their song lengths beyond what’s typical for them to capture (if anything) the grandioseness of their melodic builds. Other times, it feels like they aren’t quite up to the challenge, slowing songs down that would otherwise be shredders. It’s an odd conglomeration that will either be adored by their fanbase or left by the wayside.
“Edge of a Collapse” is one of the better tracks on the album, tearing its way through a killer riff while borrowing its melodic qualities from the likes of Trivium and Kreator. The fitting solo at the halfway point does wonders for the song, enhancing the emotion as it soars to its conclusion. Its only real flaw is that it overstays its welcome just a little bit. “All Hope Is Gone” is another that shares some similarities to Kreator, particularly in its mighty chorus. It has great energy, and even when it stops to let the drums set up the next phase of the song, the harmonizing guitar leads and soaring solo bring it back into action.
The opener, “Final Dawn of Light,” is one of those songs that struggles to keep pace. After the almost Viking-like introduction, the intricate riffage fights and struggles to get rolling. More than on previous albums, the vocals have a sharper, Crisix-like edge that swings from one ear to the other during the chorus. And, like most of the songs on the album, there’s a dramatic turn after the midpoint, chugging its way back to life until it closes with the chorus. “Signs of the End” also struggles to keep pace. While the melodic riffage is beefy and the guitars alternate between ripping thrash licks and old-school Metallica sustains, the drums do very little to add to the charge. Well, other than just being there as a really loud metronome.
While there’s some great stuff on Dying World, and impressive guitar work, the album drags on too long. This is not helped by songs like “Planet Grave” and “Piece of Cloth.” While the fretwork in the first is badass, it transitions to a pointless bass lead and these annoying fade-ins and fade-outs before finally ending a minute too late. “Piece of Cloth,” on the other hand, never gets going in the first place. Instead, it drawls on and on, ending the album on a low point. Though Dying World isn’t a disappointment in Full Assault standards, it’s not at the same level of hookiness as its predecessor. That said, if you like the namedrops in this review, there’s potential you might enjoy Dying World. For me, I’ll stick with the slick and snappy War Blooded.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Iron Shield Records
Websites: fullassault.bandcamp.com1 | facebook.com/fullassaultofficial
Releases Worldwide: February 9th, 2024#25 #2024 #AmonAmarth #AtTheGates #Crisix #DyingWorld #Feb24 #FullAssault #GermanMetal #IronShieldRecords #Kreator #Metallica #Review #Reviews #ThrashMetal #Trivium #Warbringer
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Blood Red Throne – Nonagon Review
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Three years ago, Blood Red Throne released a behemoth in the form of Imperial Congregation. After dozens of listens, it proves it’s one of the band’s greatest achievements. Fast forward to 2024, and they’re back with their eleventh LP, Nonagon. Continuing where they left off, Nonagon is a destructive motherfucker that incorporates the butchery of Panzerchrist, the relentless riffage of Old Man’s Child, and the melodic subtleties of Hypocrisy. But, no matter what’s sprinkled throughout, Nonagon remains 100% BRT. However, the thing most different about this new album is the vocalist. After contributing to four full-lengths, Yngve “Bolt” Christiansen is out, and in his place is Deception’s Sindre Wathne Johnsen. The result is more vocal diversity as Johnsen likes to flex those blackened rasps. But those concrete-cracking barks and gutturals Bolt is famous for remain—continuing to add a sinister color to BRT’s output. With a new singer in tow, can BRT continue the streak set by Fit to Kill and Imperial Congregation? Or are the treads beginning to come off the tracks?
As the name might suggest, Nonagon consists of nine songs of Norwegian death metal. What might not be apparent is that each track represents a level of hell from Dante’s Inferno. But this theme only translates in the music and album structure. According to founding member Død, the vocals are very much the band’s, leaving you to interpret the meaning behind them. With this knowledge, I venture into the underworld with Virgil leading the way as the devastation increases at each level until I arrive at Cocytus. Or so I hope, as this is quite the theme to encapsulate a death metal album. And for it to fall flat on its face would be the worst thing possible. Well, minus that whole sliding down Lucifer only to stop and peer at his massive dick and balls.
But instead of easing into the first layer, Nonagon gets going in a hurry. “Epitaph Inscribed” is one of the better songs on the album, beginning with an eerie introduction that erupts into a rasping scream and killer riff. While nothing new to the band, the overlapping rasps and barks are far more advanced than previous releases. These add another layer to the barrage delivered by the combined efforts of bass, drums, and guitars. Others that hit the mark in wildly different ways are “Tempest Sculptor” and the title track. “Tempest Sculptor” is a classic BRT piece with machine gun tremolos that settle into a tasty, headbangable groove. While there’s variety in the riff changes and a melodic interlude, this beast is a constant driver that never lets up. My favorite moment is when the bass comes to the surface and sets the song up for its next bludgeoning. “Nonagon” is a slow-paced cruiser with some interesting moments that remind me of At the Gates while others recall Amon Amarth. It’s a straightforward piece that keeps to its guns and delivers a pleasing and addictive performance.
Unfortunately, there are a few areas on Nonagon that I struggle with. The first is the nearly seven-minute closer, “Fleshrend.” While there’s absolutely no shortage of riffs, that’s part of the problem. The track is an endless slew of riff changes. And when it feels like it’s about to build to its climax, it changes directions again. After all the insanity and wild guitar skills, it concludes without delivering the uppercut I was hoping for. In contrast, “Blade Eulogy” takes all its various riff changes and, somehow, makes it work by melding them neatly into a memorable and returnable song. As for “Split Tongue Sermon,” its more-than-capable addition to Nonagon is flatlined by a dreadful electronic solo and spoken-word segment toward the end.
Nonagon is still a strong album and in no way a bad record. It’s just not at the same level as Imperial Congregation. Typically, a killer BRT album grabs me on the first listen, but Nonagon took a while to absorb. Much of that is due to the urge to shove every goddamn riff available into these nine tracks. As I mentioned, a few of these songs could have been better with a little more restraint and a bit more memorability. The other is that, while many of the top songs are belligerently badass, few meet the standards set by songs like Imperial Congregation’s “Itika” and “Consumed Illusion.” That said, Nonagon isn’t a misstep in the band’s catalog. It’s just different, as the focus is on a concept that requires flow and overlap between songs instead of a face-punching display of unchecked wiolence. All this to say, there’s no reason why fans won’t enjoy this new record. It just falls a tad short of the monster that is Imperial Congregation but it still finds the band crushing their performances with a solid mix to boot.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Soulseller Records | Bandcamp1
Websites: bloodredthrone.bandcamp.com2 | bloodredthrone.com | facebook.com/bloodredthroneofficial
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024#2024 #30 #AmonAmarth #AtTheGates #BloodRedThrone #DeathMetal #Deception #Hypocrisy #Jan24 #Nonagon #NorwegianMetal #OldManSChild #Panzerchrist #Review #Reviews #SoulsellerRecords
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Blood Red Throne – Nonagon Review
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Three years ago, Blood Red Throne released a behemoth in the form of Imperial Congregation. After dozens of listens, it proves it’s one of the band’s greatest achievements. Fast forward to 2024, and they’re back with their eleventh LP, Nonagon. Continuing where they left off, Nonagon is a destructive motherfucker that incorporates the butchery of Panzerchrist, the relentless riffage of Old Man’s Child, and the melodic subtleties of Hypocrisy. But, no matter what’s sprinkled throughout, Nonagon remains 100% BRT. However, the thing most different about this new album is the vocalist. After contributing to four full-lengths, Yngve “Bolt” Christiansen is out, and in his place is Deception’s Sindre Wathne Johnsen. The result is more vocal diversity as Johnsen likes to flex those blackened rasps. But those concrete-cracking barks and gutturals Bolt is famous for remain—continuing to add a sinister color to BRT’s output. With a new singer in tow, can BRT continue the streak set by Fit to Kill and Imperial Congregation? Or are the treads beginning to come off the tracks?
As the name might suggest, Nonagon consists of nine songs of Norwegian death metal. What might not be apparent is that each track represents a level of hell from Dante’s Inferno. But this theme only translates in the music and album structure. According to founding member Død, the vocals are very much the band’s, leaving you to interpret the meaning behind them. With this knowledge, I venture into the underworld with Virgil leading the way as the devastation increases at each level until I arrive at Cocytus. Or so I hope, as this is quite the theme to encapsulate a death metal album. And for it to fall flat on its face would be the worst thing possible. Well, minus that whole sliding down Lucifer only to stop and peer at his massive dick and balls.
But instead of easing into the first layer, Nonagon gets going in a hurry. “Epitaph Inscribed” is one of the better songs on the album, beginning with an eerie introduction that erupts into a rasping scream and killer riff. While nothing new to the band, the overlapping rasps and barks are far more advanced than previous releases. These add another layer to the barrage delivered by the combined efforts of bass, drums, and guitars. Others that hit the mark in wildly different ways are “Tempest Sculptor” and the title track. “Tempest Sculptor” is a classic BRT piece with machine gun tremolos that settle into a tasty, headbangable groove. While there’s variety in the riff changes and a melodic interlude, this beast is a constant driver that never lets up. My favorite moment is when the bass comes to the surface and sets the song up for its next bludgeoning. “Nonagon” is a slow-paced cruiser with some interesting moments that remind me of At the Gates while others recall Amon Amarth. It’s a straightforward piece that keeps to its guns and delivers a pleasing and addictive performance.
Unfortunately, there are a few areas on Nonagon that I struggle with. The first is the nearly seven-minute closer, “Fleshrend.” While there’s absolutely no shortage of riffs, that’s part of the problem. The track is an endless slew of riff changes. And when it feels like it’s about to build to its climax, it changes directions again. After all the insanity and wild guitar skills, it concludes without delivering the uppercut I was hoping for. In contrast, “Blade Eulogy” takes all its various riff changes and, somehow, makes it work by melding them neatly into a memorable and returnable song. As for “Split Tongue Sermon,” its more-than-capable addition to Nonagon is flatlined by a dreadful electronic solo and spoken-word segment toward the end.
Nonagon is still a strong album and in no way a bad record. It’s just not at the same level as Imperial Congregation. Typically, a killer BRT album grabs me on the first listen, but Nonagon took a while to absorb. Much of that is due to the urge to shove every goddamn riff available into these nine tracks. As I mentioned, a few of these songs could have been better with a little more restraint and a bit more memorability. The other is that, while many of the top songs are belligerently badass, few meet the standards set by songs like Imperial Congregation’s “Itika” and “Consumed Illusion.” That said, Nonagon isn’t a misstep in the band’s catalog. It’s just different, as the focus is on a concept that requires flow and overlap between songs instead of a face-punching display of unchecked wiolence. All this to say, there’s no reason why fans won’t enjoy this new record. It just falls a tad short of the monster that is Imperial Congregation but it still finds the band crushing their performances with a solid mix to boot.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Soulseller Records | Bandcamp1
Websites: bloodredthrone.bandcamp.com2 | bloodredthrone.com | facebook.com/bloodredthroneofficial
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024#2024 #30 #AmonAmarth #AtTheGates #BloodRedThrone #DeathMetal #Deception #Hypocrisy #Jan24 #Nonagon #NorwegianMetal #OldManSChild #Panzerchrist #Review #Reviews #SoulsellerRecords
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By Mystikus Hugebeard
Wardruna’s impact on the Nordic music sphere is difficult to exaggerate. The explosion in popularity of dark Nordic folk across the last decade can be heavily attributed to Wardruna’s music and their involvement with History Channel’s Vikings, and to this day they are Exhibit A of the genre. While the music may sound rooted in a specific culture and historical period, it has still resonated so deeply with people the world over regardless of ethnicity or nationality, myself included. My discovery of Wardruna as a young man had a profound impact on the development of my musical literacy, and they’ve since remained a critical part of my vocabulary. As such, for myself and for the world, the release of Wardruna’s newest album Birna carries some serious anticipation. So, how is it?
In all the right ways, Birna offers the same Viking-era folk music that Wardruna has provided since the beginning. Sawing taglharpas, the wistful yet powerful notes of a kraviklyra, the call of bukkehorns, and the deep reverberations of deer-hide drums; the full ensemble of Wardruna’s traditional, hand-crafted instruments lends an absorbing authenticity to their sound which is further brought to life by a sublime mix, done by composer Einar Selvik himself. As always, Selvik and co-founder Lindy-Fay Hella are a strong vocal duo; Selvik’s iconic voice is ever the focus, though Hella has what feels like a notably more active role in Birna than in previous albums. Birna is also a solid entry point for any readers discovering Wardruna for the first time, as the music encompasses all the stages of Wardruna’s sound. The vocal melodies and dark, brooding drone of “Tretale” hark back to the mysticism of Gap var Ginnunga and Yggdrasil, the dramatic horn blasts in “Birna” call to mind the finality of Ragnarok, and the skaldic beauty of Selvik and his lyre in “Hibjørnen” continues the pattern begun in Kvitravn and, more pertinently, Skald.
But Birna is more than a chronology of Wardruna’s evolution. Conceptually, Birna is a response to the upheaval suffered by bears in nature (Birna means “she-bear”), musically harnessing the bear’s natural strength and signaling a hopeful end to their forced hibernation through a motif of spring. The music of Birna radiates with intent, carefully constructing this idea across every element. It can be as small as warm, dancing flutes and Hella’s vocal melodies (“Ljos til Jord,” “Himinndotter”), or even just the chirping of birds (“Dvaledraumar,” “Jord til Ljos”), gently exuding a quiet optimism. Or it’s the awesome, primal majesty of the bear, viscerally felt through resounding horns, beating drums, or Selvik’s fervent vocals (“Hertan,” “Birna,” “Himinndotter,” “Skuggehesten”). I would describe it as a change in color; the dark, earthy green and brown of Wardruna’s music has begun to incorporate vibrant shades of orange and yellow. It’s a compelling shift in tone from Wardruna’s darker vibes of the past, and it works beautifully through the sincerity with which it’s performed and the rich texture of traditional instruments and natural sounds that has always characterized Wardruna.
If there were aught I might criticize about Birna, it would be how “Hibjørnen” fits into Birna’s pacing. After the low-energy—but no less beautiful—”Dvaledraumar” and “Jord til Ljos,” the frenetic beat of “Himinndotter” rebuilds a momentum that’s poised to continue at the song’s conclusion, but is instead interrupted by the skaldic pace of “Hibjørnen.” While I wish it was placed but one or two songs later, it’s nevertheless a beautiful song, and this most minor of gripes only arises due to how well the diversity of Birna’s music is paced in all other regards. Birna starts strong with the poignant, absorbing “Hertan,” which flows directly into the equally powerful “Birna.” The heavily ambient “Dvaledraumar” was a nice surprise that, at 16 minutes long, could have derailed Birna’s pace but fits snugly as the fourth song, and is a captivating crawl through a tar-thick, dream-like ambiance that transitions perfectly into “Jord til Ljos.” Finally, Birna wraps up its themes with “Lyfjaberg” (old Norse for “healing mountain”), Wardruna’s best song since “Helvegen.” It’s a gradual, gripping crescendo of impassioned chanting and singing; a vital plea, commanding in its urgency, reminding us of the respect and reverence nature needs, and deserves, from us.
Within the thriving Nordic folk ecosystem, Birna is clear evidence that Wardruna remains within a league of their own, a powerful reminder of the sway Wardruna holds within people’s hearts. In Selvik’s own words, Wardruna serves as a bridge between people and the natural world. The sounds of nature, the effortless melodies played by instruments that carry the weight of history, the electrifying voices of Selvik and Hella; together, they grow into an irresistible heartbeat, one that you realize was in you from the beginning. Do not miss Birna.
Rating: Excellent
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps
Label: By Norse / Sony Music
Websites: warduna.com | facebook.com/wardruna
Releases Worldwide: January 24th, 2025Dr. A.N. Grier
Wardruna is probably best known for contributing to the highly acclaimed Vikings television show. And why not? Wardruna is about as authentic as you can get. Technically a duo, Lindy-Fay Hella and Einar Selvik have been using traditional Norwegian instruments and guest contributors to carry us through majestic fjords and Viking war paths for nearly fifteen years. Luckily for me, I knew and enjoyed Wardruna well before I saw Gustaf Skarsgård’s sexy ass. Though the band has many o’ great albums, 2018’s Skald proved to be one of my favorite albums that year. Unfortunately, we’ve never received promos from the band, so I couldn’t spread my loving praise on an AMG page. Until now.1 While I could have lived without Mystikus Fuckbeard asking (for months) if we’ve received the promo, I’m glad we got Birna, and that I got to piggyback review with him. While I might be late as fuck on this review, Birna does not disappoint. But, in all honesty, they never did.
With all the different variations of folk metal, Wardruna is the most straightforward of the bunch. Not that their compositions are simple. Not by any means. But, if you’re expecting the headbanging Viking anthems of Amon Amarth or the Valkyrie-screaming passages of Bathory, stop now and readjust yourself. Wardruna is anything but that. Instead, their music invokes the ancient times of Viking culture when men were men and women were women. Or something like that. Incorporating beautiful male/female vocal duets, traditional chanting choruses, and massive atmospheres with instruments sourced from animal parts, listening to Wardruna is like sitting around a fire, drinking mead after annihilating an entire village of lowly peasants.2 With Birna, Warduna is, yet again, in top form.
If you’ve heard the band, you know that drums are the foundation of any Wardruna song. The opening track, “Hertan,” kicks things off with a soft heartbeat that reverberates through your chest before the male vocals appear, mimicking the rhythmic beat. As the intensity increases, the chants and distant choirs elevate the track. On the back half, it snaps the trance as the two vocalists duet their way into the snowy clouds. The title track follows the opener and delivers those tasty movie soundtrack elements. Beginning with a soft beat and female vox, the beautiful lyre arrives before the eruption of instrumentation, choirs, and booming male leads. Rising and falling throughout its seven-minute runtime, “Birna” is one of those Wardruna songs that explores every facet of the band’s skills, building layer on layer until the bitter end.
Yet, the most epic of the bunch is the nearly seventeen-minute “Dvaledraumar.” Using the sounds of nature as its core, each flute, horn, and percussion instrument sings as if a lone member is standing atop the highest hill of a lush prairie playing their hearts out at dawn. Each build begins with gentle pluckings as new layers are added, intensifying the varying moods of the song. “Dvaledraumar” traverses moods of complete relaxation, damning sinisterness, and other emotions that took my simple mind on a rollercoaster ride. But, probably the coolest combination of moods is “Himinndotter.” After the male leads hijack the female ones, this song transitions to the closest thing to a chorus on Birna. Which is fucking gorgeous. Then, the track drops into a low, dark place controlled by graveling vocals and simple, yet angry-sounding drums. But that chorus returns, ripping you from the thorns and placing you in the halls of Valhalla. But the best song on the record is the closer, “Lyfjaberg.” I can’t tell you exactly why this track hits me so hard but it’s damn near perfect. Clocking in at over nine minutes, it controls itself while introducing new builds, leads, and a passion that closes the album perfectly.
Though one would argue that “Lyfjaberg” might have been a last-minute inclusion, as it has existed since 2020, it’s perfect for Birna. So, I don’t fucking care. Perhaps the least enthusiastic songs are “Ljos til Jord” and “Hibjørnen,” but they aren’t so bad that they corrupt the flow. The first is odd coming off the mighty title track, while the latter is overly simplistic—even if it still delivers a fitting tone. The dynamics are interesting because they seem deliberate. Averaging at a DR8, they range from the “heavier” DR6 tracks to the breathable DR13 tracks. Having a bit of oomph for those moments where more intensity is needed and allowing the softer moments to open up is a rather clever approach. Once again, Wardruna does not disappoint, dropping another album that continues to portray the culture of olde, while producing gorgeous tracks and a satisfying flow.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
#2025 #40 #45 #AmonAmarth #Bathory #Birna #ByNorseMusic #FolkMetal #Jan25 #Norway #NorwegianMetal #NotMetal #SonyMusic #VikingFolk #Wardruna
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By Mystikus Hugebeard
Wardruna’s impact on the Nordic music sphere is difficult to exaggerate. The explosion in popularity of dark Nordic folk across the last decade can be heavily attributed to Wardruna’s music and their involvement with History Channel’s Vikings, and to this day they are Exhibit A of the genre. While the music may sound rooted in a specific culture and historical period, it has still resonated so deeply with people the world over regardless of ethnicity or nationality, myself included. My discovery of Wardruna as a young man had a profound impact on the development of my musical literacy, and they’ve since remained a critical part of my vocabulary. As such, for myself and for the world, the release of Wardruna’s newest album Birna carries some serious anticipation. So, how is it?
In all the right ways, Birna offers the same Viking-era folk music that Wardruna has provided since the beginning. Sawing taglharpas, the wistful yet powerful notes of a kraviklyra, the call of bukkehorns, and the deep reverberations of deer-hide drums; the full ensemble of Wardruna’s traditional, hand-crafted instruments lends an absorbing authenticity to their sound which is further brought to life by a sublime mix, done by composer Einar Selvik himself. As always, Selvik and co-founder Lindy-Fay Hella are a strong vocal duo; Selvik’s iconic voice is ever the focus, though Hella has what feels like a notably more active role in Birna than in previous albums. Birna is also a solid entry point for any readers discovering Wardruna for the first time, as the music encompasses all the stages of Wardruna’s sound. The vocal melodies and dark, brooding drone of “Tretale” hark back to the mysticism of Gap var Ginnunga and Yggdrasil, the dramatic horn blasts in “Birna” call to mind the finality of Ragnarok, and the skaldic beauty of Selvik and his lyre in “Hibjørnen” continues the pattern begun in Kvitravn and, more pertinently, Skald.
But Birna is more than a chronology of Wardruna’s evolution. Conceptually, Birna is a response to the upheaval suffered by bears in nature (Birna means “she-bear”), musically harnessing the bear’s natural strength and signaling a hopeful end to their forced hibernation through a motif of spring. The music of Birna radiates with intent, carefully constructing this idea across every element. It can be as small as warm, dancing flutes and Hella’s vocal melodies (“Ljos til Jord,” “Himinndotter”), or even just the chirping of birds (“Dvaledraumar,” “Jord til Ljos”), gently exuding a quiet optimism. Or it’s the awesome, primal majesty of the bear, viscerally felt through resounding horns, beating drums, or Selvik’s fervent vocals (“Hertan,” “Birna,” “Himinndotter,” “Skuggehesten”). I would describe it as a change in color; the dark, earthy green and brown of Wardruna’s music has begun to incorporate vibrant shades of orange and yellow. It’s a compelling shift in tone from Wardruna’s darker vibes of the past, and it works beautifully through the sincerity with which it’s performed and the rich texture of traditional instruments and natural sounds that has always characterized Wardruna.
If there were aught I might criticize about Birna, it would be how “Hibjørnen” fits into Birna’s pacing. After the low-energy—but no less beautiful—”Dvaledraumar” and “Jord til Ljos,” the frenetic beat of “Himinndotter” rebuilds a momentum that’s poised to continue at the song’s conclusion, but is instead interrupted by the skaldic pace of “Hibjørnen.” While I wish it was placed but one or two songs later, it’s nevertheless a beautiful song, and this most minor of gripes only arises due to how well the diversity of Birna’s music is paced in all other regards. Birna starts strong with the poignant, absorbing “Hertan,” which flows directly into the equally powerful “Birna.” The heavily ambient “Dvaledraumar” was a nice surprise that, at 16 minutes long, could have derailed Birna’s pace but fits snugly as the fourth song, and is a captivating crawl through a tar-thick, dream-like ambiance that transitions perfectly into “Jord til Ljos.” Finally, Birna wraps up its themes with “Lyfjaberg” (old Norse for “healing mountain”), Wardruna’s best song since “Helvegen.” It’s a gradual, gripping crescendo of impassioned chanting and singing; a vital plea, commanding in its urgency, reminding us of the respect and reverence nature needs, and deserves, from us.
Within the thriving Nordic folk ecosystem, Birna is clear evidence that Wardruna remains within a league of their own, a powerful reminder of the sway Wardruna holds within people’s hearts. In Selvik’s own words, Wardruna serves as a bridge between people and the natural world. The sounds of nature, the effortless melodies played by instruments that carry the weight of history, the electrifying voices of Selvik and Hella; together, they grow into an irresistible heartbeat, one that you realize was in you from the beginning. Do not miss Birna.
Rating: Excellent
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps
Label: By Norse / Sony Music
Websites: warduna.com | facebook.com/wardruna
Releases Worldwide: January 24th, 2025Dr. A.N. Grier
Wardruna is probably best known for contributing to the highly acclaimed Vikings television show. And why not? Wardruna is about as authentic as you can get. Technically a duo, Lindy-Fay Hella and Einar Selvik have been using traditional Norwegian instruments and guest contributors to carry us through majestic fjords and Viking war paths for nearly fifteen years. Luckily for me, I knew and enjoyed Wardruna well before I saw Gustaf Skarsgård’s sexy ass. Though the band has many o’ great albums, 2018’s Skald proved to be one of my favorite albums that year. Unfortunately, we’ve never received promos from the band, so I couldn’t spread my loving praise on an AMG page. Until now.1 While I could have lived without Mystikus Fuckbeard asking (for months) if we’ve received the promo, I’m glad we got Birna, and that I got to piggyback review with him. While I might be late as fuck on this review, Birna does not disappoint. But, in all honesty, they never did.
With all the different variations of folk metal, Wardruna is the most straightforward of the bunch. Not that their compositions are simple. Not by any means. But, if you’re expecting the headbanging Viking anthems of Amon Amarth or the Valkyrie-screaming passages of Bathory, stop now and readjust yourself. Wardruna is anything but that. Instead, their music invokes the ancient times of Viking culture when men were men and women were women. Or something like that. Incorporating beautiful male/female vocal duets, traditional chanting choruses, and massive atmospheres with instruments sourced from animal parts, listening to Wardruna is like sitting around a fire, drinking mead after annihilating an entire village of lowly peasants.2 With Birna, Warduna is, yet again, in top form.
If you’ve heard the band, you know that drums are the foundation of any Wardruna song. The opening track, “Hertan,” kicks things off with a soft heartbeat that reverberates through your chest before the male vocals appear, mimicking the rhythmic beat. As the intensity increases, the chants and distant choirs elevate the track. On the back half, it snaps the trance as the two vocalists duet their way into the snowy clouds. The title track follows the opener and delivers those tasty movie soundtrack elements. Beginning with a soft beat and female vox, the beautiful lyre arrives before the eruption of instrumentation, choirs, and booming male leads. Rising and falling throughout its seven-minute runtime, “Birna” is one of those Wardruna songs that explores every facet of the band’s skills, building layer on layer until the bitter end.
Yet, the most epic of the bunch is the nearly seventeen-minute “Dvaledraumar.” Using the sounds of nature as its core, each flute, horn, and percussion instrument sings as if a lone member is standing atop the highest hill of a lush prairie playing their hearts out at dawn. Each build begins with gentle pluckings as new layers are added, intensifying the varying moods of the song. “Dvaledraumar” traverses moods of complete relaxation, damning sinisterness, and other emotions that took my simple mind on a rollercoaster ride. But, probably the coolest combination of moods is “Himinndotter.” After the male leads hijack the female ones, this song transitions to the closest thing to a chorus on Birna. Which is fucking gorgeous. Then, the track drops into a low, dark place controlled by graveling vocals and simple, yet angry-sounding drums. But that chorus returns, ripping you from the thorns and placing you in the halls of Valhalla. But the best song on the record is the closer, “Lyfjaberg.” I can’t tell you exactly why this track hits me so hard but it’s damn near perfect. Clocking in at over nine minutes, it controls itself while introducing new builds, leads, and a passion that closes the album perfectly.
Though one would argue that “Lyfjaberg” might have been a last-minute inclusion, as it has existed since 2020, it’s perfect for Birna. So, I don’t fucking care. Perhaps the least enthusiastic songs are “Ljos til Jord” and “Hibjørnen,” but they aren’t so bad that they corrupt the flow. The first is odd coming off the mighty title track, while the latter is overly simplistic—even if it still delivers a fitting tone. The dynamics are interesting because they seem deliberate. Averaging at a DR8, they range from the “heavier” DR6 tracks to the breathable DR13 tracks. Having a bit of oomph for those moments where more intensity is needed and allowing the softer moments to open up is a rather clever approach. Once again, Wardruna does not disappoint, dropping another album that continues to portray the culture of olde, while producing gorgeous tracks and a satisfying flow.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
#2025 #40 #45 #AmonAmarth #Bathory #Birna #ByNorseMusic #FolkMetal #Jan25 #Norway #NorwegianMetal #NotMetal #SonyMusic #VikingFolk #Wardruna
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By Mystikus Hugebeard
Wardruna’s impact on the Nordic music sphere is difficult to exaggerate. The explosion in popularity of dark Nordic folk across the last decade can be heavily attributed to Wardruna’s music and their involvement with History Channel’s Vikings, and to this day they are Exhibit A of the genre. While the music may sound rooted in a specific culture and historical period, it has still resonated so deeply with people the world over regardless of ethnicity or nationality, myself included. My discovery of Wardruna as a young man had a profound impact on the development of my musical literacy, and they’ve since remained a critical part of my vocabulary. As such, for myself and for the world, the release of Wardruna’s newest album Birna carries some serious anticipation. So, how is it?
In all the right ways, Birna offers the same Viking-era folk music that Wardruna has provided since the beginning. Sawing taglharpas, the wistful yet powerful notes of a kraviklyra, the call of bukkehorns, and the deep reverberations of deer-hide drums; the full ensemble of Wardruna’s traditional, hand-crafted instruments lends an absorbing authenticity to their sound which is further brought to life by a sublime mix, done by composer Einar Selvik himself. As always, Selvik and co-founder Lindy-Fay Hella are a strong vocal duo; Selvik’s iconic voice is ever the focus, though Hella has what feels like a notably more active role in Birna than in previous albums. Birna is also a solid entry point for any readers discovering Wardruna for the first time, as the music encompasses all the stages of Wardruna’s sound. The vocal melodies and dark, brooding drone of “Tretale” hark back to the mysticism of Gap var Ginnunga and Yggdrasil, the dramatic horn blasts in “Birna” call to mind the finality of Ragnarok, and the skaldic beauty of Selvik and his lyre in “Hibjørnen” continues the pattern begun in Kvitravn and, more pertinently, Skald.
But Birna is more than a chronology of Wardruna’s evolution. Conceptually, Birna is a response to the upheaval suffered by bears in nature (Birna means “she-bear”), musically harnessing the bear’s natural strength and signaling a hopeful end to their forced hibernation through a motif of spring. The music of Birna radiates with intent, carefully constructing this idea across every element. It can be as small as warm, dancing flutes and Hella’s vocal melodies (“Ljos til Jord,” “Himinndotter”), or even just the chirping of birds (“Dvaledraumar,” “Jord til Ljos”), gently exuding a quiet optimism. Or it’s the awesome, primal majesty of the bear, viscerally felt through resounding horns, beating drums, or Selvik’s fervent vocals (“Hertan,” “Birna,” “Himinndotter,” “Skuggehesten”). I would describe it as a change in color; the dark, earthy green and brown of Wardruna’s music has begun to incorporate vibrant shades of orange and yellow. It’s a compelling shift in tone from Wardruna’s darker vibes of the past, and it works beautifully through the sincerity with which it’s performed and the rich texture of traditional instruments and natural sounds that has always characterized Wardruna.
If there were aught I might criticize about Birna, it would be how “Hibjørnen” fits into Birna’s pacing. After the low-energy—but no less beautiful—”Dvaledraumar” and “Jord til Ljos,” the frenetic beat of “Himinndotter” rebuilds a momentum that’s poised to continue at the song’s conclusion, but is instead interrupted by the skaldic pace of “Hibjørnen.” While I wish it was placed but one or two songs later, it’s nevertheless a beautiful song, and this most minor of gripes only arises due to how well the diversity of Birna’s music is paced in all other regards. Birna starts strong with the poignant, absorbing “Hertan,” which flows directly into the equally powerful “Birna.” The heavily ambient “Dvaledraumar” was a nice surprise that, at 16 minutes long, could have derailed Birna’s pace but fits snugly as the fourth song, and is a captivating crawl through a tar-thick, dream-like ambiance that transitions perfectly into “Jord til Ljos.” Finally, Birna wraps up its themes with “Lyfjaberg” (old Norse for “healing mountain”), Wardruna’s best song since “Helvegen.” It’s a gradual, gripping crescendo of impassioned chanting and singing; a vital plea, commanding in its urgency, reminding us of the respect and reverence nature needs, and deserves, from us.
Within the thriving Nordic folk ecosystem, Birna is clear evidence that Wardruna remains within a league of their own, a powerful reminder of the sway Wardruna holds within people’s hearts. In Selvik’s own words, Wardruna serves as a bridge between people and the natural world. The sounds of nature, the effortless melodies played by instruments that carry the weight of history, the electrifying voices of Selvik and Hella; together, they grow into an irresistible heartbeat, one that you realize was in you from the beginning. Do not miss Birna.
Rating: Excellent
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps
Label: By Norse / Sony Music
Websites: warduna.com | facebook.com/wardruna
Releases Worldwide: January 24th, 2025Dr. A.N. Grier
Wardruna is probably best known for contributing to the highly acclaimed Vikings television show. And why not? Wardruna is about as authentic as you can get. Technically a duo, Lindy-Fay Hella and Einar Selvik have been using traditional Norwegian instruments and guest contributors to carry us through majestic fjords and Viking war paths for nearly fifteen years. Luckily for me, I knew and enjoyed Wardruna well before I saw Gustaf Skarsgård’s sexy ass. Though the band has many o’ great albums, 2018’s Skald proved to be one of my favorite albums that year. Unfortunately, we’ve never received promos from the band, so I couldn’t spread my loving praise on an AMG page. Until now.1 While I could have lived without Mystikus Fuckbeard asking (for months) if we’ve received the promo, I’m glad we got Birna, and that I got to piggyback review with him. While I might be late as fuck on this review, Birna does not disappoint. But, in all honesty, they never did.
With all the different variations of folk metal, Wardruna is the most straightforward of the bunch. Not that their compositions are simple. Not by any means. But, if you’re expecting the headbanging Viking anthems of Amon Amarth or the Valkyrie-screaming passages of Bathory, stop now and readjust yourself. Wardruna is anything but that. Instead, their music invokes the ancient times of Viking culture when men were men and women were women. Or something like that. Incorporating beautiful male/female vocal duets, traditional chanting choruses, and massive atmospheres with instruments sourced from animal parts, listening to Wardruna is like sitting around a fire, drinking mead after annihilating an entire village of lowly peasants.2 With Birna, Warduna is, yet again, in top form.
If you’ve heard the band, you know that drums are the foundation of any Wardruna song. The opening track, “Hertan,” kicks things off with a soft heartbeat that reverberates through your chest before the male vocals appear, mimicking the rhythmic beat. As the intensity increases, the chants and distant choirs elevate the track. On the back half, it snaps the trance as the two vocalists duet their way into the snowy clouds. The title track follows the opener and delivers those tasty movie soundtrack elements. Beginning with a soft beat and female vox, the beautiful lyre arrives before the eruption of instrumentation, choirs, and booming male leads. Rising and falling throughout its seven-minute runtime, “Birna” is one of those Wardruna songs that explores every facet of the band’s skills, building layer on layer until the bitter end.
Yet, the most epic of the bunch is the nearly seventeen-minute “Dvaledraumar.” Using the sounds of nature as its core, each flute, horn, and percussion instrument sings as if a lone member is standing atop the highest hill of a lush prairie playing their hearts out at dawn. Each build begins with gentle pluckings as new layers are added, intensifying the varying moods of the song. “Dvaledraumar” traverses moods of complete relaxation, damning sinisterness, and other emotions that took my simple mind on a rollercoaster ride. But, probably the coolest combination of moods is “Himinndotter.” After the male leads hijack the female ones, this song transitions to the closest thing to a chorus on Birna. Which is fucking gorgeous. Then, the track drops into a low, dark place controlled by graveling vocals and simple, yet angry-sounding drums. But that chorus returns, ripping you from the thorns and placing you in the halls of Valhalla. But the best song on the record is the closer, “Lyfjaberg.” I can’t tell you exactly why this track hits me so hard but it’s damn near perfect. Clocking in at over nine minutes, it controls itself while introducing new builds, leads, and a passion that closes the album perfectly.
Though one would argue that “Lyfjaberg” might have been a last-minute inclusion, as it has existed since 2020, it’s perfect for Birna. So, I don’t fucking care. Perhaps the least enthusiastic songs are “Ljos til Jord” and “Hibjørnen,” but they aren’t so bad that they corrupt the flow. The first is odd coming off the mighty title track, while the latter is overly simplistic—even if it still delivers a fitting tone. The dynamics are interesting because they seem deliberate. Averaging at a DR8, they range from the “heavier” DR6 tracks to the breathable DR13 tracks. Having a bit of oomph for those moments where more intensity is needed and allowing the softer moments to open up is a rather clever approach. Once again, Wardruna does not disappoint, dropping another album that continues to portray the culture of olde, while producing gorgeous tracks and a satisfying flow.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
#2025 #40 #45 #AmonAmarth #Bathory #Birna #ByNorseMusic #FolkMetal #Jan25 #Norway #NorwegianMetal #NotMetal #SonyMusic #VikingFolk #Wardruna
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Angry Metal Guy
Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1
Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.
The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.
The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:
On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.
Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”
So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.
To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.
#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.
#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.
#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.
#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.
#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.
#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.
#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.
#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.
#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.
#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.
#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.
#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.
Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.
Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.
Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.
Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.
Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Thrown in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.
Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.
Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:
#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.
#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.
#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.
#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.
#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”
#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.
#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.
#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.
#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.
#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.
#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?
Show 12 footnotes
- This joke is fucking hilarious but only a few of you are going to get it. ↩
- I kid because I’m scared shitless of your country and will never visit it. – AMG ↩
- Wondering where you are? 11. Poland; 12. Brazil; 13. Norway; 14. Belgium; 15. Italy; 16. Greece; 17. Denmark; 18. Czechia; 19. Austria; 20. Russia; 21: Mexico; 22. Portugal; 23. Switzerland; 24. Romania; 25. Hungary. ↩
- Not that I’m *not* a big worthless loser, just that there’s more to it. ↩
- They suffered unduly and cast a lot of longing stares at each other, but they survived! ↩
- Because fucking Morbid Angel is the best, obviously. ↩
- Read: reverb. ↩
- Tell you what, guys, how ’bout Jón Aldará joins Octoploid and y’all start writing 15-minute songs? Then you can both be #1! ↩
- And don’t get me started Steven Wilson. “Ooh, I should be famous, why haven’t I had a number one record when Nick Beggs has had one?!” 🙄 ↩
- This is true because I am busy acclaiming it. ↩
- Obviously, largely opaque for most of us. People from the Faroe Islands do, indeed, speak the language in which this album is sung. My AI translator does not. ↩
- And if it is, it is obviously their best-executed one to date. ↩
#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Angry Metal Guy
Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1
Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.
The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.
The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:
On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.
Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”
So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.
To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.
#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.
#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.
#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.
#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.
#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.
#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.
#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.
#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.
#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.
#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.
#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.
#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.
Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.
Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.
Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.
Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.
Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Thrown in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.
Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.
Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:
#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.
#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.
#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.
#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.
#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”
#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.
#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.
#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.
#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.
#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.
#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?
#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Angry Metal Guy
Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1
Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.
The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.
The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:
On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.
Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”
So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.
To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.
#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.
#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.
#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.
#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.
#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.
#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.
#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.
#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.
#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.
#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.
#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.
#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.
Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.
Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.
Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.
Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.
Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Thrown in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.
Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.
Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:
#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.
#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.
#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.
#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.
#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”
#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.
#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.
#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.
#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.
#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.
#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?
#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Angry Metal Guy
Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1
Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.
The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.
The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:
On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.
Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”
So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.
To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.
#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.
#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.
#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.
#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.
#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.
#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.
#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.
#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.
#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.
#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.
#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.
#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.
Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.
Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.
Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.
Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.
Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Thrown in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.
Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.
Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:
#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.
#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.
#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.
#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.
#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”
#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.
#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.
#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.
#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.
#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.
#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?
#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Angry Metal Guy
Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1
Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.
The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.
The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:
On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.
Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”
So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.
To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.
#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.
#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.
#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.
#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.
#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.
#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.
#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.
#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.
#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.
#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.
#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.
#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.
Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.
Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.
Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.
Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.
Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Lobbed in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.
Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.
Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers. In all seriousness, this record is great and I enjoyed it which is why it’s here. But while it threatened to hit the list as an #ish, it never really felt like RotY material to me. Still, give these guys their due. They are unique and cool and you love to see the enthusiasm about weirdo progdeath.
Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:
#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.
#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.
#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.
#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.
#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”
#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.
#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.
#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.
#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.
#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.
#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?
Show 12 footnotes
- This joke is fucking hilarious but only a few of you are going to get it. ↩
- I kid because I’m scared shitless of your country and will never visit it. – AMG ↩
- Wondering where you are? 11. Poland; 12. Brazil; 13. Norway; 14. Belgium; 15. Italy; 16. Greece; 17. Denmark; 18. Czechia; 19. Austria; 20. Russia; 21: Mexico; 22. Portugal; 23. Switzerland; 24. Romania; 25. Hungary. ↩
- Not that I’m *not* a big worthless loser, just that there’s more to it. ↩
- They suffered unduly and cast a lot of longing stares at each other, but they survived! ↩
- Because fucking Morbid Angel is the best, obviously. ↩
- Read: reverb. ↩
- Tell you what, guys, how ’bout Jón Aldará joins Octoploid and y’all start writing 15-minute songs? Then you can both be #1! ↩
- And don’t get me started Steven Wilson. “Ooh, I should be famous, why haven’t I had a number one record when Nick Beggs has had one?!” 🙄 ↩
- This is true because I am busy acclaiming it. ↩
- Obviously, largely opaque for most of us. People from the Faroe Islands do, indeed, speak the language in which this album is sung. My AI translator does not. ↩
- And if it is, it is obviously their best-executed one to date. ↩
#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun
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By Angry Metal Guy
In celebration of the existence of Opeth, El Cuervo and I continue our rankings of Opeth from worst to best. You can find the previous rankings here: 13-9. And you can find the review of The Last Will and Testament here.
Happy complaining!
Angry Metal Guy
Mediopeth cont.
#8. Orchid (1995). Oldepeth gets far too little respect around here. And even I feel guilty dropping Orchid in at number 8. But for me, Orchid has long been the ‘forgotten’ album. My first exposure to Opeth was Morningrise, which I still consider the start of the band’s truly dominant, scene-defying (and scene-defining) run of perfect albums. But while it was the first one I purchased, their most recent record was My Arms, Your Hearse, which then was quickly followed by Still Life and Blackwater Park. While I was cutting my teeth on the ’90s Scandy scene, I didn’t have time to look backward. There was so much exciting music coming out and I was reveling in what I had in my hands. Yet, over time I have come to appreciate Orchid’s charm. The record is chock full of ideas and you can see the ways that Opeth becomes Opeth through moments: the use of volume swells in “In Mist She Was Standing,” which would eventually transform into Peter Lindgren’s eBow by Still Life and Blackwater Park. The moody, harmonized acoustic passages sounded a lot more like Metallica than the fingerstyle that Åkerfeldt would come to be known for by My Arms, Your Hearse. Even the use of nylon string acoustic guitars throughout is a charming feature of Opeth’s sound in 1995. The result is a kind of Protopeth that stands as a testament to sticking to your guns and just making the music you want to hear. And every song on here is a banger. Opeth is one of those bands where the debut stands up well, even if it isn’t entirely representative of the juggernaut they would become.
#7. Damnation (2003). Damnation is a brilliant album; a tour de force of sadprog. The songs boiled down the essence of the Opethian acoustic prog into a rich depression-flavored paste (with umami overtones). It’s almost impossible to pick the most iconic moment from Damnation, is it the introduction of the keys for the first time? Is it López’s deft, groovy performance? Is it “Closure”?1 Or maybe it’s Åkerfeldt dropping the best acoustic material he’d written to date? Working with Steven Wilson on this record was the right choice as he was able to get the best out of the band, while offering vocal harmonies and even lyrics. And as a defining Opeth album, Damnation trafficked in exquisite morosity from the opening guitar on “Windowpane” to the “Ending Credits” and beyond. That said, Damnation lacked the thing that made Opeth unique; its upper range. Deliverance, which was the weakest heavy record to date, was always marred by having the least interesting clean parts. And it’s hard not to blame the strong twin that got all the good genes, or in this case, Damnation. A track like “Closure” is just begging for another 8 minutes of Åkerriffs and growls. Damnation also exposed Opeth lyrically,2 I’m struck every time I listen to Damnation just how diaphanous and hollow these lyrics are.3 But that doesn’t stop me from belting them out while I’m writing this blurb. In its totality, Damnation is an excellent record from a band that wasn’t even firing on all cylinders at the time. Every song gives me the feelz, and it showed the world what Opeth could be without its death metal side—purveyors of excellent sadprog.
#6. Pale Communion (2014). Pale Communion is the album that Heritage should have been. While Heritage may have been the album Åkerfeldt wanted to write after years of playing music he didn’t really want to be playing anymore—an album constructed “of interesting but perverse musical ideas deliberately directed at fans expecting more death metal” to quote El Cuervo‘s excellent summation—Pale Communion felt like Opeth. Sure, it was an undeniable homage to the brilliant ’70s prog that Åkerfeldt loves (“River,” or “Goblin”). But Pale Communion is different from the other records in the Newpeth era in that it feels very much like an extension of Ghost Reveries. With classic Opeth riffing and eBow (“Cusp of Eternity,” “Moon Above, Moon Below”), the album felt like the perfect blend of classic Opeth and the more ’70s rock and prog vibe they were going for. There are two other reasons why Pale Communion is a triumph. First, the composition—the voice of Opeth—is on par with anything Åkefeldt had written to date. The re-emergence of beautiful, thoughtful transitions was notable, of course, and it made Pale Communion feel like an album that had real love and care taken with the writing process. Second, Pale Communion is the best-sounding Opeth album ever produced. Clocking in at a DR11 and with a pristine mix by Steven Wilson, Pale Communion is the kind of album that is just a pleasure to listen to. My one niggling complaint is that sometimes when the band crescendos into Åkerfeldt belting monotone melodies over heavy riffs, I think: “Why not just growl there?”
Perfectopeth
#5. My Arms, Your Hearse (1998). My Arms, Your Hearse marks the start of Opeth’s iconic lineup and sound. With the introduction of López on drums—fresh off his stint in Amon Amarth—this record was recorded with Fredrik Nordström with Åkerfeldt playing bass because Méndez didn’t have time to learn the songs. Unique in the band’s discography, My Arms, Your Hearse was the first proper concept album they recorded. Åkerfeldt started this record by writing lyrics and he composed the songs around them, with the last line of each song being the title of the next song. The result was a tight and cohesive album that felt revolutionary for their sound at the time. While Morningrise and Orchid had a meandering and acoustic feel—a naturalness if you will—My Arms, Your Hearse leaned more into a slicker production. It’s notable how much atmosphere reverb on Åkerfeldt’s more compressed vocals gave My Arms, Your Hearse its most polished sound to date, and Nordström’s production choices define the album in ways that people underestimate. But the shorter songs, the tighter lyrics, and the overall vibe made for an album that properly consumed is heard with headphones and listening to it from start to finish.
Going back and revisiting these records in order, My Arms, Your Hearse also shows real evolution in terms of Mikael’s fingerpicking work (“The Amen Corner”), and his compositional habit of falling into a pleasant 6/8 swing (like the outro to “Demon of the Fall,” and “Credence” which follows). That 6/8 swing is Opeth’s gallop, and it is the key to Still Life and Blackwater Park’s iconic sound. And though it should be consumed as a whole, I vociferously contest the idea that My Arms, Your Hearse is somehow a letdown or packed with filler. Tracks like “When,” “Demon of the Fall,” “Credence,” “The Amen Corner,” and honestly I could just list the entire album here, are classics that I would love to hear live. This record is one of the best records I own and it is somehow my fifth favorite album in Opeth’s discography.
#4. Still Life (1999). Loads of ink have been spilled over the reason that we should all like Still Life better than other Opeth albums—particularly Blackwater Park. Those who know me might think that it’s one of the reasons that I—a rugged individual and the figurehead of my eponymous blog—buck the revisionist historians by placing it at #4. But, those who know me would be wrong. I first learned of Still Life’s existence because I was one of the lucky people who got to see Opeth play their first show in the USA.4 The boyish Swedes played Milwaukee Metalfest in August of 2000—making those who saw it less lucky because we paid to be at Milwaukee Metalfest—and despite the logistical nightmare due to the infamous cheapness of the skeezy arranger, Opeth played an unforgettable set. Mikael started that set by saying “We’re going to start by playing a song from our new record which many of you don’t have,” before kicking off with “Moonlapse Vertigo.” In 1999 and 2000—for the babies whose first record was Watershed and are very upset that I didn’t make it #1 even though it has two good songs and they really really really like it!1!—one did not just get albums that weren’t released in the USA without luck and huge fees. I even asked at my local record store after Metalfest—who really were good at getting me obscure stuff—and they couldn’t find a copy of it. It would take another six months for Still Life to be released in the USA. This means that Blackwater Park, which was released on March 12th, 2001, was released exactly two weeks after Still Life and to much more fanfare. So, as an 18-year-old who kept up with metal releases via the Unholy Metal Usenet group, I purchased Blackwater Park and never realized that Still Life had been released.
It would be a couple of years before I made it back to Still Life. And my journey back started with hearing “Godhead’s Lament” live. That sent me on to a six-month binge where I listened to nothing but Still Life. The album had everything that I loved about Blackwater Park but was slightly rawer in its sound. It contained some of the best riffs that I had ever heard and I found myself learning and aping those unique Åkerriffs in my composition. But despite its excellence—its perfection, really—Blackwater Park had been the kind of revelation for me (and I’d wager many other American fans) that Still Life could never end up being. It’s hard to argue, however, that Still Life is anything other than enormous and that it probably should have been the album that broke them in the US. The band continued to develop its acoustic chops, Åkerfeldt’s writing continued to tighten, and the mournful melodies that were so key to their sound at the time were perfectly united with the slick Nordström production and those undeniable riffs. In retrospect, this is also where someone finally cracked the nut of how to produce Åkerfeldt’s growls, which I think are still some of the best in death metal. This album is a triumph and there are still three to go.
El Cuervo
#8. Watershed (2008). Watershed divides the ‘excellent’ and the ‘slightly-less-excellent-but-still-very-good’ on this ranking. While Watershed enjoys incredible high moments, it also demonstrates the first point at which I noticed unwieldy songwriting in the Opeth discography. The songs are varied but the transitions are stark,5 resulting in a release that noticeably and bluntly chops and changes. Despite its accomplished compositions and exemplary instrumental performance, the flow of the album is more jagged than anything. Yet the unexpected, off-kilter interludes paired with some brutally heavy passages super-charge these songs into some of the most head-turning, arresting music in the band’s career. And though he may have been best known for a brief stint in Arch Enemy, the deft hand of Fredrik Åkesson proved an excellent addition to the band’s roster; he sounds bold and technical in a way that wasn’t apparent previously. It may not all hang together perfectly but it’s hard to ignore Opeth on Watershed.
#7. Orchid (1995). To be a fly on the wall with a group of teenagers in a Stockholm suburb, deciding to embark on an extreme metal journey for which Scandinavia was becoming renowned. The difference for these teens was that they wanted to fuse progressive rock and acoustic guitars into that. While fusing death metal with ’70s prog may be commonplace now, it certainly wasn’t then, and Orchid is a landmark release for this reason. It’s just as raw and unrefined as you would expect. Åkerfeldt’s growls have a jagged edge, the guitars saw in the Swedeath style, and the overall mix has the bass-light, lo-fi buzz of the then-recent Norwegian wave of black metal. Despite the nascent nature of Opeth, Orchid was far better than it had any right to be. While unrefined by their own standards, some bands never achieve the sophistication of what’s achieved across this unexpectedly beautiful death metal, packaged in remarkably robust production.
#6. Pale Communion (2014). If Heritage marks the last major fold in the Opeth discography—The Last Will & Testament pending—then Pale Communion is easily the best output of their modern era. In no small part, this flows from my bottomless well of love for ’70s prog rock. Pale Communion is, in some ways, the least inventive Opeth album given how strongly it draws from a specific scene at a specific point in history. You can hear a clear admiration of classic bands like Camel, Jethro Tull, and Goblin across the warm production, mellotrons, and bluesy guitars. Nonetheless, the clearest influence remains Opeth themselves. If this album was the natural culmination of Åkerfeldt’s desire to convey how much he liked a specific sub-genre then I’m happy that he was able to do so in a way that sounds completely himself too. While it may not be the most daring of Opeth’s releases, Pale Communion succeeds because it orients around one key quality: lush, exciting songs.
#5. Damnation (2003). Faced with the impossible task of a label that wanted them to reproduce Blackwater Park but a muse leading them down a lighter path, Opeth made the bold decision to record and release Damnation as an album twinned with Deliverance. While Deliverance is ultimately my favorite of the two, Damnation has a raw potency that indicates a deep emotional investment on the part of the band. Stripping back the heavily distorted guitars and growled vocals exposes an exquisitely despondent album of lilting rhythms and gentle acoustic melodies. Its emotion is palpable, expressing pure isolation and sorrow. While the astute listener might have predicted a soft Opeth album, it was the first (and the better) of two sudden stylistic shifts in their career and demonstrated that they were not satisfied to rest on their laurels following a couple of progressive metal’s most treasured releases. It was high risk but high reward.
#4. Blackwater Park (2001). A victim of its own success, I find myself pushing Blackwater Park down despite its wide acclaim as the pinnacle of Opeth’s career. While it would be easy to attribute this to my insatiable contrarianism, it’s not this. This album is everything from the Opeth sound until 2001 boiled down to a delicious, smooth compote. It finds the optimal blend of dark and light in its sound, fusing delicate acoustic prettiness with brutal, riffing heaviness. Its longest songs are real stand-outs, with excellent leads, flawless compositions, and jaw-dropping transitions. And yet I find it wanting. Everything before Blackwater Park still had the raw edge of ’90s death metal, conferring on them a savage bite, while everything after saw the band beginning to experiment more widely; from Damnation’s dramatic shift away from metal to Ghost Reveries’ jazzier keyboards. Blackwater Park is the natural climax to that point but I find it too predictable as a result. And yet the power of Opeth means it’s still an El Cuervo 4.5 and one of the jewels in metal’s crown.
#1998 #1999 #2001 #2003 #2008 #2014 #BlackwaterPark #Camel #Damnation #MAYH #Metallica #MyArmsYourHearse #Nov24 #Opeth #Orchid #PaleCommunion #StillLife #TheLastWillAndTestament #Watershed
-
By Angry Metal Guy
In celebration of the existence of Opeth, El Cuervo and I continue our rankings of Opeth from worst to best. You can find the previous rankings here: 13-9. And you can find the review of The Last Will and Testament here.
Happy complaining!
Angry Metal Guy
Mediopeth cont.
#8. Orchid (1995). Oldepeth gets far too little respect around here. And even I feel guilty dropping Orchid in at number 8. But for me, Orchid has long been the ‘forgotten’ album. My first exposure to Opeth was Morningrise, which I still consider the start of the band’s truly dominant, scene-defying (and scene-defining) run of perfect albums. But while it was the first one I purchased, their most recent record was My Arms, Your Hearse, which then was quickly followed by Still Life and Blackwater Park. While I was cutting my teeth on the ’90s Scandy scene, I didn’t have time to look backward. There was so much exciting music coming out and I was reveling in what I had in my hands. Yet, over time I have come to appreciate Orchid’s charm. The record is chock full of ideas and you can see the ways that Opeth becomes Opeth through moments: the use of volume swells in “In Mist She Was Standing,” which would eventually transform into Peter Lindgren’s eBow by Still Life and Blackwater Park. The moody, harmonized acoustic passages sounded a lot more like Metallica than the fingerstyle that Åkerfeldt would come to be known for by My Arms, Your Hearse. Even the use of nylon string acoustic guitars throughout is a charming feature of Opeth’s sound in 1995. The result is a kind of Protopeth that stands as a testament to sticking to your guns and just making the music you want to hear. And every song on here is a banger. Opeth is one of those bands where the debut stands up well, even if it isn’t entirely representative of the juggernaut they would become.
#7. Damnation (2003). Damnation is a brilliant album; a tour de force of sadprog. The songs boiled down the essence of the Opethian acoustic prog into a rich depression-flavored paste (with umami overtones). It’s almost impossible to pick the most iconic moment from Damnation, is it the introduction of the keys for the first time? Is it López’s deft, groovy performance? Is it “Closure”?1 Or maybe it’s Åkerfeldt dropping the best acoustic material he’d written to date? Working with Steven Wilson on this record was the right choice as he was able to get the best out of the band, while offering vocal harmonies and even lyrics. And as a defining Opeth album, Damnation trafficked in exquisite morosity from the opening guitar on “Windowpane” to the “Ending Credits” and beyond. That said, Damnation lacked the thing that made Opeth unique; its upper range. Deliverance, which was the weakest heavy record to date, was always marred by having the least interesting clean parts. And it’s hard not to blame the strong twin that got all the good genes, or in this case, Damnation. A track like “Closure” is just begging for another 8 minutes of Åkerriffs and growls. Damnation also exposed Opeth lyrically,2 I’m struck every time I listen to Damnation just how diaphanous and hollow these lyrics are.3 But that doesn’t stop me from belting them out while I’m writing this blurb. In its totality, Damnation is an excellent record from a band that wasn’t even firing on all cylinders at the time. Every song gives me the feelz, and it showed the world what Opeth could be without its death metal side—purveyors of excellent sadprog.
#6. Pale Communion (2014). Pale Communion is the album that Heritage should have been. While Heritage may have been the album Åkerfeldt wanted to write after years of playing music he didn’t really want to be playing anymore—an album constructed “of interesting but perverse musical ideas deliberately directed at fans expecting more death metal” to quote El Cuervo‘s excellent summation—Pale Communion felt like Opeth. Sure, it was an undeniable homage to the brilliant ’70s prog that Åkerfeldt loves (“River,” or “Goblin”). But Pale Communion is different from the other records in the Newpeth era in that it feels very much like an extension of Ghost Reveries. With classic Opeth riffing and eBow (“Cusp of Eternity,” “Moon Above, Moon Below”), the album felt like the perfect blend of classic Opeth and the more ’70s rock and prog vibe they were going for. There are two other reasons why Pale Communion is a triumph. First, the composition—the voice of Opeth—is on par with anything Åkefeldt had written to date. The re-emergence of beautiful, thoughtful transitions was notable, of course, and it made Pale Communion feel like an album that had real love and care taken with the writing process. Second, Pale Communion is the best-sounding Opeth album ever produced. Clocking in at a DR11 and with a pristine mix by Steven Wilson, Pale Communion is the kind of album that is just a pleasure to listen to. My one niggling complaint is that sometimes when the band crescendos into Åkerfeldt belting monotone melodies over heavy riffs, I think: “Why not just growl there?”
Perfectopeth
#5. My Arms, Your Hearse (1998). My Arms, Your Hearse marks the start of Opeth’s iconic lineup and sound. With the introduction of López on drums—fresh off his stint in Amon Amarth—this record was recorded with Fredrik Nordström with Åkerfeldt playing bass because Méndez didn’t have time to learn the songs. Unique in the band’s discography, My Arms, Your Hearse was the first proper concept album they recorded. Åkerfeldt started this record by writing lyrics and he composed the songs around them, with the last line of each song being the title of the next song. The result was a tight and cohesive album that felt revolutionary for their sound at the time. While Morningrise and Orchid had a meandering and acoustic feel—a naturalness if you will—My Arms, Your Hearse leaned more into a slicker production. It’s notable how much atmosphere reverb on Åkerfeldt’s more compressed vocals gave My Arms, Your Hearse its most polished sound to date, and Nordström’s production choices define the album in ways that people underestimate. But the shorter songs, the tighter lyrics, and the overall vibe made for an album that properly consumed is heard with headphones and listening to it from start to finish.
Going back and revisiting these records in order, My Arms, Your Hearse also shows real evolution in terms of Mikael’s fingerpicking work (“The Amen Corner”), and his compositional habit of falling into a pleasant 6/8 swing (like the outro to “Demon of the Fall,” and “Credence” which follows). That 6/8 swing is Opeth’s gallop, and it is the key to Still Life and Blackwater Park’s iconic sound. And though it should be consumed as a whole, I vociferously contest the idea that My Arms, Your Hearse is somehow a letdown or packed with filler. Tracks like “When,” “Demon of the Fall,” “Credence,” “The Amen Corner,” and honestly I could just list the entire album here, are classics that I would love to hear live. This record is one of the best records I own and it is somehow my fifth favorite album in Opeth’s discography.
#4. Still Life (1999). Loads of ink have been spilled over the reason that we should all like Still Life better than other Opeth albums—particularly Blackwater Park. Those who know me might think that it’s one of the reasons that I—a rugged individual and the figurehead of my eponymous blog—buck the revisionist historians by placing it at #4. But, those who know me would be wrong. I first learned of Still Life’s existence because I was one of the lucky people who got to see Opeth play their first show in the USA.4 The boyish Swedes played Milwaukee Metalfest in August of 2000—making those who saw it less lucky because we paid to be at Milwaukee Metalfest—and despite the logistical nightmare due to the infamous cheapness of the skeezy arranger, Opeth played an unforgettable set. Mikael started that set by saying “We’re going to start by playing a song from our new record which many of you don’t have,” before kicking off with “Moonlapse Vertigo.” In 1999 and 2000—for the babies whose first record was Watershed and are very upset that I didn’t make it #1 even though it has two good songs and they really really really like it!1!—one did not just get albums that weren’t released in the USA without luck and huge fees. I even asked at my local record store after Metalfest—who really were good at getting me obscure stuff—and they couldn’t find a copy of it. It would take another six months for Still Life to be released in the USA. This means that Blackwater Park, which was released on March 12th, 2001, was released exactly two weeks after Still Life and to much more fanfare. So, as an 18-year-old who kept up with metal releases via the Unholy Metal Usenet group, I purchased Blackwater Park and never realized that Still Life had been released.
It would be a couple of years before I made it back to Still Life. And my journey back started with hearing “Godhead’s Lament” live. That sent me on to a six-month binge where I listened to nothing but Still Life. The album had everything that I loved about Blackwater Park but was slightly rawer in its sound. It contained some of the best riffs that I had ever heard and I found myself learning and aping those unique Åkerriffs in my composition. But despite its excellence—its perfection, really—Blackwater Park had been the kind of revelation for me (and I’d wager many other American fans) that Still Life could never end up being. It’s hard to argue, however, that Still Life is anything other than enormous and that it probably should have been the album that broke them in the US. The band continued to develop its acoustic chops, Åkerfeldt’s writing continued to tighten, and the mournful melodies that were so key to their sound at the time were perfectly united with the slick Nordström production and those undeniable riffs. In retrospect, this is also where someone finally cracked the nut of how to produce Åkerfeldt’s growls, which I think are still some of the best in death metal. This album is a triumph and there are still three to go.
El Cuervo
#8. Watershed (2008). Watershed divides the ‘excellent’ and the ‘slightly-less-excellent-but-still-very-good’ on this ranking. While Watershed enjoys incredible high moments, it also demonstrates the first point at which I noticed unwieldy songwriting in the Opeth discography. The songs are varied but the transitions are stark,5 resulting in a release that noticeably and bluntly chops and changes. Despite its accomplished compositions and exemplary instrumental performance, the flow of the album is more jagged than anything. Yet the unexpected, off-kilter interludes paired with some brutally heavy passages super-charge these songs into some of the most head-turning, arresting music in the band’s career. And though he may have been best known for a brief stint in Arch Enemy, the deft hand of Fredrik Åkesson proved an excellent addition to the band’s roster; he sounds bold and technical in a way that wasn’t apparent previously. It may not all hang together perfectly but it’s hard to ignore Opeth on Watershed.
#7. Orchid (1995). To be a fly on the wall with a group of teenagers in a Stockholm suburb, deciding to embark on an extreme metal journey for which Scandinavia was becoming renowned. The difference for these teens was that they wanted to fuse progressive rock and acoustic guitars into that. While fusing death metal with ’70s prog may be commonplace now, it certainly wasn’t then, and Orchid is a landmark release for this reason. It’s just as raw and unrefined as you would expect. Åkerfeldt’s growls have a jagged edge, the guitars saw in the Swedeath style, and the overall mix has the bass-light, lo-fi buzz of the then-recent Norwegian wave of black metal. Despite the nascent nature of Opeth, Orchid was far better than it had any right to be. While unrefined by their own standards, some bands never achieve the sophistication of what’s achieved across this unexpectedly beautiful death metal, packaged in remarkably robust production.
#6. Pale Communion (2014). If Heritage marks the last major fold in the Opeth discography—The Last Will & Testament pending—then Pale Communion is easily the best output of their modern era. In no small part, this flows from my bottomless well of love for ’70s prog rock. Pale Communion is, in some ways, the least inventive Opeth album given how strongly it draws from a specific scene at a specific point in history. You can hear a clear admiration of classic bands like Camel, Jethro Tull, and Goblin across the warm production, mellotrons, and bluesy guitars. Nonetheless, the clearest influence remains Opeth themselves. If this album was the natural culmination of Åkerfeldt’s desire to convey how much he liked a specific sub-genre then I’m happy that he was able to do so in a way that sounds completely himself too. While it may not be the most daring of Opeth’s releases, Pale Communion succeeds because it orients around one key quality: lush, exciting songs.
#5. Damnation (2003). Faced with the impossible task of a label that wanted them to reproduce Blackwater Park but a muse leading them down a lighter path, Opeth made the bold decision to record and release Damnation as an album twinned with Deliverance. While Deliverance is ultimately my favorite of the two, Damnation has a raw potency that indicates a deep emotional investment on the part of the band. Stripping back the heavily distorted guitars and growled vocals exposes an exquisitely despondent album of lilting rhythms and gentle acoustic melodies. Its emotion is palpable, expressing pure isolation and sorrow. While the astute listener might have predicted a soft Opeth album, it was the first (and the better) of two sudden stylistic shifts in their career and demonstrated that they were not satisfied to rest on their laurels following a couple of progressive metal’s most treasured releases. It was high risk but high reward.
#4. Blackwater Park (2001). A victim of its own success, I find myself pushing Blackwater Park down despite its wide acclaim as the pinnacle of Opeth’s career. While it would be easy to attribute this to my insatiable contrarianism, it’s not this. This album is everything from the Opeth sound until 2001 boiled down to a delicious, smooth compote. It finds the optimal blend of dark and light in its sound, fusing delicate acoustic prettiness with brutal, riffing heaviness. Its longest songs are real stand-outs, with excellent leads, flawless compositions, and jaw-dropping transitions. And yet I find it wanting. Everything before Blackwater Park still had the raw edge of ’90s death metal, conferring on them a savage bite, while everything after saw the band beginning to experiment more widely; from Damnation’s dramatic shift away from metal to Ghost Reveries’ jazzier keyboards. Blackwater Park is the natural climax to that point but I find it too predictable as a result. And yet the power of Opeth means it’s still an El Cuervo 4.5 and one of the jewels in metal’s crown.
#1998 #1999 #2001 #2003 #2008 #2014 #BlackwaterPark #Camel #Damnation #MAYH #Metallica #MyArmsYourHearse #Nov24 #Opeth #Orchid #PaleCommunion #StillLife #TheLastWillAndTestament #Watershed
-
By Angry Metal Guy
In celebration of the existence of Opeth, El Cuervo and I continue our rankings of Opeth from worst to best. You can find the previous rankings here: 13-9. And you can find the review of The Last Will and Testament here.
Happy complaining!
Angry Metal Guy
Mediopeth cont.
#8. Orchid (1995). Oldepeth gets far too little respect around here. And even I feel guilty dropping Orchid in at number 8. But for me, Orchid has long been the ‘forgotten’ album. My first exposure to Opeth was Morningrise, which I still consider the start of the band’s truly dominant, scene-defying (and scene-defining) run of perfect albums. But while it was the first one I purchased, their most recent record was My Arms, Your Hearse, which then was quickly followed by Still Life and Blackwater Park. While I was cutting my teeth on the ’90s Scandy scene, I didn’t have time to look backward. There was so much exciting music coming out and I was reveling in what I had in my hands. Yet, over time I have come to appreciate Orchid’s charm. The record is chock full of ideas and you can see the ways that Opeth becomes Opeth through moments: the use of volume swells in “In Mist She Was Standing,” which would eventually transform into Peter Lindgren’s eBow by Still Life and Blackwater Park. The moody, harmonized acoustic passages sounded a lot more like Metallica than the fingerstyle that Åkerfeldt would come to be known for by My Arms, Your Hearse. Even the use of nylon string acoustic guitars throughout is a charming feature of Opeth’s sound in 1995. The result is a kind of Protopeth that stands as a testament to sticking to your guns and just making the music you want to hear. And every song on here is a banger. Opeth is one of those bands where the debut stands up well, even if it isn’t entirely representative of the juggernaut they would become.
#7. Damnation (2003). Damnation is a brilliant album; a tour de force of sadprog. The songs boiled down the essence of the Opethian acoustic prog into a rich depression-flavored paste (with umami overtones). It’s almost impossible to pick the most iconic moment from Damnation, is it the introduction of the keys for the first time? Is it López’s deft, groovy performance? Is it “Closure”?1 Or maybe it’s Åkerfeldt dropping the best acoustic material he’d written to date? Working with Steven Wilson on this record was the right choice as he was able to get the best out of the band, while offering vocal harmonies and even lyrics. And as a defining Opeth album, Damnation trafficked in exquisite morosity from the opening guitar on “Windowpane” to the “Ending Credits” and beyond. That said, Damnation lacked the thing that made Opeth unique; its upper range. Deliverance, which was the weakest heavy record to date, was always marred by having the least interesting clean parts. And it’s hard not to blame the strong twin that got all the good genes, or in this case, Damnation. A track like “Closure” is just begging for another 8 minutes of Åkerriffs and growls. Damnation also exposed Opeth lyrically,2 I’m struck every time I listen to Damnation just how diaphanous and hollow these lyrics are.3 But that doesn’t stop me from belting them out while I’m writing this blurb. In its totality, Damnation is an excellent record from a band that wasn’t even firing on all cylinders at the time. Every song gives me the feelz, and it showed the world what Opeth could be without its death metal side—purveyors of excellent sadprog.
#6. Pale Communion (2014). Pale Communion is the album that Heritage should have been. While Heritage may have been the album Åkerfeldt wanted to write after years of playing music he didn’t really want to be playing anymore—an album constructed “of interesting but perverse musical ideas deliberately directed at fans expecting more death metal” to quote El Cuervo‘s excellent summation—Pale Communion felt like Opeth. Sure, it was an undeniable homage to the brilliant ’70s prog that Åkerfeldt loves (“River,” or “Goblin”). But Pale Communion is different from the other records in the Newpeth era in that it feels very much like an extension of Ghost Reveries. With classic Opeth riffing and eBow (“Cusp of Eternity,” “Moon Above, Moon Below”), the album felt like the perfect blend of classic Opeth and the more ’70s rock and prog vibe they were going for. There are two other reasons why Pale Communion is a triumph. First, the composition—the voice of Opeth—is on par with anything Åkefeldt had written to date. The re-emergence of beautiful, thoughtful transitions was notable, of course, and it made Pale Communion feel like an album that had real love and care taken with the writing process. Second, Pale Communion is the best-sounding Opeth album ever produced. Clocking in at a DR11 and with a pristine mix by Steven Wilson, Pale Communion is the kind of album that is just a pleasure to listen to. My one niggling complaint is that sometimes when the band crescendos into Åkerfeldt belting monotone melodies over heavy riffs, I think: “Why not just growl there?”
Perfectopeth
#5. My Arms, Your Hearse (1998). My Arms, Your Hearse marks the start of Opeth’s iconic lineup and sound. With the introduction of López on drums—fresh off his stint in Amon Amarth—this record was recorded with Fredrik Nordström with Åkerfeldt playing bass because Méndez didn’t have time to learn the songs. Unique in the band’s discography, My Arms, Your Hearse was the first proper concept album they recorded. Åkerfeldt started this record by writing lyrics and he composed the songs around them, with the last line of each song being the title of the next song. The result was a tight and cohesive album that felt revolutionary for their sound at the time. While Morningrise and Orchid had a meandering and acoustic feel—a naturalness if you will—My Arms, Your Hearse leaned more into a slicker production. It’s notable how much atmosphere reverb on Åkerfeldt’s more compressed vocals gave My Arms, Your Hearse its most polished sound to date, and Nordström’s production choices define the album in ways that people underestimate. But the shorter songs, the tighter lyrics, and the overall vibe made for an album that properly consumed is heard with headphones and listening to it from start to finish.
Going back and revisiting these records in order, My Arms, Your Hearse also shows real evolution in terms of Mikael’s fingerpicking work (“The Amen Corner”), and his compositional habit of falling into a pleasant 6/8 swing (like the outro to “Demon of the Fall,” and “Credence” which follows). That 6/8 swing is Opeth’s gallop, and it is the key to Still Life and Blackwater Park’s iconic sound. And though it should be consumed as a whole, I vociferously contest the idea that My Arms, Your Hearse is somehow a letdown or packed with filler. Tracks like “When,” “Demon of the Fall,” “Credence,” “The Amen Corner,” and honestly I could just list the entire album here, are classics that I would love to hear live. This record is one of the best records I own and it is somehow my fifth favorite album in Opeth’s discography.
#4. Still Life (1999). Loads of ink have been spilled over the reason that we should all like Still Life better than other Opeth albums—particularly Blackwater Park. Those who know me might think that it’s one of the reasons that I—a rugged individual and the figurehead of my eponymous blog—buck the revisionist historians by placing it at #4. But, those who know me would be wrong. I first learned of Still Life’s existence because I was one of the lucky people who got to see Opeth play their first show in the USA.4 The boyish Swedes played Milwaukee Metalfest in August of 2000—making those who saw it less lucky because we paid to be at Milwaukee Metalfest—and despite the logistical nightmare due to the infamous cheapness of the skeezy arranger, Opeth played an unforgettable set. Mikael started that set by saying “We’re going to start by playing a song from our new record which many of you don’t have,” before kicking off with “Moonlapse Vertigo.” In 1999 and 2000—for the babies whose first record was Watershed and are very upset that I didn’t make it #1 even though it has two good songs and they really really really like it!1!—one did not just get albums that weren’t released in the USA without luck and huge fees. I even asked at my local record store after Metalfest—who really were good at getting me obscure stuff—and they couldn’t find a copy of it. It would take another six months for Still Life to be released in the USA. This means that Blackwater Park, which was released on March 12th, 2001, was released exactly two weeks after Still Life and to much more fanfare. So, as an 18-year-old who kept up with metal releases via the Unholy Metal Usenet group, I purchased Blackwater Park and never realized that Still Life had been released.
It would be a couple of years before I made it back to Still Life. And my journey back started with hearing “Godhead’s Lament” live. That sent me on to a six-month binge where I listened to nothing but Still Life. The album had everything that I loved about Blackwater Park but was slightly rawer in its sound. It contained some of the best riffs that I had ever heard and I found myself learning and aping those unique Åkerriffs in my composition. But despite its excellence—its perfection, really—Blackwater Park had been the kind of revelation for me (and I’d wager many other American fans) that Still Life could never end up being. It’s hard to argue, however, that Still Life is anything other than enormous and that it probably should have been the album that broke them in the US. The band continued to develop its acoustic chops, Åkerfeldt’s writing continued to tighten, and the mournful melodies that were so key to their sound at the time were perfectly united with the slick Nordström production and those undeniable riffs. In retrospect, this is also where someone finally cracked the nut of how to produce Åkerfeldt’s growls, which I think are still some of the best in death metal. This album is a triumph and there are still three to go.
El Cuervo
#8. Watershed (2008). Watershed divides the ‘excellent’ and the ‘slightly-less-excellent-but-still-very-good’ on this ranking. While Watershed enjoys incredible high moments, it also demonstrates the first point at which I noticed unwieldy songwriting in the Opeth discography. The songs are varied but the transitions are stark,5 resulting in a release that noticeably and bluntly chops and changes. Despite its accomplished compositions and exemplary instrumental performance, the flow of the album is more jagged than anything. Yet the unexpected, off-kilter interludes paired with some brutally heavy passages super-charge these songs into some of the most head-turning, arresting music in the band’s career. And though he may have been best known for a brief stint in Arch Enemy, the deft hand of Fredrik Åkesson proved an excellent addition to the band’s roster; he sounds bold and technical in a way that wasn’t apparent previously. It may not all hang together perfectly but it’s hard to ignore Opeth on Watershed.
#7. Orchid (1995). To be a fly on the wall with a group of teenagers in a Stockholm suburb, deciding to embark on an extreme metal journey for which Scandinavia was becoming renowned. The difference for these teens was that they wanted to fuse progressive rock and acoustic guitars into that. While fusing death metal with ’70s prog may be commonplace now, it certainly wasn’t then, and Orchid is a landmark release for this reason. It’s just as raw and unrefined as you would expect. Åkerfeldt’s growls have a jagged edge, the guitars saw in the Swedeath style, and the overall mix has the bass-light, lo-fi buzz of the then-recent Norwegian wave of black metal. Despite the nascent nature of Opeth, Orchid was far better than it had any right to be. While unrefined by their own standards, some bands never achieve the sophistication of what’s achieved across this unexpectedly beautiful death metal, packaged in remarkably robust production.
#6. Pale Communion (2014). If Heritage marks the last major fold in the Opeth discography—The Last Will & Testament pending—then Pale Communion is easily the best output of their modern era. In no small part, this flows from my bottomless well of love for ’70s prog rock. Pale Communion is, in some ways, the least inventive Opeth album given how strongly it draws from a specific scene at a specific point in history. You can hear a clear admiration of classic bands like Camel, Jethro Tull, and Goblin across the warm production, mellotrons, and bluesy guitars. Nonetheless, the clearest influence remains Opeth themselves. If this album was the natural culmination of Åkerfeldt’s desire to convey how much he liked a specific sub-genre then I’m happy that he was able to do so in a way that sounds completely himself too. While it may not be the most daring of Opeth’s releases, Pale Communion succeeds because it orients around one key quality: lush, exciting songs.
#5. Damnation (2003). Faced with the impossible task of a label that wanted them to reproduce Blackwater Park but a muse leading them down a lighter path, Opeth made the bold decision to record and release Damnation as an album twinned with Deliverance. While Deliverance is ultimately my favorite of the two, Damnation has a raw potency that indicates a deep emotional investment on the part of the band. Stripping back the heavily distorted guitars and growled vocals exposes an exquisitely despondent album of lilting rhythms and gentle acoustic melodies. Its emotion is palpable, expressing pure isolation and sorrow. While the astute listener might have predicted a soft Opeth album, it was the first (and the better) of two sudden stylistic shifts in their career and demonstrated that they were not satisfied to rest on their laurels following a couple of progressive metal’s most treasured releases. It was high risk but high reward.
#4. Blackwater Park (2001). A victim of its own success, I find myself pushing Blackwater Park down despite its wide acclaim as the pinnacle of Opeth’s career. While it would be easy to attribute this to my insatiable contrarianism, it’s not this. This album is everything from the Opeth sound until 2001 boiled down to a delicious, smooth compote. It finds the optimal blend of dark and light in its sound, fusing delicate acoustic prettiness with brutal, riffing heaviness. Its longest songs are real stand-outs, with excellent leads, flawless compositions, and jaw-dropping transitions. And yet I find it wanting. Everything before Blackwater Park still had the raw edge of ’90s death metal, conferring on them a savage bite, while everything after saw the band beginning to experiment more widely; from Damnation’s dramatic shift away from metal to Ghost Reveries’ jazzier keyboards. Blackwater Park is the natural climax to that point but I find it too predictable as a result. And yet the power of Opeth means it’s still an El Cuervo 4.5 and one of the jewels in metal’s crown.
#1998 #1999 #2001 #2003 #2008 #2014 #BlackwaterPark #Camel #Damnation #MAYH #Metallica #MyArmsYourHearse #Nov24 #Opeth #Orchid #PaleCommunion #StillLife #TheLastWillAndTestament #Watershed
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By Carcharodon
15 years ago, on May 19, 2009, Angry Metal Guy spoke. For the very first time as AMG. And he had opinions: Very Important Opinions™. The post attracted relatively little attention at the time, but times change and, over the decade and a half since then, AMG Industries has grown into the blog you know today. Now with a staff of around 25 overrating overwriters (and an entirely non-suspicious graveyard for writers on permanent, all-expenses-paid sabbaticals), we have written more than 9,100 posts, comprising over seven million words. Over the site’s lifetime, we’ve had more than 107 million visits and now achieve well over a million hits each and every month. Through this, we’ve built up a fantastic community of readers drawn from every corner of the globe, whom we have (mostly) loved getting to know in the more than 360,000 comments posted on the site.
We have done this under the careful (if sternly authoritarian) stewardship of our eponymous leader Angry Metal Guy and his iron enforcer, Steel Druhm, while adhering to strict editorial policies and principles. We have done this by simply offering honest (and occasionally brutal) takes, and without running a single advert or taking a single cent from anyone. Ever. Mistakes have undoubtedly been made and we may be a laughing stock in the eyes of music intellectuals, socialites and critics everywhere but we are incredibly proud of what AMG Industries represents. In fact, we believe it may be the best metal blog, with the best community of readers, on the internet.
Now join us as the people responsible for making AMG a reality reflect on what the site means to them and why they would willingly work for a blog that pays in the currency of deadlines, abuse, and hobo wine. Welcome to the 15th Birthdaynalia.
Thou Shalt Have No Other Blogs!
Steel Druhm
AMG and me
I stumbled into the world of AMG Inc. by chance, one day in early 2010 and just never got around to leaving. To put a finer point on it, I’ve been slaving in the AMG salt mines so long, even the extremely sabbaticalized Happy Metal Guy thinks my mind is gone. Over time, I’ve evolved from unpaid assistant to the Founding Overlord Himself to become site overseer and brvtal enforcer of deadlines, and morale (still unpaid). The journey has been a wild one, full of moments I’ll always cherish. It’s also introduced me to a collection of loveable oddballs I care about, even though I want to murderize them most of the time (you would too if you had to deal with their outrageous bullshit daily).1
The site and the extensive work that goes into it have provided me with a satisfaction that my real job often lacks, and even helped me find my soulmate. In short, AMG means the world to me and that’s why I’ve given so much of myself to this little blog these last 14 years. Looking back, I regret nothing (except the staff’s penchant for wildly overrating complete garbage) and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Thank you to the writers past and present who helped make the site possible, and thanks to the readers who make it worth the effort, even though most of you are woefully deficient in the good taste department. Here’s to 15 more years of this burning shitshow of a trainwreck!
AMG gave to me
As I’ve been a part of AMG since the early days, it’s nearly impossible to come up with just three albums the site gave me because it’s given me so many. Instead, I’ll enumerate the biggest non-musical gifts AMG has bestowed upon me over the years.2
Madam X // Be My (Pri)Mate / Down with the Steelness – The best thing AMG gave me by far was the chance to meet my best friend, soulmate and life partner, Madam X. She had read some of my early reviews for AMG and by chance, we happened to run into each other on a now-defunct Facebook metal fan page. She reached out to discuss my reviews and get some recommendations, we started chatting, and the rest, as they say, is history. I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have her and, since she lived in South Africa and I in New York, I highly doubt we ever would have found one another were it not for AMG. For this reason alone, I’ll cherish this little blog until my rusty metal heart explodes in my hairy ape chest. Fun fact: I never had a girlfriend that liked metal, and now I have a wife who listens to stuff that’s so extreme and out there, I end up sounding like my parents and saying shit like “This isn’t music, it’s just crazy noise!” Life is funny sometimes.
The Sadistic Pleasure that Comes from Unicorning Kvlt Strangeo Bands // You Axed for It – One cold, gloomy day back in February 2015, I was reviewing a cold, gloomy release by Danish doom/death act Dwell. Their Vermin and Ashes album didn’t especially thrill me, and I was annoyed that they had opted not to include a band photo in the promo materials. Sure, I get it. They wanted to be dark and mysterious. Who doesn’t? I searched online for a suitable image of them but there were none to be found. I became quite vexed. Where the inspiration came from I cannot say but I decided to bestow upon them a bright, mega-cheesy unicorn image, in place of the non-existent band shot. As I contemplated how the vomit of rainbow colors clashed with the murky gray malaise of the album cover, it looked so wrong that it felt so right! And so a blog protocol was born. Send band photos or face extreme unicorn judgment!
The Joys of Initiating Unsuspecting n00bs into the AMG Meatgrinder // Taste the Skull Pit, Poser – When I joined AMG back in its embryonic, protoplasmic stage, there was no probationary period or brutal abuse (aside from assigning me metalcore albums). Things changed as the blog grew and we started bringing on new writers. Soon, a system of impressment, indoctrination and re-education was put in place, and ruthlessly weaponized in service of internet “fame” and “glory.” Each carefully selected wannabe writer, eyes glistening with the ghosts of their past, would serve a tumultuous probationary term, working in complete isolation under the iron thumbs of AMG management. If they somehow survived this experiment in terror, they would be cast into the general population in the Skull Pit, with a besotted cadre of jaded, glassy-eyed veteran staffers. That’s when the real initiation would begin! Imagine Lord of the Flies mixed with The Hunger Games and The Devil’s Rejects, and you get the general idea. Through ritualized humiliation, unreasonable deadlines, and confrontational teaching methods, we slowly transform these sniveling amateurs into barely functional hack reviewers. Believe in the system or be buried by it me.
I wish I had written …
White Wizzard – The Devil’s Cut Review. Yes, the infamous review that’s hung around our necks like a rotting albatross ever since it saw the light of day in 2013. Had I been tasked with doing the review, I would have given it the rating it truly deserved, which is a big, fat, greasy 3.0. Just like the album that came before, and the one that followed. Now, I have nothing against White Wizzard and I enjoy the retro 80s metal style they play, but let’s face it, nothing they ever did came anywhere near a 5.0 (whether in its “Perfect” or “Iconic” guise). My common sense, real-world review would have spared us all a great deal of embarrassment, as well as saving the effort and bleach it took to scrub the office down after the First Grand Sabbaticaling. If only…
I wish I could do over …
Amon Amarth – Sutur Rising Review. As a relatively new reviewer, I got the unexpected chance to weigh in on a new Amon Amarth platter, while I was at the peak of my feverish AA fanboyism. This proved a deadly combination and, before my better angels could caution restraint and moderation, I stamped this thing with a 4.5, and got the album cover tattooed on my dog. With time (and much hobo wine), I realized that I let the moment get the better of me. Despite the presence of a few killer cuts like “War of the Gods” and “Destroyer of the Universe,” Sutur Rising is far from Amon Amarth’s best work. I dutifully submitted a groveling apology in a Contrite Metal Guy piece and tried to move on with my life. 13 years on, this one still stands as my biggest rating misadventure and a source of bitter regret. I blame society (AKA: you, the reader).
I wish more people had read …
Retro-spective Review: Hall Aflame – Guaranteed Forever. The side project of Metal Church’s Kurdt Vanderhoof, Hall Aflame saw but one release in 1991. But what a party this thing was and still is! Adopting a style somewhere between The Cult and The Four Horsemen, Hall Aflame roar through a collection of wildly catchy, burly rockers, making for a highly replay-able album, with only occasional reminders it’s made by the brain behind Metal Church. Cuts like “Shake the Pain,” Child of Medicine,” and “Money” are absolute monsters, and “Another Heartbeat” is one of my favorite songs of all time across all genres. The hugely ass-kicking vocals by completely unknown (then and now) frontman Ron Lowd alone are worth the effort it will take to track down this rare gem. The world continues to sleep on this killer, as evidenced by my retro-spective review scoring exactly ZERO comments. Don’t let this injustice continue. You need to hear this thing, especially with the recent news that Vanderhoof is releasing the long-awaited (by me at least) follow-up in May. You have my word as a Viking ape that satisfaction is Guaranteed Forever.
AMG is Now a Good Capitalist! In this gap-filler post from 2015, I posited the concept of AMG building a merch empire based upon goods of questionable quality (see our branded Uni-Friend and Sabbatical Sausage Maker pictured above). It got reads but, since I found the concept amusing, I wanted MOAR clicks. I credit this piece with motivating me to finally get a batch of actual AMG t-shirts printed up for the undeserving staff. If you see someone wearing one of these rare treasures and kill them, you take their place in the Skull Pit forevermore. It’s just like The Santa Clause, but much, much worse.
Dr. A.N. Grier
AMG and me
Back in the day, we’d be lucky to get two reviews a day at AMG. This led to me refreshing the site every few hours hoping for a bonus review for the day.3 I was obsessed with the writing and these gems I would never have found otherwise. Before I began writing here, I would do that regularly from 2010-2011. One morning I left the lab of my failing start-up and walked into my office to do some work. The post that morning wasn’t a review. Instead, it was instructions on how to apply to be an AMG writer. Without thinking—because I’d been up for roughly 40 straight hours—I submitted a review of 1349’s lackluster Demonoir. Weeks later, I was a n00b in these decrepit halls. And I’m still here regretting that decision, almost ten years to the day since I submitted my first review. It’s funny, now that I’ve gathered everything for this piece, that I found those early days the fondest of times. Those days when I still loved the writers, the readers, writing about metal, and well… music. Now I’m a broken soul, stalking the halls as a sex-depraved ghost,4 avoiding eye contact with Steel because his ape eyes make my pants tight.
But, in all seriousness, it’s been a wild ride and it’s odd to be one of the lucky few who have contributed to two-thirds of AMG’s existence. I’m proud to have kept the output so rounded, delivering correct scores and takes, and providing X-rated content for the younger generations. So, join me in celebrating AMG’s birthday, as I travel back to those early years when I became part of the family and discovered records that shaped the man known, for today at least, as Dr. All. Nostalgic. Grier.
AMG gave to me …
Mors Principium Est // Dawn of the 5th Era – As a n00b, Angry Metal Guy‘s review of Mors Principium Est’s Dawn of the 5th Era made me realize two things: I needed this band in my life and never release an album in December. Thankfully, AMG caught it (while everyone else was busting their asses to write their year-end lists) because it’s a stunning achievement. From that point on, I consider myself one of MPE’s biggest fans. That continuation of the At the Gates sound results in incredible performances and riff after massive riff. Not a single song on this album goes stale and I’ve been listening to it regularly for ten fucking years. I can never seem to find a melodeath group whose entire catalog I march through from beginning to end.5 But MPE is one of them. And, because you might be wondering, … And Death Said Live is their best album.
Voices // London – Back in 2014, I ranked an album I never reviewed. Weird, right? Not only was it a great album, but it was one of my favorite reviews from the illustrious Jean-Luc Ricard, who opened his thoughts with: “If you’re anything like me, you’re super awesome.” Still makes me laugh my ass off. Beyond that, Ricard conveyed the absolute nightmare that you experience when you listen to London. Though Akercocke has since reunited, Voices was an incredible substitute, which takes you through a journey that, somehow, Ricard was able to describe; because I sure as hell can’t. I was doing an oil change on my truck the first time I span it. Never have I taken so long to do that work but I constantly found myself staring off into space, literally frightened by the sounds erupting in my ears. The band has never been able to top London, but that’s OK. It’s one of the beautiful aspects of music—it’s permanent and will be there forever when you need it.
Trials // This Ruined World – When I joined AMG and worked side-by-side with Dr. Fisting, we hit it off. I love the guy and consider him a close friend (though he might not feel the same). When I found out that he started a band called Trials, I had to check it out. With two decent albums under his belt, 2014 saw the release of Trials’ best—and final—album, This Ruined World. I was hooked. And to imagine that without knowing about this band or this person, I might never have experienced his work in Bear Mace and the (to me, at least) incredible Black Sites. Though I don’t return to Trials often, mostly because I can’t pull myself away from Fisting‘s current work, I have a special place in my heart for This Ruined World. It introduced me to a fantastic musician and a good friend.
I wish I had written …
Origin – Omnipresent Review. When you join the crew, the hope is that you get to write that review for a big band. Those bands you grew up with, that released something at that point in your life, or which have such popularity that every other site overrates them. But, at AMG, you kinda have to earn that. Unless it’s, somehow, a popular dungeon synth group; you can just have that. So, when my most-anticipated album of 2014 dropped, I wanted it. But, there wasn’t a chance in hell I would get my hands on Origin’s Omnipresent. I bet you didn’t know I liked tech death, much less Origin. But, I do. I just know there are other, more qualified writers to cover that material. Thankfully, our wise and wonderful Kronos scored it correctly and wrote a fantastic review that describes it perfectly. Since then, I haven’t been as enamored with their material (mostly because this place has turned me into a hateful prick), but that album holds up and still gets many a spin.
I wish I could do over …
Resumed – Alienation Review. I remember when the review for Resumed’s Alienations was published. It was Thanksgiving 2014 and I was already six sheets to the wind when I realized what I was reading: the first double review in AMG history. It wasn’t a record that merited a double but Steel fucked up and double-booked it, thereby unintentionally beginning a trend. Though I couldn’t believe I wasted my time on this thing6 and subjected myself to uncalled-for ridicule, it started one of our most popular segments. Hell, it even led to our Unsigned Band Rodeö pieces. So, for better or worse (and by worse, I mean that year’s burned turkey), we can thank this worthless piece for contributing to AMG lore.
I wish more people had read …
Thine – The Dead City Blueprint [Things You Might Have Missed 2014]. In the process of writing the review for The Deathtrip’s stellar 2014 release, Deep Drone Master, Metal Archives led me to a release we never received. In walks Thine, a progressive rock outfit led by the same person who convinced Aldrahn to come back from retirement to front Deep Drone Master, not to mention drummer Dan Mullins, who returned for My Dying Bride’s newest release. Representing my first ever Things You Might Have Missed piece, I continue to return to this band’s swansong release: it’s beautiful and engaging, and is everything I ever wanted from an album of this caliber. My unpopularity as a n00b, combined with the new year beginning and everyone moving on to January releases, meant no one seemed to care. But I cared. I care so much, in fact, that I’m dropping Thine’s name again, in the hope that Bandcamp credits will be put to good use. You’re welcome.
Dr. Fisting
AMG and me
As a reader of the site’s earliest incarnation, the first thing that stood out to me was that AMG’s writers were clearly educated. Even back then, the reviews were extremely well-written. I don’t mean just in terms of spelling and grammar, but being able to express ideas coherently. If you’ve ever visited any other metal-related sites, you know that these qualities are rare. More importantly, AMG was clearly an independent operation, with no reliance on ad revenue or cozy relationships with record labels. This meant the site was free to post brutally honest reviews, which occasionally resulted in battles against the metal media’s narrative and even the fans themselves. I always enjoyed when some huge band would put out a half-assed album that got rave reviews everywhere else, and then the AMG writeup would take a well-deserved shit on it.
When I started writing for the site a couple of years later, I did my best to uphold those standards. Eventually, as my life and priorities changed, I chose to step back from reviewing to focus on other things. But it was an honor to ride with these guys for as long as I did. I got to review some fantastic records, talk shit about some terrible ones, and make some friends that I am still in contact with to this day.
AMG gave to me …
Pain of Salvation // Road Salt Pt. 1 – I don’t remember if I discovered this record from reading the site or from The Angry One Himself sending it to me (“here, you’ll like this”), but Road Salt Pt. 1 was a complete game-changer. At a time when I was completely bored of “modern metal” and its trappings, I related strongly to PoS’s new direction, in which chug riffs and rapping were replaced by analog ’70s tones and memorable songs. This record was in heavy rotation in the Fisting household, and became a significant influence on my own music.
Satan // Life Sentence – Having missed out on Satan’s original run, I was unaware of their comeback album until the AMG review heaped praise upon it. Lucky for me it did because Life Sentence is full of intelligent lyrics, clever riffs, and memorable hooks. The band has since made three more records, all of which have been varying degrees of excellent. More importantly, discovering Life Sentence sent me on a path to revisit the band’s earlier works, including the highly influential Court in the Act.
Anacrusis // Screams and Whispers – Anacrusis is another band I was completely oblivious to during their lifespan, but discovered much later via Grymm‘s excellent retrospective writeup. This album is incredibly ambitious for its time (1993), pushing thrash metal into new and more introspective territory. There are hints of industrial influence, occasional goth-y keyboards, and some very angular guitar work, even by 1990s standards. This is a classic record from metal’s lost years, and more people should hear it.
I wish I had written …
King’s X – Three Sides of One Review. Not to suggest that Huck didn’t do a fantastic job on the review, because he absolutely nailed it, but King’s X has held a special place in my cold black heart for many years. I should’ve been there for this. There is no good reason why I didn’t do this review (or the related Angry Metal Primer) other than my own laziness and poor time management. Life gets in the way sometimes. I wish I could do over … I regret nothing.
I wish more people had read …
Various reviews of Voivod and Failure albums. As several readers noticed, I made it a personal mission to preach the virtues of Voivod and Failure. I consider both bands to be absolutely brilliant and worthy of greater attention (particularly Failure, whom I suspect most AMG readers are unfamiliar with). I don’t know how many people read those reviews, but whatever that number is, it needed to be more.
#2024 #AMGTurns15 #AmonAmarth #Anacrusis #BlogPost #BlogPosts #Failure #HallAflame #KingsX #MorsPrincipiumEst #Origin #PainOfSalvation #Resumed #Satan #Thine #Trials #Voices #Voivod #WhiteWizzard
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By Carcharodon
15 years ago, on May 19, 2009, Angry Metal Guy spoke. For the very first time as AMG. And he had opinions: Very Important Opinions™. The post attracted relatively little attention at the time, but times change and, over the decade and a half since then, AMG Industries has grown into the blog you know today. Now with a staff of around 25 overrating overwriters (and an entirely non-suspicious graveyard for writers on permanent, all-expenses-paid sabbaticals), we have written more than 9,100 posts, comprising over seven million words. Over the site’s lifetime, we’ve had more than 107 million visits and now achieve well over a million hits each and every month. Through this, we’ve built up a fantastic community of readers drawn from every corner of the globe, whom we have (mostly) loved getting to know in the more than 360,000 comments posted on the site.
We have done this under the careful (if sternly authoritarian) stewardship of our eponymous leader Angry Metal Guy and his iron enforcer, Steel Druhm, while adhering to strict editorial policies and principles. We have done this by simply offering honest (and occasionally brutal) takes, and without running a single advert or taking a single cent from anyone. Ever. Mistakes have undoubtedly been made and we may be a laughing stock in the eyes of music intellectuals, socialites and critics everywhere but we are incredibly proud of what AMG Industries represents. In fact, we believe it may be the best metal blog, with the best community of readers, on the internet.
Now join us as the people responsible for making AMG a reality reflect on what the site means to them and why they would willingly work for a blog that pays in the currency of deadlines, abuse, and hobo wine. Welcome to the 15th Birthdaynalia.
Thou Shalt Have No Other Blogs!
Steel Druhm
AMG and me
I stumbled into the world of AMG Inc. by chance, one day in early 2010 and just never got around to leaving. To put a finer point on it, I’ve been slaving in the AMG salt mines so long, even the extremely sabbaticalized Happy Metal Guy thinks my mind is gone. Over time, I’ve evolved from unpaid assistant to the Founding Overlord Himself to become site overseer and brvtal enforcer of deadlines, and morale (still unpaid). The journey has been a wild one, full of moments I’ll always cherish. It’s also introduced me to a collection of loveable oddballs I care about, even though I want to murderize them most of the time (you would too if you had to deal with their outrageous bullshit daily).1
The site and the extensive work that goes into it have provided me with a satisfaction that my real job often lacks, and even helped me find my soulmate. In short, AMG means the world to me and that’s why I’ve given so much of myself to this little blog these last 14 years. Looking back, I regret nothing (except the staff’s penchant for wildly overrating complete garbage) and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Thank you to the writers past and present who helped make the site possible, and thanks to the readers who make it worth the effort, even though most of you are woefully deficient in the good taste department. Here’s to 15 more years of this burning shitshow of a trainwreck!
AMG gave to me
As I’ve been a part of AMG since the early days, it’s nearly impossible to come up with just three albums the site gave me because it’s given me so many. Instead, I’ll enumerate the biggest non-musical gifts AMG has bestowed upon me over the years.2
Madam X // Be My (Pri)Mate / Down with the Steelness – The best thing AMG gave me by far was the chance to meet my best friend, soulmate and life partner, Madam X. She had read some of my early reviews for AMG and by chance, we happened to run into each other on a now-defunct Facebook metal fan page. She reached out to discuss my reviews and get some recommendations, we started chatting, and the rest, as they say, is history. I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have her and, since she lived in South Africa and I in New York, I highly doubt we ever would have found one another were it not for AMG. For this reason alone, I’ll cherish this little blog until my rusty metal heart explodes in my hairy ape chest. Fun fact: I never had a girlfriend that liked metal, and now I have a wife who listens to stuff that’s so extreme and out there, I end up sounding like my parents and saying shit like “This isn’t music, it’s just crazy noise!” Life is funny sometimes.
The Sadistic Pleasure that Comes from Unicorning Kvlt Strangeo Bands // You Axed for It – One cold, gloomy day back in February 2015, I was reviewing a cold, gloomy release by Danish doom/death act Dwell. Their Vermin and Ashes album didn’t especially thrill me, and I was annoyed that they had opted not to include a band photo in the promo materials. Sure, I get it. They wanted to be dark and mysterious. Who doesn’t? I searched online for a suitable image of them but there were none to be found. I became quite vexed. Where the inspiration came from I cannot say but I decided to bestow upon them a bright, mega-cheesy unicorn image, in place of the non-existent band shot. As I contemplated how the vomit of rainbow colors clashed with the murky gray malaise of the album cover, it looked so wrong that it felt so right! And so a blog protocol was born. Send band photos or face extreme unicorn judgment!
The Joys of Initiating Unsuspecting n00bs into the AMG Meatgrinder // Taste the Skull Pit, Poser – When I joined AMG back in its embryonic, protoplasmic stage, there was no probationary period or brutal abuse (aside from assigning me metalcore albums). Things changed as the blog grew and we started bringing on new writers. Soon, a system of impressment, indoctrination and re-education was put in place, and ruthlessly weaponized in service of internet “fame” and “glory.” Each carefully selected wannabe writer, eyes glistening with the ghosts of their past, would serve a tumultuous probationary term, working in complete isolation under the iron thumbs of AMG management. If they somehow survived this experiment in terror, they would be cast into the general population in the Skull Pit, with a besotted cadre of jaded, glassy-eyed veteran staffers. That’s when the real initiation would begin! Imagine Lord of the Flies mixed with The Hunger Games and The Devil’s Rejects, and you get the general idea. Through ritualized humiliation, unreasonable deadlines, and confrontational teaching methods, we slowly transform these sniveling amateurs into barely functional hack reviewers. Believe in the system or be buried by it me.
I wish I had written …
White Wizzard – The Devil’s Cut Review. Yes, the infamous review that’s hung around our necks like a rotting albatross ever since it saw the light of day in 2013. Had I been tasked with doing the review, I would have given it the rating it truly deserved, which is a big, fat, greasy 3.0. Just like the album that came before, and the one that followed. Now, I have nothing against White Wizzard and I enjoy the retro 80s metal style they play, but let’s face it, nothing they ever did came anywhere near a 5.0 (whether in its “Perfect” or “Iconic” guise). My common sense, real-world review would have spared us all a great deal of embarrassment, as well as saving the effort and bleach it took to scrub the office down after the First Grand Sabbaticaling. If only…
I wish I could do over …
Amon Amarth – Sutur Rising Review. As a relatively new reviewer, I got the unexpected chance to weigh in on a new Amon Amarth platter, while I was at the peak of my feverish AA fanboyism. This proved a deadly combination and, before my better angels could caution restraint and moderation, I stamped this thing with a 4.5, and got the album cover tattooed on my dog. With time (and much hobo wine), I realized that I let the moment get the better of me. Despite the presence of a few killer cuts like “War of the Gods” and “Destroyer of the Universe,” Sutur Rising is far from Amon Amarth’s best work. I dutifully submitted a groveling apology in a Contrite Metal Guy piece and tried to move on with my life. 13 years on, this one still stands as my biggest rating misadventure and a source of bitter regret. I blame society (AKA: you, the reader).
I wish more people had read …
Retro-spective Review: Hall Aflame – Guaranteed Forever. The side project of Metal Church’s Kurdt Vanderhoof, Hall Aflame saw but one release in 1991. But what a party this thing was and still is! Adopting a style somewhere between The Cult and The Four Horsemen, Hall Aflame roar through a collection of wildly catchy, burly rockers, making for a highly replay-able album, with only occasional reminders it’s made by the brain behind Metal Church. Cuts like “Shake the Pain,” Child of Medicine,” and “Money” are absolute monsters, and “Another Heartbeat” is one of my favorite songs of all time across all genres. The hugely ass-kicking vocals by completely unknown (then and now) frontman Ron Lowd alone are worth the effort it will take to track down this rare gem. The world continues to sleep on this killer, as evidenced by my retro-spective review scoring exactly ZERO comments. Don’t let this injustice continue. You need to hear this thing, especially with the recent news that Vanderhoof is releasing the long-awaited (by me at least) follow-up in May. You have my word as a Viking ape that satisfaction is Guaranteed Forever.
AMG is Now a Good Capitalist! In this gap-filler post from 2015, I posited the concept of AMG building a merch empire based upon goods of questionable quality (see our branded Uni-Friend and Sabbatical Sausage Maker pictured above). It got reads but, since I found the concept amusing, I wanted MOAR clicks. I credit this piece with motivating me to finally get a batch of actual AMG t-shirts printed up for the undeserving staff. If you see someone wearing one of these rare treasures and kill them, you take their place in the Skull Pit forevermore. It’s just like The Santa Clause, but much, much worse.
Dr. A.N. Grier
AMG and me
Back in the day, we’d be lucky to get two reviews a day at AMG. This led to me refreshing the site every few hours hoping for a bonus review for the day.3 I was obsessed with the writing and these gems I would never have found otherwise. Before I began writing here, I would do that regularly from 2010-2011. One morning I left the lab of my failing start-up and walked into my office to do some work. The post that morning wasn’t a review. Instead, it was instructions on how to apply to be an AMG writer. Without thinking—because I’d been up for roughly 40 straight hours—I submitted a review of 1349’s lackluster Demonoir. Weeks later, I was a n00b in these decrepit halls. And I’m still here regretting that decision, almost ten years to the day since I submitted my first review. It’s funny, now that I’ve gathered everything for this piece, that I found those early days the fondest of times. Those days when I still loved the writers, the readers, writing about metal, and well… music. Now I’m a broken soul, stalking the halls as a sex-depraved ghost,4 avoiding eye contact with Steel because his ape eyes make my pants tight.
But, in all seriousness, it’s been a wild ride and it’s odd to be one of the lucky few who have contributed to two-thirds of AMG’s existence. I’m proud to have kept the output so rounded, delivering correct scores and takes, and providing X-rated content for the younger generations. So, join me in celebrating AMG’s birthday, as I travel back to those early years when I became part of the family and discovered records that shaped the man known, for today at least, as Dr. All. Nostalgic. Grier.
AMG gave to me …
Mors Principium Est // Dawn of the 5th Era – As a n00b, Angry Metal Guy‘s review of Mors Principium Est’s Dawn of the 5th Era made me realize two things: I needed this band in my life and never release an album in December. Thankfully, AMG caught it (while everyone else was busting their asses to write their year-end lists) because it’s a stunning achievement. From that point on, I consider myself one of MPE’s biggest fans. That continuation of the At the Gates sound results in incredible performances and riff after massive riff. Not a single song on this album goes stale and I’ve been listening to it regularly for ten fucking years. I can never seem to find a melodeath group whose entire catalog I march through from beginning to end.5 But MPE is one of them. And, because you might be wondering, … And Death Said Live is their best album.
Voices // London – Back in 2014, I ranked an album I never reviewed. Weird, right? Not only was it a great album, but it was one of my favorite reviews from the illustrious Jean-Luc Ricard, who opened his thoughts with: “If you’re anything like me, you’re super awesome.” Still makes me laugh my ass off. Beyond that, Ricard conveyed the absolute nightmare that you experience when you listen to London. Though Akercocke has since reunited, Voices was an incredible substitute, which takes you through a journey that, somehow, Ricard was able to describe; because I sure as hell can’t. I was doing an oil change on my truck the first time I span it. Never have I taken so long to do that work but I constantly found myself staring off into space, literally frightened by the sounds erupting in my ears. The band has never been able to top London, but that’s OK. It’s one of the beautiful aspects of music—it’s permanent and will be there forever when you need it.
Trials // This Ruined World – When I joined AMG and worked side-by-side with Dr. Fisting, we hit it off. I love the guy and consider him a close friend (though he might not feel the same). When I found out that he started a band called Trials, I had to check it out. With two decent albums under his belt, 2014 saw the release of Trials’ best—and final—album, This Ruined World. I was hooked. And to imagine that without knowing about this band or this person, I might never have experienced his work in Bear Mace and the (to me, at least) incredible Black Sites. Though I don’t return to Trials often, mostly because I can’t pull myself away from Fisting‘s current work, I have a special place in my heart for This Ruined World. It introduced me to a fantastic musician and a good friend.
I wish I had written …
Origin – Omnipresent Review. When you join the crew, the hope is that you get to write that review for a big band. Those bands you grew up with, that released something at that point in your life, or which have such popularity that every other site overrates them. But, at AMG, you kinda have to earn that. Unless it’s, somehow, a popular dungeon synth group; you can just have that. So, when my most-anticipated album of 2014 dropped, I wanted it. But, there wasn’t a chance in hell I would get my hands on Origin’s Omnipresent. I bet you didn’t know I liked tech death, much less Origin. But, I do. I just know there are other, more qualified writers to cover that material. Thankfully, our wise and wonderful Kronos scored it correctly and wrote a fantastic review that describes it perfectly. Since then, I haven’t been as enamored with their material (mostly because this place has turned me into a hateful prick), but that album holds up and still gets many a spin.
I wish I could do over …
Resumed – Alienation Review. I remember when the review for Resumed’s Alienations was published. It was Thanksgiving 2014 and I was already six sheets to the wind when I realized what I was reading: the first double review in AMG history. It wasn’t a record that merited a double but Steel fucked up and double-booked it, thereby unintentionally beginning a trend. Though I couldn’t believe I wasted my time on this thing6 and subjected myself to uncalled-for ridicule, it started one of our most popular segments. Hell, it even led to our Unsigned Band Rodeö pieces. So, for better or worse (and by worse, I mean that year’s burned turkey), we can thank this worthless piece for contributing to AMG lore.
I wish more people had read …
Thine – The Dead City Blueprint [Things You Might Have Missed 2014]. In the process of writing the review for The Deathtrip’s stellar 2014 release, Deep Drone Master, Metal Archives led me to a release we never received. In walks Thine, a progressive rock outfit led by the same person who convinced Aldrahn to come back from retirement to front Deep Drone Master, not to mention drummer Dan Mullins, who returned for My Dying Bride’s newest release. Representing my first ever Things You Might Have Missed piece, I continue to return to this band’s swansong release: it’s beautiful and engaging, and is everything I ever wanted from an album of this caliber. My unpopularity as a n00b, combined with the new year beginning and everyone moving on to January releases, meant no one seemed to care. But I cared. I care so much, in fact, that I’m dropping Thine’s name again, in the hope that Bandcamp credits will be put to good use. You’re welcome.
Dr. Fisting
AMG and me
As a reader of the site’s earliest incarnation, the first thing that stood out to me was that AMG’s writers were clearly educated. Even back then, the reviews were extremely well-written. I don’t mean just in terms of spelling and grammar, but being able to express ideas coherently. If you’ve ever visited any other metal-related sites, you know that these qualities are rare. More importantly, AMG was clearly an independent operation, with no reliance on ad revenue or cozy relationships with record labels. This meant the site was free to post brutally honest reviews, which occasionally resulted in battles against the metal media’s narrative and even the fans themselves. I always enjoyed when some huge band would put out a half-assed album that got rave reviews everywhere else, and then the AMG writeup would take a well-deserved shit on it.
When I started writing for the site a couple of years later, I did my best to uphold those standards. Eventually, as my life and priorities changed, I chose to step back from reviewing to focus on other things. But it was an honor to ride with these guys for as long as I did. I got to review some fantastic records, talk shit about some terrible ones, and make some friends that I am still in contact with to this day.
AMG gave to me …
Pain of Salvation // Road Salt Pt. 1 – I don’t remember if I discovered this record from reading the site or from The Angry One Himself sending it to me (“here, you’ll like this”), but Road Salt Pt. 1 was a complete game-changer. At a time when I was completely bored of “modern metal” and its trappings, I related strongly to PoS’s new direction, in which chug riffs and rapping were replaced by analog ’70s tones and memorable songs. This record was in heavy rotation in the Fisting household, and became a significant influence on my own music.
Satan // Life Sentence – Having missed out on Satan’s original run, I was unaware of their comeback album until the AMG review heaped praise upon it. Lucky for me it did because Life Sentence is full of intelligent lyrics, clever riffs, and memorable hooks. The band has since made three more records, all of which have been varying degrees of excellent. More importantly, discovering Life Sentence sent me on a path to revisit the band’s earlier works, including the highly influential Court in the Act.
Anacrusis // Screams and Whispers – Anacrusis is another band I was completely oblivious to during their lifespan, but discovered much later via Grymm‘s excellent retrospective writeup. This album is incredibly ambitious for its time (1993), pushing thrash metal into new and more introspective territory. There are hints of industrial influence, occasional goth-y keyboards, and some very angular guitar work, even by 1990s standards. This is a classic record from metal’s lost years, and more people should hear it.
I wish I had written …
King’s X – Three Sides of One Review. Not to suggest that Huck didn’t do a fantastic job on the review, because he absolutely nailed it, but King’s X has held a special place in my cold black heart for many years. I should’ve been there for this. There is no good reason why I didn’t do this review (or the related Angry Metal Primer) other than my own laziness and poor time management. Life gets in the way sometimes. I wish I could do over … I regret nothing.
I wish more people had read …
Various reviews of Voivod and Failure albums. As several readers noticed, I made it a personal mission to preach the virtues of Voivod and Failure. I consider both bands to be absolutely brilliant and worthy of greater attention (particularly Failure, whom I suspect most AMG readers are unfamiliar with). I don’t know how many people read those reviews, but whatever that number is, it needed to be more.
#2024 #AMGTurns15 #AmonAmarth #Anacrusis #BlogPost #BlogPosts #Failure #HallAflame #KingsX #MorsPrincipiumEst #Origin #PainOfSalvation #Resumed #Satan #Thine #Trials #Voices #Voivod #WhiteWizzard
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Dr. A.N. Grier’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Another year, another top-ten list from ole Grier. Unfortunately, this was a difficult year to make my selections. Typically, I have to narrow my list from twenty to thirty albums, but this year pretty much narrowed down itself. But it wasn’t only because I was too goddamn busy to listen to music and write reviews, it also wasn’t the best year for metal. Of the hundreds of albums I forced myself to listen to this year, even my honorable mentions are pretty fucking slim. I know many will argue that this was a fantastic year for metal, but I don’t like prog or doom enough to enjoy the stupid number of releases in those genres. And you’re all terrible for encouraging this shit to happen. Hopefully, King Diamond and Mercyful Fate will release albums in 2024 so we can get some real music.
But for all the work that’s taken me away from writing reviews (which is pretty much the only thing I live for these days), it’s been a good year for insulting and making fun of everyone. If I can’t have droves of amazing records, at least I have a bunch of idiots with bad taste to rip on. The number of 4.5s that everyone whored out on this site is an abomination. And, again, this is all your fault for encouraging scores twice what they should be! Idiots. But, besides all the incorrect scores, this is a pretty good crew. While I can’t help but glare (my mom says that’s just how my face is), the Zoom calls are fun, the daily bickering is therapeutic, and the horrible Doom_et_Al hot takes make me feel better about myself. Without Steel, Madam X, and Sentynel, this place would never exist. No matter how much I try to derail it. While the mighty AMG is busy as fuck and isn’t always around, we also wouldn’t be here without him. I also have to give a shout-out to olde and new editors, like Holdeneye, Wvrm, Kenny, Dolph, and Maddog for all the hard work, bringing back old AMG specials, and helping the newbies onboard. It’s very much appreciated. As for the readers… you know what I’m going to say/call you.
Now for the best list of the bunch and pretty much the only one you should read. You’ll find many records you forgot about here, or you hated to begin with which makes you an idiot.
#ish. Blackbraid // Blackbraid II – I hate that I agree with Doom that an album is good. Honestly, it physically and emotionally hurts me. But there’s not much to be done about Blackbraid’s Blackbraid II because I haven’t been able to stop listening to it since it came out. I can’t say it’s my perfect style of black metal, but the emotion is there, and it’s quite convincing. In particular, “Sadness and the Passage of Time and Memory” is a heart-wrenching piece of staggering beauty. While many complain it’s far too long, it’s only because you expected the follow-up to Blackbraid I to be another measly thirty-five minutes. That isn’t Blackbraid II’s fault. That’s your fault. And please don’t get me started with your opinions on the man’s heritage and if he’s insulting rather than honoring that heritage. Instead, let the soothing acoustic interludes guide you to the engulfing nature of “The Spirit Returns” and “A Song of Death on Winds of Dawn” before “Twilight Hymn of Ancient Blood” tears you a new asshole with its crushing, trashing interlude. Blackbraid II is one of the better atmoblack releases of the year and you gotta get over it and accept it.
#10. Mutoid Man // Mutants – Oh, Mutoid Man, you shifty, unpredictable bastard. How you managed to suck me into War Moans is beyond me because, to be frank, this is not typically the type of metal I like. I mean, not that Mutoid Man has ever solidified themselves into a genre. More like ten of them. But the chaos of the songwriting is typically too much for me. However, these purveyors of the perverse can somehow keep the craziness at bay and wrangle everything into a memorable song. That said, Mutants is rather different than its predecessor. While the insanity and wackiness remain, Mutants shortens the leash and keeps them from roaming too far into the street. The result is something a touch more melodic and less thrashy. That said, there are some fucking heavy songs on this record, like “Broken Glass Ceiling” and “Unborn.” But, in the end, this new release is full of feel-good energy that has you smiling far more than pit stomping. Again, something I’d never see myself enjoying but it’s too much fun to ignore. Each spin reveals even more in its construction, inevitably sucking me further into the silly minds of its creators. I do wish for a better master, but it doesn’t stop me from returning again and again.
#9. Omnicidal // The Omnicidalist – Guitarist/vocalist Sebastian Svedlund is one hell of a talented dude. Not only has he been fronting and playing guitar for the stellar Rimfrost, but he’s now formed a new group that is every bit as exceptional as his black metal counterpart. The main difference is that Svedlund flexes his death and thrash metal chops with Omnicidal’s debut record, The Omnicidalist. In a mere forty-one minutes, The Omnicidalist is an entertaining beast of a record. Right out of the gates, “My Knife” cuts you to ribbons and slowly, yet methodically pulls your large intestine from your body. But what makes The Omnicidalist work are the melodic flavorings spattered between their death-thrash attitude. But even that can’t describe the diversity of the record when you run headfirst into the Amon Amarth, melodeath character of “The Passenger” and old-school, Swethrash of the At the Gates-ish “Cemetery Scream.” And like Rimfrost, Omnicidal chose to produce a warm, open, well-rounded master that lets you enjoy every nook and cranny of the band’s performances.
#8. The Night Eternal // Fatale – How Steel caught this at the end of the year before it slipped by, I’ll never know. But, goddamn, am I glad he did. Sending me a private message of its existence, we spent the next 15 minutes in a Mercyful Fate organism. Which is a lot, considering that’s the longest I’ve been able to hold my load. Though not exactly a Mercyful Fate copycat, there are plenty of references that can be made to Fatale. In reality, The Night Eternal reminds me of those recent explorers of the sound created by King Diamond and co. Bands like Attic and In Solitude come to mind as those bands, as well as this one, take the foundation and build their own house on top of it. Steel described Fatale best when he stated that with each new track, you’re pulled deeper and deeper into the album. The two that got me on the first listen were the back-to-back “Prince of Darkness” and “We Praise Death.” With other great songs coming down the line, like “Run with the Wolves” and “Between the Worlds,” my love for the songwriting only strengthened. And it’s been strengthening ever since with each subsequent listen. Let the “Old Man Metal” moniker be damned. This is way better than all your fucking deathgrind cock-core.
#7. Ars Moriendi // Lorsque Les Coeurs S’assèchent – As I write this blurb, I realize my lists are starting to become predictable. Most Grier lists seem to include Second to Sun, Malokarpatan, and Ars Moriendi. But that isn’t my fault. All are prolific and consistent, releasing, if not their best album with each new release, something pretty damn close. Each is also unique in its brand of black metal. The one-person French outfit, Ars Moriendi, is one whose albums are albums in the truest sense. Never have I ever skipped a song or listened to a track without all the others. Like I said in the review for Lorsque Les Coeurs S’assèchent, it’s a journey. Clocking in at fifty-five minutes, these six songs are overlapping nightmares of ambient, progressive black metal. Never settling too long on one idea, each song is packed to the brim with riffs, orchestral atmospheres, organ interludes, and mind-fucking musical landscapes. Still not as popular as they should be, the songwriting coming out of this guy’s fingers, voice, and drumsticks is mind-boggling and surprisingly beautiful. Like previous years, Lorsque Les Coeurs S’assèchent has secured a safe place on Doktor Grier‘s EOY list.
#6. Bizzarekult // Den Tapte Krigen – Bizzarekult is one of the greatest treasures to ever grace us with its presence. Not only is this brand of black metal my thing, but the man behind it is a better AMG commenter than you. Be less you. Be more Bizarre. After the wonderfully moosey Vi overlevde, Den Tapte Krigen bugs out in a serious way. Everything you ever hoped for on this record is there, and more. This time, the progressive elements have greater direction, the riffs hit harder, and the vocal diversity is far superior to the debut album. For example, consider the gorgeous, Green Carnation-like clean vocals of “Du Lovet Meg.” Or, the crushing Carpathian Forest-esque character of “Midt i Stormen.” Not to mention the six-and-a-half-minute closer, “Himmelen er Utilgjengelig,” is one of the band’s most epic pieces. It ebbs and flows through magnificent Enslaved-esque progressiveness, encapsulating every facet of Den Tapte Krigen. But it also hints at more to come. If there’s anything for sure about the band’s wild songwriting approach is that we haven’t heard it all. With each new release, the bizarre factor increases while maintaining a balance of fantastic songs.
#5. Onheil // In Black Ashes – No band this year has incorporated as many influences into their music (and made it work) as this Dutch quintet. Onheil has been absent for nearly a decade, quietly crafting a new record that explores all they’ve done before and pushes further than ever before. Ditching some of the predictable catchiness of 2014’s Storm Is Coming, In Black Ashes shows the band improving their technicality. The performances are a good two rungs higher on the Onheil ladder than the previous record, from the guitars to the bass to the drums. While much of the Amon Amarthian sound of previous releases is gone, they haven’t abandoned those melodeath vibes. Instead, using their Iron Maiden-meets-black/death approach, the result comes out much in the same vein as Mors Principium Est. Vicious, technical, and with headbangable frenzy, In Black Ashes is the band’s clear statement that they aren’t afraid to step out of their comfort zone and try something new. And why not? Onheil is one of the few bands that can produce music of this caliber without it becoming a wank fest or—even worse—a jumbled mess of influences that cripples each song and implodes an album. I just hope we hear from them again sooner rather than later.
#4. Malokarpatan // Vertumnus Caesar – Here’s another staple to my (and the legendary Dr. Fisting‘s) year-end lists. Black metal with hellashes character and a shit ton of impressive guitar work. Giving absolutely no fucks about the rules of the genre, this Slovakian outfit tinkers with cathedral harpsichords, unsetting praying and chanting, and mixing the songwriting styles of Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden. The result is a wild mishmash of styles that, somehow, avoid being a dumpster fire of influences and conclude as meaningful, complete songs. Honestly, Vertumnus Caesar should only exist in a strange, metal, bizarro world. But, this isn’t the first time they’ve been successful in spitting our weird-ass shit and making it work. They always make it work. And this new release is no different. However, it’s difficult to compare their catalog and determine if Vertumnus Caesar is better than previous releases. Mostly because they continue to tinker with their style on each release. While similarities exist, each album is completely different from the other. Malokarpatan is a breath of fresh air in the black metal genre, with characteristics (if not style) that enforce the no-fucks attitude.
#3. Vulture Industries // Ghosts from the Past – Coming off the heels of 2017’s Stranger Times, Vulture Industries’ newest opus has a lot to prove if it hopes to uproot its predecessor. While never quite ripping up that final root, Ghosts from the Past is every bit as good as Stranger Times. But it does it without sounding like a copycat. It’s drastically different in pace—driving along without exceeding the speed limit, Ghosts from the Past alternates between foot-tappin’ grooves and mighty builds. The opener, “New Lords of Light,” combines both elements, cruising you along the highway before ascending the hill to come face-to-face with a monstrous chorus. Its bookend, the nine-minute “Tyrants Weep Alone,” provides one of the best vocal performances on the album as it builds and builds to a gorgeous passage that leaves my knees weak. But it’s the Song o’ the Year, “Right Here in the Dark,” that encapsulates everything that makes up Vulture Industries in a fun, yet crushing way. Ghosts from the Past’s accessible, Arcturusian style makes it the most fun I’ve had all year.
#2. Sodomisery // Mezzaroth – You knew this was coming. Dr. Sodomisery would not let this list go by without repping these mighty Swedes. After 2020’s mediocre The Great Demise, I didn’t lose faith. I knew there was something to the band’s songwriting approach that would bubble to the top. With Mezzaroth came a new approach, emphasizing the black, death, and melodeath with massive orchestration atmospheres. What makes Mezzaroth work so well is that these atmospherics range across many influences. These include the Dimmu Borgir bigness of “Rebuilding,” the Hypocrisy-esque vocal and guitar work of “Demon in Heaven,” and the Mistur somberness of “Delusion.” While each song stands alone, the depressing theme of mental health pulls them together. And, in the time it takes a high schooler to shower, you’ve already experienced this fantastic album twice in full. It’s a ridiculously tight album for all its content, making it one of my most frequented albums of 2023. Not to mention, the master is slick and dynamic, letting you absorb it through your pores. So, do yourself a favor and get over the band name so you can experience one of the best records of the year.
#1. Mephorash // Krystl-Ah – This one surprised me more than anyone. As I stated in the review of the mighty Krystl-Ah, never in my wildest dreams did I expect Mephorash to top 2019’s Shem Ha Mephorash. But, by god, they did. Krystl-Ah contains all the elements that make Shem Ha Mephorash such a great meloblack record. Huge builds and atmospheres, passionate songwriting, and powerful lyrics and vocal performances. But, Krystl-Ah is a more complete album, transitioning seamlessly from song to song as if it were a single track. Using an approach of long runtimes, the band is completely dependent on pulling off that final climax in each song. But, somehow, they’ve pulled it off even better than they ever have before. Songs like “I Am” and “Mephoriam” add a new dimension that doesn’t so much add layers to the builds, but more like they’re adding band on top of band. There’s no other way to describe the passion and pure massiveness of these songs. Round it out with a dynamic master and Krystl-Ah is the most emotionally demanding record I’ve heard all year.
Honorable Mentions
- The Gauntlet // Dark Steel and Fire – No matter how I try, I can not put this little beauty to bed. Combining thrash with Bathorycore, Dark Steel and Fire hits me below the belt and it has never felt so good to have bruised balls.
- Tsjuder // Helvegr – It would be silly not to include Helvegr on my list. For the style, Tsjuder is one of the best out there. And, amazingly, they can continue to release quality black metal with the same aggression as they had back in 2000.
- Electrocutioner // False Idols – For a rando, False Idols was a fun surprise. Playing rather traditional thrash metal, Electrocutioner delivered an album that acts like a live setlist at your favorite dive bar. In a mere thirty-four minutes, you’ll still be plenty drunk and ordering an Uber to haul your ass home.
- Children of the Reptile // Heavy Is the Head – Not only did Children of the Reptile win the award for best band photo, but Heavy Is the Head’s weird mix of heavy metal and thrash was a hell of a good time. Toss in some ridiculous lyrics and you’ll be slapping pig butt all the way to the fair.
Disappointments o’ the Year
- Metallica // 72 Seasons – That’s too many seasons. Way too many seasons. I enjoyed St. Anger more.
- Immortal // War Against All – Last year it was Abbath’s Dread Reaver. Now this? What the fuck?
Songs o’ the Year
- Vulture Industries – “This Hell Is Mine”
This is pretty much how I feel in the AMG office.
- Vulture Industries – “Right Here in the Dark”
Easily one of the best songs of the year. Hooking as a motherfucker and so much fun to put on repeat.
- Sodomisery – “Delusion”
Lots of Mors Principium Est melodeath thrashiness to make my olde noggin bob.
- Mephorash – “I Am”
Like Shem Ha Mephorash’s “Sanguinem,” “I Am” is a quintessential listen for all Mephorash fans.
- Mephorash – “Mephoriam”
Easily the most devastating song I’ve heard all year. While it’s incredible, it fucking cripples me.
#2023 #AmonAmarth #Arcturus #ArsMoriendi #AtTheGates #Attic #Bathory #Bizzarekult #Blackbraid #BlogPosts #CarpathianForest #ChildrenOfTheReptile #DimmuBorgir #DrANGrierSTopTenIshOf2023 #Electrocutioner #Eleine #Enslaved #GreenCarnation #Hypocrisy #InSolitude #IronMaiden #KingDiamond #Lists #Listurnalia #Malokarpatan #Mephorash #MercyfulFate #Metallica #Mistur #MorsPrincipiumEst #MutoidMan #Omnicidal #Onheil #Rimfrost #SecondToSun #Sodomisery #TheGuantlet #TheNightEternal #Tsjuder #VultureIndustries
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Dr. A.N. Grier’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Another year, another top-ten list from ole Grier. Unfortunately, this was a difficult year to make my selections. Typically, I have to narrow my list from twenty to thirty albums, but this year pretty much narrowed down itself. But it wasn’t only because I was too goddamn busy to listen to music and write reviews, it also wasn’t the best year for metal. Of the hundreds of albums I forced myself to listen to this year, even my honorable mentions are pretty fucking slim. I know many will argue that this was a fantastic year for metal, but I don’t like prog or doom enough to enjoy the stupid number of releases in those genres. And you’re all terrible for encouraging this shit to happen. Hopefully, King Diamond and Mercyful Fate will release albums in 2024 so we can get some real music.
But for all the work that’s taken me away from writing reviews (which is pretty much the only thing I live for these days), it’s been a good year for insulting and making fun of everyone. If I can’t have droves of amazing records, at least I have a bunch of idiots with bad taste to rip on. The number of 4.5s that everyone whored out on this site is an abomination. And, again, this is all your fault for encouraging scores twice what they should be! Idiots. But, besides all the incorrect scores, this is a pretty good crew. While I can’t help but glare (my mom says that’s just how my face is), the Zoom calls are fun, the daily bickering is therapeutic, and the horrible Doom_et_Al hot takes make me feel better about myself. Without Steel, Madam X, and Sentynel, this place would never exist. No matter how much I try to derail it. While the mighty AMG is busy as fuck and isn’t always around, we also wouldn’t be here without him. I also have to give a shout-out to olde and new editors, like Holdeneye, Wvrm, Kenny, Dolph, and Maddog for all the hard work, bringing back old AMG specials, and helping the newbies onboard. It’s very much appreciated. As for the readers… you know what I’m going to say/call you.
Now for the best list of the bunch and pretty much the only one you should read. You’ll find many records you forgot about here, or you hated to begin with which makes you an idiot.
#ish. Blackbraid // Blackbraid II – I hate that I agree with Doom that an album is good. Honestly, it physically and emotionally hurts me. But there’s not much to be done about Blackbraid’s Blackbraid II because I haven’t been able to stop listening to it since it came out. I can’t say it’s my perfect style of black metal, but the emotion is there, and it’s quite convincing. In particular, “Sadness and the Passage of Time and Memory” is a heart-wrenching piece of staggering beauty. While many complain it’s far too long, it’s only because you expected the follow-up to Blackbraid I to be another measly thirty-five minutes. That isn’t Blackbraid II’s fault. That’s your fault. And please don’t get me started with your opinions on the man’s heritage and if he’s insulting rather than honoring that heritage. Instead, let the soothing acoustic interludes guide you to the engulfing nature of “The Spirit Returns” and “A Song of Death on Winds of Dawn” before “Twilight Hymn of Ancient Blood” tears you a new asshole with its crushing, trashing interlude. Blackbraid II is one of the better atmoblack releases of the year and you gotta get over it and accept it.
#10. Mutoid Man // Mutants – Oh, Mutoid Man, you shifty, unpredictable bastard. How you managed to suck me into War Moans is beyond me because, to be frank, this is not typically the type of metal I like. I mean, not that Mutoid Man has ever solidified themselves into a genre. More like ten of them. But the chaos of the songwriting is typically too much for me. However, these purveyors of the perverse can somehow keep the craziness at bay and wrangle everything into a memorable song. That said, Mutants is rather different than its predecessor. While the insanity and wackiness remain, Mutants shortens the leash and keeps them from roaming too far into the street. The result is something a touch more melodic and less thrashy. That said, there are some fucking heavy songs on this record, like “Broken Glass Ceiling” and “Unborn.” But, in the end, this new release is full of feel-good energy that has you smiling far more than pit stomping. Again, something I’d never see myself enjoying but it’s too much fun to ignore. Each spin reveals even more in its construction, inevitably sucking me further into the silly minds of its creators. I do wish for a better master, but it doesn’t stop me from returning again and again.
#9. Omnicidal // The Omnicidalist – Guitarist/vocalist Sebastian Svedlund is one hell of a talented dude. Not only has he been fronting and playing guitar for the stellar Rimfrost, but he’s now formed a new group that is every bit as exceptional as his black metal counterpart. The main difference is that Svedlund flexes his death and thrash metal chops with Omnicidal’s debut record, The Omnicidalist. In a mere forty-one minutes, The Omnicidalist is an entertaining beast of a record. Right out of the gates, “My Knife” cuts you to ribbons and slowly, yet methodically pulls your large intestine from your body. But what makes The Omnicidalist work are the melodic flavorings spattered between their death-thrash attitude. But even that can’t describe the diversity of the record when you run headfirst into the Amon Amarth, melodeath character of “The Passenger” and old-school, Swethrash of the At the Gates-ish “Cemetery Scream.” And like Rimfrost, Omnicidal chose to produce a warm, open, well-rounded master that lets you enjoy every nook and cranny of the band’s performances.
#8. The Night Eternal // Fatale – How Steel caught this at the end of the year before it slipped by, I’ll never know. But, goddamn, am I glad he did. Sending me a private message of its existence, we spent the next 15 minutes in a Mercyful Fate organism. Which is a lot, considering that’s the longest I’ve been able to hold my load. Though not exactly a Mercyful Fate copycat, there are plenty of references that can be made to Fatale. In reality, The Night Eternal reminds me of those recent explorers of the sound created by King Diamond and co. Bands like Attic and In Solitude come to mind as those bands, as well as this one, take the foundation and build their own house on top of it. Steel described Fatale best when he stated that with each new track, you’re pulled deeper and deeper into the album. The two that got me on the first listen were the back-to-back “Prince of Darkness” and “We Praise Death.” With other great songs coming down the line, like “Run with the Wolves” and “Between the Worlds,” my love for the songwriting only strengthened. And it’s been strengthening ever since with each subsequent listen. Let the “Old Man Metal” moniker be damned. This is way better than all your fucking deathgrind cock-core.
#7. Ars Moriendi // Lorsque Les Coeurs S’assèchent – As I write this blurb, I realize my lists are starting to become predictable. Most Grier lists seem to include Second to Sun, Malokarpatan, and Ars Moriendi. But that isn’t my fault. All are prolific and consistent, releasing, if not their best album with each new release, something pretty damn close. Each is also unique in its brand of black metal. The one-person French outfit, Ars Moriendi, is one whose albums are albums in the truest sense. Never have I ever skipped a song or listened to a track without all the others. Like I said in the review for Lorsque Les Coeurs S’assèchent, it’s a journey. Clocking in at fifty-five minutes, these six songs are overlapping nightmares of ambient, progressive black metal. Never settling too long on one idea, each song is packed to the brim with riffs, orchestral atmospheres, organ interludes, and mind-fucking musical landscapes. Still not as popular as they should be, the songwriting coming out of this guy’s fingers, voice, and drumsticks is mind-boggling and surprisingly beautiful. Like previous years, Lorsque Les Coeurs S’assèchent has secured a safe place on Doktor Grier‘s EOY list.
#6. Bizzarekult // Den Tapte Krigen – Bizzarekult is one of the greatest treasures to ever grace us with its presence. Not only is this brand of black metal my thing, but the man behind it is a better AMG commenter than you. Be less you. Be more Bizarre. After the wonderfully moosey Vi overlevde, Den Tapte Krigen bugs out in a serious way. Everything you ever hoped for on this record is there, and more. This time, the progressive elements have greater direction, the riffs hit harder, and the vocal diversity is far superior to the debut album. For example, consider the gorgeous, Green Carnation-like clean vocals of “Du Lovet Meg.” Or, the crushing Carpathian Forest-esque character of “Midt i Stormen.” Not to mention the six-and-a-half-minute closer, “Himmelen er Utilgjengelig,” is one of the band’s most epic pieces. It ebbs and flows through magnificent Enslaved-esque progressiveness, encapsulating every facet of Den Tapte Krigen. But it also hints at more to come. If there’s anything for sure about the band’s wild songwriting approach is that we haven’t heard it all. With each new release, the bizarre factor increases while maintaining a balance of fantastic songs.
#5. Onheil // In Black Ashes – No band this year has incorporated as many influences into their music (and made it work) as this Dutch quintet. Onheil has been absent for nearly a decade, quietly crafting a new record that explores all they’ve done before and pushes further than ever before. Ditching some of the predictable catchiness of 2014’s Storm Is Coming, In Black Ashes shows the band improving their technicality. The performances are a good two rungs higher on the Onheil ladder than the previous record, from the guitars to the bass to the drums. While much of the Amon Amarthian sound of previous releases is gone, they haven’t abandoned those melodeath vibes. Instead, using their Iron Maiden-meets-black/death approach, the result comes out much in the same vein as Mors Principium Est. Vicious, technical, and with headbangable frenzy, In Black Ashes is the band’s clear statement that they aren’t afraid to step out of their comfort zone and try something new. And why not? Onheil is one of the few bands that can produce music of this caliber without it becoming a wank fest or—even worse—a jumbled mess of influences that cripples each song and implodes an album. I just hope we hear from them again sooner rather than later.
#4. Malokarpatan // Vertumnus Caesar – Here’s another staple to my (and the legendary Dr. Fisting‘s) year-end lists. Black metal with hellashes character and a shit ton of impressive guitar work. Giving absolutely no fucks about the rules of the genre, this Slovakian outfit tinkers with cathedral harpsichords, unsetting praying and chanting, and mixing the songwriting styles of Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden. The result is a wild mishmash of styles that, somehow, avoid being a dumpster fire of influences and conclude as meaningful, complete songs. Honestly, Vertumnus Caesar should only exist in a strange, metal, bizarro world. But, this isn’t the first time they’ve been successful in spitting our weird-ass shit and making it work. They always make it work. And this new release is no different. However, it’s difficult to compare their catalog and determine if Vertumnus Caesar is better than previous releases. Mostly because they continue to tinker with their style on each release. While similarities exist, each album is completely different from the other. Malokarpatan is a breath of fresh air in the black metal genre, with characteristics (if not style) that enforce the no-fucks attitude.
#3. Vulture Industries // Ghosts from the Past – Coming off the heels of 2017’s Stranger Times, Vulture Industries’ newest opus has a lot to prove if it hopes to uproot its predecessor. While never quite ripping up that final root, Ghosts from the Past is every bit as good as Stranger Times. But it does it without sounding like a copycat. It’s drastically different in pace—driving along without exceeding the speed limit, Ghosts from the Past alternates between foot-tappin’ grooves and mighty builds. The opener, “New Lords of Light,” combines both elements, cruising you along the highway before ascending the hill to come face-to-face with a monstrous chorus. Its bookend, the nine-minute “Tyrants Weep Alone,” provides one of the best vocal performances on the album as it builds and builds to a gorgeous passage that leaves my knees weak. But it’s the Song o’ the Year, “Right Here in the Dark,” that encapsulates everything that makes up Vulture Industries in a fun, yet crushing way. Ghosts from the Past’s accessible, Arcturusian style makes it the most fun I’ve had all year.
#2. Sodomisery // Mezzaroth – You knew this was coming. Dr. Sodomisery would not let this list go by without repping these mighty Swedes. After 2020’s mediocre The Great Demise, I didn’t lose faith. I knew there was something to the band’s songwriting approach that would bubble to the top. With Mezzaroth came a new approach, emphasizing the black, death, and melodeath with massive orchestration atmospheres. What makes Mezzaroth work so well is that these atmospherics range across many influences. These include the Dimmu Borgir bigness of “Rebuilding,” the Hypocrisy-esque vocal and guitar work of “Demon in Heaven,” and the Mistur somberness of “Delusion.” While each song stands alone, the depressing theme of mental health pulls them together. And, in the time it takes a high schooler to shower, you’ve already experienced this fantastic album twice in full. It’s a ridiculously tight album for all its content, making it one of my most frequented albums of 2023. Not to mention, the master is slick and dynamic, letting you absorb it through your pores. So, do yourself a favor and get over the band name so you can experience one of the best records of the year.
#1. Mephorash // Krystl-Ah – This one surprised me more than anyone. As I stated in the review of the mighty Krystl-Ah, never in my wildest dreams did I expect Mephorash to top 2019’s Shem Ha Mephorash. But, by god, they did. Krystl-Ah contains all the elements that make Shem Ha Mephorash such a great meloblack record. Huge builds and atmospheres, passionate songwriting, and powerful lyrics and vocal performances. But, Krystl-Ah is a more complete album, transitioning seamlessly from song to song as if it were a single track. Using an approach of long runtimes, the band is completely dependent on pulling off that final climax in each song. But, somehow, they’ve pulled it off even better than they ever have before. Songs like “I Am” and “Mephoriam” add a new dimension that doesn’t so much add layers to the builds, but more like they’re adding band on top of band. There’s no other way to describe the passion and pure massiveness of these songs. Round it out with a dynamic master and Krystl-Ah is the most emotionally demanding record I’ve heard all year.
Honorable Mentions
- The Gauntlet // Dark Steel and Fire – No matter how I try, I can not put this little beauty to bed. Combining thrash with Bathorycore, Dark Steel and Fire hits me below the belt and it has never felt so good to have bruised balls.
- Tsjuder // Helvegr – It would be silly not to include Helvegr on my list. For the style, Tsjuder is one of the best out there. And, amazingly, they can continue to release quality black metal with the same aggression as they had back in 2000.
- Electrocutioner // False Idols – For a rando, False Idols was a fun surprise. Playing rather traditional thrash metal, Electrocutioner delivered an album that acts like a live setlist at your favorite dive bar. In a mere thirty-four minutes, you’ll still be plenty drunk and ordering an Uber to haul your ass home.
- Children of the Reptile // Heavy Is the Head – Not only did Children of the Reptile win the award for best band photo, but Heavy Is the Head’s weird mix of heavy metal and thrash was a hell of a good time. Toss in some ridiculous lyrics and you’ll be slapping pig butt all the way to the fair.
Disappointments o’ the Year
- Metallica // 72 Seasons – That’s too many seasons. Way too many seasons. I enjoyed St. Anger more.
- Immortal // War Against All – Last year it was Abbath’s Dread Reaver. Now this? What the fuck?
Songs o’ the Year
- Vulture Industries – “This Hell Is Mine”
This is pretty much how I feel in the AMG office.
- Vulture Industries – “Right Here in the Dark”
Easily one of the best songs of the year. Hooking as a motherfucker and so much fun to put on repeat.
- Sodomisery – “Delusion”
Lots of Mors Principium Est melodeath thrashiness to make my olde noggin bob.
- Mephorash – “I Am”
Like Shem Ha Mephorash’s “Sanguinem,” “I Am” is a quintessential listen for all Mephorash fans.
- Mephorash – “Mephoriam”
Easily the most devastating song I’ve heard all year. While it’s incredible, it fucking cripples me.
#2023 #AmonAmarth #Arcturus #ArsMoriendi #AtTheGates #Attic #Bathory #Bizzarekult #Blackbraid #BlogPosts #CarpathianForest #ChildrenOfTheReptile #DimmuBorgir #DrANGrierSTopTenIshOf2023 #Electrocutioner #Eleine #Enslaved #GreenCarnation #Hypocrisy #InSolitude #IronMaiden #KingDiamond #Lists #Listurnalia #Malokarpatan #Mephorash #MercyfulFate #Metallica #Mistur #MorsPrincipiumEst #MutoidMan #Omnicidal #Onheil #Rimfrost #SecondToSun #Sodomisery #TheGuantlet #TheNightEternal #Tsjuder #VultureIndustries
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Holdeneye’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023
By Holdeneye
I’m happy to report that I don’t have much to say on the personal front this year. I’m happier and healthier than I have been in quite some time. Sure, raising a teenage daughter is no easy feat these days, but at least I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to restructure my life to better prepare for this foreseeable occurrence. On balance, my work was way less stressful in 2023—even if I did take part in the single-most frustrating and complicated incident of my entire career this year—and it’s amazing how much that has improved my life. I genuinely wish everyone could be so lucky.
But as good as things were generally this year, I went through an extended rough patch when it came to enjoying and writing about new music. A lot of factors contributed to this rough patch, but it all left me wanting to seek solace in the company of some of my all-time favorite records instead of any current assignments. So, a couple of times this year, I dumped all of my promos and took a break. Now, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t commit to many things, because if I commit to something, I want to do it well. And when I can’t do that, it fills me with guilt. This accumulating guilt left me questioning whether or not I deserved to hang around these parts any longer; in fact, I started writing up my resignation letter multiple times. Fortunately, I never put any of these on Steel‘s desk, because I now know that I want to stick around this place in whatever way I can. I work with a great cast of characters here, and I’d miss them terribly. But ultimately, it was the music that saved me. A few of the records on the following list hit me at just the right time, reminding me of who I am and why I’m here.
I want to thank all of my fellow writers and editors for the many hours they devote to the cause of great music. Thanks to Steel Druhm for the indomitable will with which he rules this realm. How he does everything he does here never ceases to amaze me. Finally, thanks to you, the reader, for being such an integral part of this place. It’s always fun to hear from you, whether you’re heaping praise upon, or throwing tomatoes at, what I’ve written. So, without any further ado, I present to you a clumsily curated list of obscure oddities. It is designed with one purpose: to have as little overlap with my colleagues as possible. Behold, the List of Trvth!
#ish. All for Metal // Legends – As I said in my Heavy Moves Heavy entry for “Mountain of Power,” this one is pure Holdeneye-bait. Living within the same realm as Manowar, Sabaton, and Brothers of Metal, some of my all-time favorite acts, All for Metal’s debut Legends was a wonderful surprise. When it released this past summer, it was just the shot in the arm I needed, its bouncy, cheese-filled anthems plastering a big, dumb smile on my big, dumb face. The songwriting is great, and the powerful vocals from Antonio Calanna nudge the album towards true greatness. Like Brothers of Metal before them, All for Metal quickly became a Holdeneye Family road trip soundtrack staple. Sample: “Goddess of War”
#10. Lord Mountain // The Oath – Lord Mountain may have struck early this year, but The Oath has stayed by my side since its release back in January. A gloriously olde-timey mixture of Sabbath and Manilla Road, The Oath is a scrumptious platter of doomy traditional metal. The riffs are big, and the fantasy storytelling is bigger, as Lord Mountain hands us a war hammer and sends us on a danger-fraught quest. Everything here, from the style, to the production and Ozzy-like vocals screams ‘old,’ and the tight 36-minute package is so well balanced that it is equally qualified for a short, chill-out session or a tough grind in the gym. Sample: “The Oath”
#9. Mystic Prophecy // Hellriot – Ever since I first heard the singles for Mystic Prophecy’s 2007 album Satanic Curses, these guys have been my personal archetype for guitar-centric heavy metal with a power metal bent. The band’s beefy (I simply cannot talk about these guys without using ‘beefy’ as an adjective) guitar sound is matched by the raspy croon of R.D. Liapakis, a man whose voice seems as strong as ever after decades of wailing at the mic. Hellriot is the sound of Mystic Prophecy releasing their best material in sixteen years, and it easily attained the status of one of my most-listened-to albums of 2023. Sample: “Revenge and Fire”
#8. Frozen Crown // Call of the North – It’s been quite a while since a power metal album really grabbed me, but Call of the North rekindled my love for the cheesiest of metals when it released back in March. Where many bands of this style lose me with vocals and guitar work that sound too sugary for these ears, Frozen Crown puts the power in power metal with their extremely heavy riffing and with the incredible vocals of Giada Etro. As Eldritch Elitist said in his review of Call of the North, ‘Frozen Crown operates best with the pedal welded to the metal,’ and rarely does that pedal leave the floor here. The band’s successful use of melo-death stylings on Call of the North confirms a suspicion that I’ve had for quite some time: the vast majority of melodic death metal would work better with clean vocals. Yeah, I said it. Come at me. Sample: “Call of the North”
#7. Gatekeeper // From Western Shores – Last year, Ironflame was my tried-and-true, straightforward traditional metal year-end list entrant, and this year’s spot goes to Gatekeeper. From Western Shores sounded good on my first listen, but I didn’t fully grasp how well-wrought these songs were until I returned at a later date; suddenly, it clicked. Traditional metal and fantasy stories go together like a Kirkland can o’ chicken mixed into Cup Noodles, and the results here are no less savory. Tale after tale is told to the tumultuous tune of titanic riffs and twisted-testicle wails, and I simply can’t get enough of it. I’ve been rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a decade, and this record has been an excellent musical pairing for such an occasion. Sample: “Shadow and Stone”
#6. Disguised Malignance // Entering the Gateways – It’s about time some brutality showed up on this list! Landing just two short weeks after an insanely hyped and equally lauded release from Tomb Mold, the teenagers in Disguised Malignance quietly released an album in the same vein. Drawing on old-school death mechanics and adding a spritz of proggy technicality, Entering the Gateways blew me away with its scope and execution. It’s almost like these youngsters don’t know how rude it is to kick in the door and outdo many of the scene’s heavyweights with your debut record. As I alluded to in my review for Entering the Gateways, Disguised Malignance didn’t overdo the progginess here; they found ‘the right balance between thinking-man’s and stinking-man’s death metal.’ Damn, that’s a good line. Sample: “Beyond (Entering the Gateways)”
#5. Frozen Soul // Glacial Domination – The phrase ‘glacial domination’ perfectly describes how this album won me over: slowly, and with devastation. Like many other critics around these parts, I initially dismissed Glacial Domination as just another one-note death metal beatdown, but because something kept drawing me back, I eventually realized something: I really like this one note. Groovy death metal is my favorite death metal, and Glacial Domination is all groove, all the time. The way these Texans combined earth-churning Bolt Thrower rhythms with a bit of Swede-death, some hardcore-style breakdowns, and the occasional creepy synth passage put this record firmly within my wheelhouse, and like the titular glacier, it was been carving my valley ever since. I could have kept things simple and just used all ten proper tracks here to form my entire Heavy Moves Heavy list. Yes, it’s that good. Sample: “Arsenal of War”
#4. Legendry // Time Immortal Wept – At the risk of falling prey to recency bias, I’m including Time Immortal Wept at #4 because it has utterly bewitched me since I discovered it a few short weeks ago. Legendry’s prog-infused traditional metal is simply magical, and its 43-minute runtime feels like half of that. With a great balance of heavier metal parts and psychedelic prog elements, these songs have achieved legendary status in my heart in very short order. I honestly feel like I’ve been listening to some of these tracks on classic rock radio for my entire life; that’s how much they resonate with me. My first listen of Time Immortal Wept was on the treadmill, and when it finished, I wanted to keep training so I wouldn’t have to stop listening, even for a minute—this is no small feat considering my lifelong hatred of cardio. I just wish I’d discovered this record before the vinyl was sold out. Sample: “Chariots of Bedlam”
#3. Enforced // War Remains – What can I say that I haven’t already said about Enforced? These guys fucking rule; it’s as simple as that. War Remains may not be my favorite Enforced record, but it’s not much of a step down either. These guys sound more pissed-off than ever, and the half-hour runtime makes repeat listens almost a necessity. War Remains is truly an album of all occasions for me. If I’m happy, I put it on and bounce around with joy. If I’m angry, I put in on and exorcise my rage. If I’m sad, I put it on to give myself an energizing slap across the face (after I properly acknowledge and give space to my sadness, of course. It’s 2023 for heaven’s sake). If my kids are being too loud, it put it on and crank it until I can no longer hear them. War Remains is just another piece of evidence confirming that Enforced is the most consistently awesome thrash band running at this point in history. Sample: “Hanged by My Hand”
#2. By Fire and Sword // Glory – Steel Druhm dodged a huge, yuuuge bullet with this one. Glory lay unclaimed in the promo bin when I happened upon it one day, and if I’d taken enough time to realize that the band’s overtly religious themes were satire (read: if I’d listened to “Leave a Little Room” all the way through until the part where its satirical nature is obvious), I would have claimed it and done terrible, score counter-violating things to it. Musically, Glory is heavy in all the right ways, and honestly, this is what I wish Ghost sounded like. The preachy spoken word parts and the beautiful singing combine with the music to add just the right amount of creepy, cringe-inducing irony to the experience. This is such a bizarre album, and I love every single moment of it. Sample: “The Feast”
#1. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – I can be relatively brief here since I slobbered all over this record fairly recently. Towers of Gold is the kind of record that made heavy metal so attractive to me in the first place; it’s big, bold, and filled to the brim with electric energy. Founder and bassist George Apalodimas outdid himself with these compositions, and landing a godlike vocal talent like Daniel Heiman helped the record achieve perfection. Not a single note is wasted; there’s not one moment of this album that doesn’t push forward its powerful fantasy tale. I can say without hesitation that if I hadn’t encountered this album in 2023, I probably wouldn’t be writing this list. Towers of Gold reminded me just how much heavy metal means to me, and it reminded me how much of an honor it is to be able to share great music with you all. Thanks, Sacred Outcry. Sample: “The Voyage”
Honorable Mentions
- Warcrab // The Howling Silence
- Valdrin // Throne of the Lunar Soul
- Helms Deep // Treacherous Ways
- Finality // Technocracy
- Cruel Force // Dawn of the Axe
- Owlbear // Chaos to the Realm
Non-Metal Record o’ the Year
Bards of Skaði // Glysisvallur: Musick from the Frozen Atlantis – Thomas von Wachenfeldt is no stranger to my year-end lists, but he’s never earned a spot quite like this before. Bards of Skaði finds the Swedish death metal maestro leaving his growls at home and performing all strings, keys and programming as he teams up with fellow music professor Göran Månsson on flutes and percussion to provide an enthralling journey through the fallen kingdoms of history. Drawing upon Nordic folk, classical, film score, and ambient styles, Glysisvallur is one beautiful track after another. Whether enchanting (“Yxdans”) or haunting (“Nifelhel”), this music has been the perfect soundtrack for my recent walks and drives throughout the moist and misty Pacific Northwest winter. My love of this record just further cements Wachenfeldt as one of my favorite musicians on earth, regardless of style.
Olde Record o’ the Year
Amon Amarth // With Oden on Our Side – When I was having a hard time wanting to listen to new music early on this year, no record from my past made an appearance more often than this one. With Oden on Our Side is a perfect record, a bona fide 5.0/5.0, and its crushing force was a soothing balm to my aching soul this year. According to my streaming service’s year-end summary, I listened to “Gods of War Arise” 56 times; I like to pretend to be a Viking by taking cold showers and ice baths, and nothing gives my simple mind power over my substantial matter like that track does. This was the first death metal album I ever purchased, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.1
Disappointment (and Amusing Anecdote) o’ the Year
Project: Roenwolfe // Project: Roenwolfe – This one hurt. I really liked Project: Roenwolfe’s previous album, Edge of Saturn, but this one just fell completely flat for me. I found the music pretty uninteresting overall, and my review highlighted the strained vocals of singer Patrick Parris as one of the record’s flaws. This is where the story should probably end, but an entertaining event occurred that made things a little more interesting. Shortly after my review went live, I saw a post on Project: Roenwolfe’s now-defunct Facebook page—yes, I follow the band and support them. I even bought this record even though I didn’t care for it—where Parris announced his retirement from music. He noted that his voice may not be what it used to be, and that he doesn’t make music to have it compared ‘to the Iced Earths and Cages of the world or get slandered for not sounding enough like them in some cases.’ I said to myself, ‘Huh. It kinda sounds like he’s talking to me.’ He then went on, saying that words spouted by random internet people ‘are a powerful motivator, but….can do as much harm as good, (While I’m on that topic AMG I love you, but Holdeneye can hold a kiss for my rear-end.) At that point I said to myself, ‘Oh. He’s definitely talking about me.’ In another paragraph, he said that his post was not made towards any specific people, but color me skeptical after he mentioned his butt, my name, and my lips in the same sentence. In truth, I found this all pretty amusing, but I do feel bad for the guy. I’m grateful for the great music that he’s been a part of, and I really do wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.
Song o’ the Year
Sacred Outcry // “Towers of Gold” – A labyrinth with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the cursed structure it describes, “Towers of Gold” does pretty much everything. It has fast-paced riffing, stratospheric vocals, and blistering leads, but it also knows how to play things slow, throwing in theatricality and atmosphere aplenty. The song puts us right in the shoes of the story’s main character as he navigates an impossible maze, and in the end, we get to share in his grisly fate. The story is a powerful warning of what can happen when we seek anything—riches, power, success, certainty, peace, even happiness—at any cost. It’s a warning that we’d be remiss not to heed.
#AllForMetal #AngryMetalList #BardsOfSkadi #ByFireAndSword #CruelForce #DisguisedMalignance #Enforced #Finality #FrozenCrown #FrozenSoul #Gatekeeper #HelmsDeep #Legendry #Listurnalia #LordMountain #MysticProphecy #Owlbear #SacredOutcry #Valdrin #Warcrab
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Holdeneye’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023
By Holdeneye
I’m happy to report that I don’t have much to say on the personal front this year. I’m happier and healthier than I have been in quite some time. Sure, raising a teenage daughter is no easy feat these days, but at least I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to restructure my life to better prepare for this foreseeable occurrence. On balance, my work was way less stressful in 2023—even if I did take part in the single-most frustrating and complicated incident of my entire career this year—and it’s amazing how much that has improved my life. I genuinely wish everyone could be so lucky.
But as good as things were generally this year, I went through an extended rough patch when it came to enjoying and writing about new music. A lot of factors contributed to this rough patch, but it all left me wanting to seek solace in the company of some of my all-time favorite records instead of any current assignments. So, a couple of times this year, I dumped all of my promos and took a break. Now, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t commit to many things, because if I commit to something, I want to do it well. And when I can’t do that, it fills me with guilt. This accumulating guilt left me questioning whether or not I deserved to hang around these parts any longer; in fact, I started writing up my resignation letter multiple times. Fortunately, I never put any of these on Steel‘s desk, because I now know that I want to stick around this place in whatever way I can. I work with a great cast of characters here, and I’d miss them terribly. But ultimately, it was the music that saved me. A few of the records on the following list hit me at just the right time, reminding me of who I am and why I’m here.
I want to thank all of my fellow writers and editors for the many hours they devote to the cause of great music. Thanks to Steel Druhm for the indomitable will with which he rules this realm. How he does everything he does here never ceases to amaze me. Finally, thanks to you, the reader, for being such an integral part of this place. It’s always fun to hear from you, whether you’re heaping praise upon, or throwing tomatoes at, what I’ve written. So, without any further ado, I present to you a clumsily curated list of obscure oddities. It is designed with one purpose: to have as little overlap with my colleagues as possible. Behold, the List of Trvth!
#ish. All for Metal // Legends – As I said in my Heavy Moves Heavy entry for “Mountain of Power,” this one is pure Holdeneye-bait. Living within the same realm as Manowar, Sabaton, and Brothers of Metal, some of my all-time favorite acts, All for Metal’s debut Legends was a wonderful surprise. When it released this past summer, it was just the shot in the arm I needed, its bouncy, cheese-filled anthems plastering a big, dumb smile on my big, dumb face. The songwriting is great, and the powerful vocals from Antonio Calanna nudge the album towards true greatness. Like Brothers of Metal before them, All for Metal quickly became a Holdeneye Family road trip soundtrack staple. Sample: “Goddess of War”
#10. Lord Mountain // The Oath – Lord Mountain may have struck early this year, but The Oath has stayed by my side since its release back in January. A gloriously olde-timey mixture of Sabbath and Manilla Road, The Oath is a scrumptious platter of doomy traditional metal. The riffs are big, and the fantasy storytelling is bigger, as Lord Mountain hands us a war hammer and sends us on a danger-fraught quest. Everything here, from the style, to the production and Ozzy-like vocals screams ‘old,’ and the tight 36-minute package is so well balanced that it is equally qualified for a short, chill-out session or a tough grind in the gym. Sample: “The Oath”
#9. Mystic Prophecy // Hellriot – Ever since I first heard the singles for Mystic Prophecy’s 2007 album Satanic Curses, these guys have been my personal archetype for guitar-centric heavy metal with a power metal bent. The band’s beefy (I simply cannot talk about these guys without using ‘beefy’ as an adjective) guitar sound is matched by the raspy croon of R.D. Liapakis, a man whose voice seems as strong as ever after decades of wailing at the mic. Hellriot is the sound of Mystic Prophecy releasing their best material in sixteen years, and it easily attained the status of one of my most-listened-to albums of 2023. Sample: “Revenge and Fire”
#8. Frozen Crown // Call of the North – It’s been quite a while since a power metal album really grabbed me, but Call of the North rekindled my love for the cheesiest of metals when it released back in March. Where many bands of this style lose me with vocals and guitar work that sound too sugary for these ears, Frozen Crown puts the power in power metal with their extremely heavy riffing and with the incredible vocals of Giada Etro. As Eldritch Elitist said in his review of Call of the North, ‘Frozen Crown operates best with the pedal welded to the metal,’ and rarely does that pedal leave the floor here. The band’s successful use of melo-death stylings on Call of the North confirms a suspicion that I’ve had for quite some time: the vast majority of melodic death metal would work better with clean vocals. Yeah, I said it. Come at me. Sample: “Call of the North”
#7. Gatekeeper // From Western Shores – Last year, Ironflame was my tried-and-true, straightforward traditional metal year-end list entrant, and this year’s spot goes to Gatekeeper. From Western Shores sounded good on my first listen, but I didn’t fully grasp how well-wrought these songs were until I returned at a later date; suddenly, it clicked. Traditional metal and fantasy stories go together like a Kirkland can o’ chicken mixed into Cup Noodles, and the results here are no less savory. Tale after tale is told to the tumultuous tune of titanic riffs and twisted-testicle wails, and I simply can’t get enough of it. I’ve been rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a decade, and this record has been an excellent musical pairing for such an occasion. Sample: “Shadow and Stone”
#6. Disguised Malignance // Entering the Gateways – It’s about time some brutality showed up on this list! Landing just two short weeks after an insanely hyped and equally lauded release from Tomb Mold, the teenagers in Disguised Malignance quietly released an album in the same vein. Drawing on old-school death mechanics and adding a spritz of proggy technicality, Entering the Gateways blew me away with its scope and execution. It’s almost like these youngsters don’t know how rude it is to kick in the door and outdo many of the scene’s heavyweights with your debut record. As I alluded to in my review for Entering the Gateways, Disguised Malignance didn’t overdo the progginess here; they found ‘the right balance between thinking-man’s and stinking-man’s death metal.’ Damn, that’s a good line. Sample: “Beyond (Entering the Gateways)”
#5. Frozen Soul // Glacial Domination – The phrase ‘glacial domination’ perfectly describes how this album won me over: slowly, and with devastation. Like many other critics around these parts, I initially dismissed Glacial Domination as just another one-note death metal beatdown, but because something kept drawing me back, I eventually realized something: I really like this one note. Groovy death metal is my favorite death metal, and Glacial Domination is all groove, all the time. The way these Texans combined earth-churning Bolt Thrower rhythms with a bit of Swede-death, some hardcore-style breakdowns, and the occasional creepy synth passage put this record firmly within my wheelhouse, and like the titular glacier, it was been carving my valley ever since. I could have kept things simple and just used all ten proper tracks here to form my entire Heavy Moves Heavy list. Yes, it’s that good. Sample: “Arsenal of War”
#4. Legendry // Time Immortal Wept – At the risk of falling prey to recency bias, I’m including Time Immortal Wept at #4 because it has utterly bewitched me since I discovered it a few short weeks ago. Legendry’s prog-infused traditional metal is simply magical, and its 43-minute runtime feels like half of that. With a great balance of heavier metal parts and psychedelic prog elements, these songs have achieved legendary status in my heart in very short order. I honestly feel like I’ve been listening to some of these tracks on classic rock radio for my entire life; that’s how much they resonate with me. My first listen of Time Immortal Wept was on the treadmill, and when it finished, I wanted to keep training so I wouldn’t have to stop listening, even for a minute—this is no small feat considering my lifelong hatred of cardio. I just wish I’d discovered this record before the vinyl was sold out. Sample: “Chariots of Bedlam”
#3. Enforced // War Remains – What can I say that I haven’t already said about Enforced? These guys fucking rule; it’s as simple as that. War Remains may not be my favorite Enforced record, but it’s not much of a step down either. These guys sound more pissed-off than ever, and the half-hour runtime makes repeat listens almost a necessity. War Remains is truly an album of all occasions for me. If I’m happy, I put it on and bounce around with joy. If I’m angry, I put in on and exorcise my rage. If I’m sad, I put it on to give myself an energizing slap across the face (after I properly acknowledge and give space to my sadness, of course. It’s 2023 for heaven’s sake). If my kids are being too loud, it put it on and crank it until I can no longer hear them. War Remains is just another piece of evidence confirming that Enforced is the most consistently awesome thrash band running at this point in history. Sample: “Hanged by My Hand”
#2. By Fire and Sword // Glory – Steel Druhm dodged a huge, yuuuge bullet with this one. Glory lay unclaimed in the promo bin when I happened upon it one day, and if I’d taken enough time to realize that the band’s overtly religious themes were satire (read: if I’d listened to “Leave a Little Room” all the way through until the part where its satirical nature is obvious), I would have claimed it and done terrible, score counter-violating things to it. Musically, Glory is heavy in all the right ways, and honestly, this is what I wish Ghost sounded like. The preachy spoken word parts and the beautiful singing combine with the music to add just the right amount of creepy, cringe-inducing irony to the experience. This is such a bizarre album, and I love every single moment of it. Sample: “The Feast”
#1. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – I can be relatively brief here since I slobbered all over this record fairly recently. Towers of Gold is the kind of record that made heavy metal so attractive to me in the first place; it’s big, bold, and filled to the brim with electric energy. Founder and bassist George Apalodimas outdid himself with these compositions, and landing a godlike vocal talent like Daniel Heiman helped the record achieve perfection. Not a single note is wasted; there’s not one moment of this album that doesn’t push forward its powerful fantasy tale. I can say without hesitation that if I hadn’t encountered this album in 2023, I probably wouldn’t be writing this list. Towers of Gold reminded me just how much heavy metal means to me, and it reminded me how much of an honor it is to be able to share great music with you all. Thanks, Sacred Outcry. Sample: “The Voyage”
Honorable Mentions
- Warcrab // The Howling Silence
- Valdrin // Throne of the Lunar Soul
- Helms Deep // Treacherous Ways
- Finality // Technocracy
- Cruel Force // Dawn of the Axe
- Owlbear // Chaos to the Realm
Non-Metal Record o’ the Year
Bards of Skaði // Glysisvallur: Musick from the Frozen Atlantis – Thomas von Wachenfeldt is no stranger to my year-end lists, but he’s never earned a spot quite like this before. Bards of Skaði finds the Swedish death metal maestro leaving his growls at home and performing all strings, keys and programming as he teams up with fellow music professor Göran Månsson on flutes and percussion to provide an enthralling journey through the fallen kingdoms of history. Drawing upon Nordic folk, classical, film score, and ambient styles, Glysisvallur is one beautiful track after another. Whether enchanting (“Yxdans”) or haunting (“Nifelhel”), this music has been the perfect soundtrack for my recent walks and drives throughout the moist and misty Pacific Northwest winter. My love of this record just further cements Wachenfeldt as one of my favorite musicians on earth, regardless of style.
Olde Record o’ the Year
Amon Amarth // With Oden on Our Side – When I was having a hard time wanting to listen to new music early on this year, no record from my past made an appearance more often than this one. With Oden on Our Side is a perfect record, a bona fide 5.0/5.0, and its crushing force was a soothing balm to my aching soul this year. According to my streaming service’s year-end summary, I listened to “Gods of War Arise” 56 times; I like to pretend to be a Viking by taking cold showers and ice baths, and nothing gives my simple mind power over my substantial matter like that track does. This was the first death metal album I ever purchased, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.1
Disappointment (and Amusing Anecdote) o’ the Year
Project: Roenwolfe // Project: Roenwolfe – This one hurt. I really liked Project: Roenwolfe’s previous album, Edge of Saturn, but this one just fell completely flat for me. I found the music pretty uninteresting overall, and my review highlighted the strained vocals of singer Patrick Parris as one of the record’s flaws. This is where the story should probably end, but an entertaining event occurred that made things a little more interesting. Shortly after my review went live, I saw a post on Project: Roenwolfe’s now-defunct Facebook page—yes, I follow the band and support them. I even bought this record even though I didn’t care for it—where Parris announced his retirement from music. He noted that his voice may not be what it used to be, and that he doesn’t make music to have it compared ‘to the Iced Earths and Cages of the world or get slandered for not sounding enough like them in some cases.’ I said to myself, ‘Huh. It kinda sounds like he’s talking to me.’ He then went on, saying that words spouted by random internet people ‘are a powerful motivator, but….can do as much harm as good, (While I’m on that topic AMG I love you, but Holdeneye can hold a kiss for my rear-end.) At that point I said to myself, ‘Oh. He’s definitely talking about me.’ In another paragraph, he said that his post was not made towards any specific people, but color me skeptical after he mentioned his butt, my name, and my lips in the same sentence. In truth, I found this all pretty amusing, but I do feel bad for the guy. I’m grateful for the great music that he’s been a part of, and I really do wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.
Song o’ the Year
Sacred Outcry // “Towers of Gold” – A labyrinth with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the cursed structure it describes, “Towers of Gold” does pretty much everything. It has fast-paced riffing, stratospheric vocals, and blistering leads, but it also knows how to play things slow, throwing in theatricality and atmosphere aplenty. The song puts us right in the shoes of the story’s main character as he navigates an impossible maze, and in the end, we get to share in his grisly fate. The story is a powerful warning of what can happen when we seek anything—riches, power, success, certainty, peace, even happiness—at any cost. It’s a warning that we’d be remiss not to heed.
#AllForMetal #AngryMetalList #BardsOfSkadi #ByFireAndSword #CruelForce #DisguisedMalignance #Enforced #Finality #FrozenCrown #FrozenSoul #Gatekeeper #HelmsDeep #Legendry #Listurnalia #LordMountain #MysticProphecy #Owlbear #SacredOutcry #Valdrin #Warcrab
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Meine Retrospektive IBM Livestudio auf der CEBIT 2018: Interessante Themen, gutes Infotainment, scheinbar gelungener Versuch
Insgesamt 57 Sendungen, rund 800 Minuten Inhalte, also geschätzte 13 Stunden, die wir live vom und im IBM Livestudio von der CEBIT 2018 gesendet haben. 32 Kilometer Kabel – sagt Maurice -, ein „vergessener“, nicht gestoppter Stream (Mensch Albert), zwei auf den ersten Blick verschwundene Beiträge, ein versehentlich auf einem privaten Kanal übertragene Sendung, das sind einige Zahlen rund um unser Projekt, das wir gestern Abend gegen 16:30 Uhr mit der letzten Spätschicht mit den Tatortreinigern abgeschlossen haben.
Was für ein Ausblick vom IBM Cloudlifter um 22:00 Uhr 😍 #CEBIT18 #IBM #Livestudio #whataview #MandoDiao pic.twitter.com/KfIQA0zf0M
— Maike Havemann (@maikehavemann1) June 12, 2018
Wer hätte das geahnt, als mich Jan – ich glaube es war Ende 2017 – gefragt hat, ob ich mir vorstellen könnte, basierend auf unseren Live Talks und dem CIO Kurator live von der CEBIT zu berichten und mich bat, ein entsprechendes Konzept auszuarbeiten und ein Team zusammen zu stellen. Hier schreibe ich schnell mal kurz nach der Messe einige Impressionen und Gedanken nieder, bevor sie entschwinden.
Livestudio: Tolle Gesprächspartner und Themen von Blockchain und KI bis Diversity
Wir hatten tolle Gesprächspartner. Hier nur eine kleine Auswahl interessanter Talks und Themen.
- Wir hatten tolle Gespräche, mit unseren Kunden, die „bleibenden“ Wert haben. Das Gespräch zwischen Dr. Jens Baas, dem CEO der TK, und Matthias Hartmann, Chef der IBM in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz ist dabei sicher ein Höhepunkt, denn es werden einige wichtige Aussagen zum Thema Gesundheitsakte und Digitalisierung im Gesundheitswesen getroffen. Hier kann man reinschauen und reinhören.
- Sicherlich ähnliche Relevanz hat das von Gunnar Sohn moderierte Gespräch zwischen Professor Wolfgang Wahlster, technisch-wissenschaftlicher Direktor und Vorsitzender der Geschäftsführung des DFKI, und Dirk Wittkopp, Chef des IBM Labors in Böblingen, zu KI-Forschung in Deutschland und Europa.
- Aber auch der Talk mit dem CIO von Ritter Sport, Ulrich Strack, zum Thema Blockchain im Supply Chain von der Kakaoplantage bis zur Tafel im Handel, ist höchst interessant. Ähnliche Augenöffner rund um Blockchain sind die Projekte von DB Systel (Möglichkeit zur Buchung einer Fahrkarte, übergreifen über Bahn, Taxi, Nahverkehr und automatische Verbuchung der Umsätze an die beteiligten Unternehmen) oder RDW, dem niederländischen Kraftfahrbundesamt (Nachverfolgung von Fahrraddiebstählen).
- Künstliche Intelligenz und Chatbots standen natürlich im Zentrum vieler Gespräche. So stellte Holger Tietz, IT-Vorstand der INTER Versicherung, unter anderem EVA, die Empathische Versicherungs Assistentin vor, die zur Zahnzusatzversicherungen berät. Oder Sascha Pallenberg saß in der offenen Mercdes E-Klasse auf dem IBM Stand und sprach mit Aya Jaff und Salavtore Romeo über die Zukunft der Autobedienung mit Ask Mercedes, einem auch von IBM Watson unterstützten Sprachassistenten.
- Zwei weltweite General Manager der IBM, Marc van Zadelhoff zum Thema Security, und Kareem Yussuf, zuständig für Watson IoT, standen uns Frage und Antwort.
- Doch nicht nur Hardcore-IT-Themen wurden diskutiert: Wir haben unter dem Titel Go, Germany, Go! IBM Volunteers holen zum 5. Mal den Chairman’s Award nach Deutschland Anne Barten, Petra Bernhardt und Fred-Eric Essam vorgestellt, die als IBMer wohltätige Projekte unterstützen. Zukunft gestalten und verantworten? – Frauen in der IT war eine wichtige Diskussiosrunde zum Thema Gleichberechtigung. Und Holger Wicht von der Deutschen Aidshilfe und Norbert Janzen, Arbeitsdirektor der IBM Deutschland, sprachen über die gemeinsame Partnerschaft und das sensible Thema HIV und Daten.
Dies ist nur eine rein subjektive Auswahl einiger Themen. Es gab noch eine Vielzahl weiterer Gesprächsrunden, von DSGVO mit Ulrich Kampffmeyer bis zu einem Gespräch zwischen Moshe Rappoport und Aya Jaff, die auf Livestudio-CEBIT.com oder auf der Facebook-Seite der IBM Deutschland zu finden sind. Wir werden ganz sicher über viele Gespräche sicher auch noch ausführlicher auf CIO Kurator berichten und kommentieren.
Neue CEBIT, neuer IBM-Spirit mit neuem IBM-Chef
Auch im Livestudio gingen einige der Gespräche rund um das Thema Neupositionierung der CEBIT. So konnte ich am Montag mit unserem neuen IBM Chef Matthias Hartmann über seine Erwartungen an die CEBIT sprechen. Und logischerweise haben wir am letzten Tag der CEBIT, dem Freitag, nochmals nachgelegt: Zuerst hat sich Matthias mit dem CIO von Stute Logistics, Holger Rieth, unter anderem zur CEBIT und neuen IBM ausgetauscht. Und dann kam noch CEBIT-Chef Oliver Frese zu uns ins Studio, um mit Matthias ein Résumé zu ziehen und ein Ausblick auf das kommende Jahr zu geben.
Vor, aber auch auf der CEBIT gingen die Meinungen durchaus auseinander. Vertreibt diese neue Form der CEBIT als Festival mit mehr Entertainment-Faktoren die professionellen Besucher aus Unternehmen? Werden neue, für die IT-Unternehmen und -Berater interessante Besucher angezogen? Läuten wir das Ende der CEBIT ein oder ist es eine Renaissance?
Our CGM Matthias Hartmann showing our Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier the IBM booth @cebit #CEBIT18 #IBM pic.twitter.com/nyevZ9H0LO
— Dilara Can (@itsdilaracan) June 12, 2018
Bei vielen Besuchern, die vorher durchaus vorsichtig waren, fiel das Urteil mehr als nur vorsichtig positiv aus. Nicht nur Peter Altmaier, Bundeswirtschaftsminister, warnte davor, die CEBIT aufzugeben. Bei vielen mir bekannten, durchaus vorher skeptischen Besuchern von Klaus Eck bis Sascha Pallenberg kam das neue Konzept, die Mischung aus Information und unterhaltenden Elementen positiv an. Doch natürlich gab es auch kritische Töne von Ausstellern, die mit einem konventionellen Konzeptbau und Standbau auf die Messe gingen und (natürlich) enttäuscht wurden. Es bleibt spannend, wie viele der bisherigen Aussteller bleiben, ob und welche neuen Aussteller potentiell in 2019 kommen. Der Termin der CEBIT 2019 wurde schon einmal angekündigt: 24. – 28. Juni 2019.
https://twitter.com/GeorgePJohnson3/status/1006907434366111744
Die IBM war – wie auch Messe-Chef Frese sagte – einer der Aussteller, die konsequent den Weg der Neuorientierung gingen und ein Mischung spektakulärer und prägnanter Kundenbeispiele – einige habe ich oben erwähnt – und Technologien – von Quantencomputer bis CIMON, der bald ins All fliegt und laut Peter Altmaier eine eigene Pressekonferenz bekommen soll, zeigten, dabei aber auch unterhaltende Elemente nicht vergaß. Spektakulär sicherlich der Cloud Lifter, mit dem einige Tausend Besucher in den Himmel schwebten, aber auch Bällebad und Fahrradparcours, all das im Herzen der neuen CEBIT hinter Pavillon 35.
How cool is that? @MatthiaHartmann with our #ibm #Millennials at #CEBIT18 after work pic.twitter.com/HYVFlPbsHG
— Andrea Martin (@blue nice sky & Masto: amartin171) (@amartin171) June 14, 2018
All das symbolisiert auch den Versuch des neuen IBM Chefs Matthias Hartmann, eine neue frische und junge IBM zu prägen und dort eine Aufbruchstimmung zu erzeugen, was ihm auch sicher beim Team auf der CEBIT gelang – und das nicht nur wegen seiner Einlagen am Schlagzeug: Work hard, play hard. Bleibt zu hoffen, dass diese Stimmung in die gesamte IBM in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz über schwappt. Auf der CEBIT ist es ihm auf jeden Fall durch seine fokussierte und gleichzeitig lockere Art gelungen, was wir auch bei seinen vier Auftritten im Livestudio sehen konnten und können.
https://twitter.com/JanaGoerlich/status/1007330129834598400
Das Livestudio-Team & agiles Projektmanagement
Apropos Livestudio. Zum Konzept der neuen IBM auf der CEBIT gehörte auch unser Livestudio, der Versuch, die CEBIT live oder auch danach nach draußen zu transportieren, in die Netzgemeinde, zu Kunden und Interessierten, zu Geschäftspartnern und auch zu den IBM-Mitarbeitern. Eine lockere, frische, freie Mischung aus guter Information, ansprechenden Bildern, unterhaltsamen Elementen und durchaus Humor.
Das alles mit einem professionellen Produktionsteam (ausgewählt wurde Maurice mit GBMS) , mit IBM Masterstudenten/-innen (Maike & Albert), IBMern als Moderatoren, Kommentatoren und Reportern (Andrea, Annette, Julia, teilweise Lisa und meiner Wenigkeit) und externen „Profis“ (Gunnar als wirtschaftsbloggendem Streaming-Guru und Aya als junge wilde Programmiererin, Lars und Ann-Kristin als Kommunikationsprofis).
[facebook url="https://www.facebook.com/larsbas/videos/10156380375831753" /]Das Projekt war nicht erst ab der CEBIT aktiv, wobei natürlich die tägliche Live-Produktion so vieler Sendungen mit unserem Team schon sehr herausfordernd war. Schließlich wurden noch zusätzlich die IBM-internen Videos produziert …
That's a wrap for day 2 👏 #IBM #CEBIT18 pic.twitter.com/kn01h4pNHw
— @FRYTG 🫧 (@FRYTG) June 12, 2018
Das Projekt ist für mich ein Beispiel agilen Projektmanagements – auch wenn wir es nicht so genannt haben. Seit Januar wöchentliche Planungsmeetings mit klarer, verbindlicher Aufgabenverteilung. Auf der CEBIT tägliche Redaktionssitzungen. Und natürlich sehr agiles und konzentriertes Arbeiten. Beispiel: Daniel, der im Studio auch noch 5 Minuten vor einer Sendung Beiträge in Seelenruhe geschnitten hat. Sicherlich auch eine Erfahrung für unsere Masterstudenten, dass man bei einem solchen Projekt – wie auch in realen IT-Projekten – sehr konzentriert und genau arbeiten und im richtigen Moment den richtigen Knopf drücken muss.
Wir werden auch noch unsere Gesamtretrospektive haben und darauf schauen, was gut gelaufen ist und vor allem natürlich, was man noch besser machen kann. Trotz sehr guter Klick- und View-Zahlen ist beispielsweise immer noch Reichweitenoptimierung durch Live Tweeting und Kommentierung während der Beiträge, ein Bereich, in dem wir noch eine deutliche Schippe drauf legen können, um mehr Leute zu erreichen.
https://twitter.com/emrunde/status/843408811113222144
Und wir werden diskutieren, ob ein solches Format, das IBM Livestudio, noch weiter tragen kann, auf IBM-eigenen Veranstaltungen, auf externen Konferenzen oder auch als monatliche Sendung, die aus der IBM Welt berichtet. Schauen wir mal. Klar ist für mich auf jeden Fall, dass eine solche Art der Berichterstattung im Zeitalter der sozialen Medien und von immer mehr Videoinhalten zeitgemäß erscheint. Und klar ist auch, dass viele der Videoinhalte, die wir produziert haben, auch in den kommenden Monaten noch im Long Tail verwendet werden können und sollten und so die Reichweite sicherlich nochmals deutlich gesteigert werden kann. Schauen wir, wohin uns die See trägt, oder besser, wohin wir steuern. Ist ja kein autonomes Fahren oder Segeln …
Persönliches
Ich habe schon einige CEBITs erlebt. Dürften über 20 sein Ich habe schon einige spannende Marketingprojekte gemacht. Doch diesmal war und ist es etwas ganz Besonderes (gewesen). Wie oben erwähnt, war es im Januar, als wir das Projekt gestartet haben. Und aufgrund gesundheitlicher Probleme war lange nicht klar, ob ich selbst vor Ort sein und eine Rolle spielen kann. Dass das geklappt hat, war und ist für mich eine tolle und sehr emotionale Sache, einerseits, weil ich es gesundheitlich (erst einmal) geschafft habe, andererseits weil es meiner Ansicht nach die Art von Kommunikation und Interaktion ist, die heute zeitgemäß ist. Also ein Herzensprojekt. Schön, dass ich das mit einem auch so menschlich sympathischen Team und guten Freunden abwickeln durfte. Dafür bin ich in allen Dimensionen dankbar.
(Stefan Pfeiffer)
#CEBIT18 #Livekommunikation #Livestudio #Marketing -
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