#viennateng — Public Fediverse posts

“Idioteque” is a visceral song about climate change BUT b/c Radiohead are zionist assholes, here’s a brilliant cover by singer-songwriters Vienna Teng and Alex Wong (https://youtu.be/bKuAizCzoJQ?si=1NLT_e8FVowJHvv1)
#RetroView #Radiohead #ViennaTeng #AlexWong

Teng recalls: "I started singing these lyrics that almost sounded like a hymn or a psalm, 'somebody hears you, somebody knows you.' But I guess because I'm not religious my brain immediately went to marketing databases and surveillance."

Somebody hears you.
[...]
Is that wrong?
Isn't this what you want?

Join us at human heart to hear this unique work live...
Info and Tickets: https://chronosvocalensemble.com/human-heart-concert/
chronosvocalensemble .com

#hymnofacxiom #chronosvocal #yegsings #yegconcerts #viennateng

Coming up on Chronos' human heart (Sun Apr 27 - 7:30) is Vienna Teng's "Hymn of Acxiom."

A beautiful, unique - and increasingly creepy - work written from the perspective of a database, Teng's experimentation with a harmonizer has created a choral work that will stick with you.

Here's Vienna explaining the origin of the song https://youtu.be/tJyheSPtjoU

Info and Tickets: https://chronosvocalensemble.com/human-heart-concert/

#hymnofacxiom #chronosvocal #yegsings #yegconcerts #viennateng

AMG Turns 15: Middle Management Speaks

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!

Carcharodon

AMG and me

I lurked quietly on AMG for about five years, reading daily, discovering great records, but never entering the fray. Not so much as a single comment. I didn’t feel qualified to get involved. Until that is, I inexplicably decided—I’m still not sure why—to answer the 2018 casting call. To my surprise, I got a shot and, under the threatening (but surprisingly fair) tutelage of Steel Druhm, I evolved from nameless_n00b_17 to become Carcharodon Sharkboi. I figured it would be a fun hobby for a year or two.

Coming up six years and more than 250 posts later, AMG Industries is so much more than a hobby. It’s become part of my daily life. And that is because of the people and the culture here, not just the staff, but also the regular readers and commenters. Although there’s a wry humor to nearly everything we do, and more in-jokes than even the seasoned staffers can keep up with, people actually care. They care. About the music. About our editorial standards. About the quality of our output. About each other. And, apparently, about Yer Mom. Caring and having standards are rare commodities on the internet, and it makes the AMG community a special place to be a part of. Are we perfect? No. Mistakes have been made. We Melvins that make up AMG are a dysfunctional family, but you love your family and you’re always a part of it. This adoptive family helped me get through some really tough times as a new(ish) dad during the COVID lockdowns and exposed me to some really impressive people, I would likely never have met otherwise. Thanks AMG for starting this place and, along with Steel, Grier and other key players, ensuring that it remains what it’s always been: a place for appreciating the music we love, free from adverts, clickbait, and dicks. I’m proud to have played my small part in it.

AMG gave to me …

Gorguts // Colored Sands – I couldn’t tell you exactly when I started perusing AMG but I remember this being one of the first reviews I stumbled across. Today, it’s not a record I reach for often but it completely changed my perception of death metal. Until I heard Colored Sands, death metal to me fell into either the Cannibal Corpse school, or the progressive Opeth and late-era Death camp. The former wasn’t for me, the latter very much was. Gorguts ripped my preconceptions apart. The band was completely unknown to me but the technical precision and dissonance they channeled into this record blew me away. And having heard it, it’s impossible not to hear Gorguts’ influence on dozens of other bands. As Noctus opined, the “riffs are absorbing, dizzying and uncompromisingly heavy … [while the] mix is dynamic, well-balanced and above all, crushing.” But it’s more than that. It’s such a complete package and, together, all the elements are simply transcendent.

Mistur // In Memoriam – It pains me to say it but Grier was right. Okay, so it was once, about eight years ago but he was still right: Mistur’s In Memoriam is an absolute banger. It does deserve a 4.5. And I did miss it. And it’s absolutely in my top-5 black metal records of the 2010s. Would I have found it without him? Perhaps. Perhaps not. After all, I didn’t know their 2009 debut, Attende. But I didn’t need to do the work because Grier did it for me. He was also right to say that In Memoriam is packed full of highlights but that the “record is impossible to appreciate unless listened to from beginning to end.” It’s a perfectly crafted piece of Windir-inspired melodic black metal, with absolutely no fat on its “magnificently structured” carcass. Every track is excellent in its own way (the duo of “Matriarch’s Lament” and “The Sight” being my personal highlights), but the album is undoubtedly greater than the sum of its parts. As a general rule of thumb, do not trust Grier but he was right on the money about Mistur.

Gazpacho // Demon – Demon is in my top ten records of all time. From the yawing note, fragile vocal line, and keys that open the record on “I’ve Been Walking, Pt. 1a” to the final notes of “Death Room”, it gives me chills every time. I’m not someone who has overly emotional reactions to music, as a rule. But I love Demon. There is something about this record’s dark vulnerability that haunts me. And given the band’s shitty name, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it were it not for the review here. Sitting right on the intersection of alt-rock and prog, with a few heavier riffs, I could say that it has all the progressive chops of Radiohead’s OK Computer and that there’s something of Thom Yorke in Gazpacho frontman Jan-Henrik Ohm’s quiet, emotive power. I could point to the excellent use of violin (the polka that closes “The Wizard of Altai Mountains” is just fun). I could, as AMG did in the review that hooked me in, praise the fantastic production. He also, rightly, said that “[e]very listen to brings forth new experiences, new ideas, new emotions”. But it’s more than that. Demon just has that undefinable something. It’s heart-wrenching, somber and I never tire of it.

I wish I had written …

Grymm Comments: On Mental Health Awareness and Our Favorite Music. Okay, I don’t actually wish I had written this. Nor should I have been allowed to. However, I am extremely glad that Grymm, Kenstrosity and The Artist Formerly Known As Muppet took on this project. In any space, it’s an incredibly important subject but mental health struggles seem to have an outsize impact on people in our (still relatively niche) scene, as the engagement with this piece showed. The number of incredibly personal and moving stories people felt able to share in response to Grymm‘s post made me very proud to be part of this place and I like to think that, perhaps, it helped a few people, who felt they had nowhere else to turn, feel a little less alone. Chapeau gentlemen.

I wish I could do over …

Kanonenfieber – Menschenmühle [Things You Might Have Missed 2021]. In the write-up of my favorite record of 2021, I opened with a disclaimer, setting out what this record categorically was not. It was an effort to head off what I predicted would inevitably become an issue for a German band, writing and singing about war in German … you figure it out. To be fair, when I interviewed its creator, Noise, a couple of years later, it seems I was right. Still, I don’t think my efforts helped. If anything, they sparked a pointless debate in the comments (of which I was part). I should have left well alone and just focused on this outstanding record.

I wish more people had read …

The Art of Labelling – Part I and Part II. All the way back in early 2020, while locked up in my house, I penned a two-part feature looking at three great, independent record labels—Hypnotic Dirge, Naturmacht and Transcending Obscurity. I wanted to understand the challenges, and opportunities, facing them and their founders. I found these fascinating to write and I learned a lot. Part I did ok numbers, not great but ok; Part II … less so. Given the huge amounts of time Nic, Robert and Kunal gave up to help me with these pieces, I had hoped to get more exposure for these excellent labels.

GardensTale

AMG and me

It’s hard to overstate the impact AMG has had on my life. When I found the site, checking out reviews for Book of Souls, I wasn’t listening to that much metal anymore. The quality of the writing drew me in, I got caught up on recent big releases, and the writing bug sank its teeth in me. Soon, metal had become a big part of my life again. Not long after, my partner expressed an interest as well and I introduced her to the various types and subgenres of metal, and we started going to more concerts and festivals, which is our favorite shared experience to this day. We started going to Roadburn, met and befriended several bands. We made friends from Wales at Graspop. During the pandemic, the staff started doing Zoom calls,1 and I got to know many of my fellow writers. After the pandemic, we made more friends through Roadburn and Angry Metal Days. We’ve been to Brutal Assault, with people we met at other festivals. One even moved to our city and has become a close companion since then. How much smaller would our world be without these friendships and experiences! This one shared interest—the love of music—is a wonderful, ongoing journey, that has enriched our lives in ways I can scarcely describe, and the match that set the fire was a click on a link while I was bored at work. AMG has brought my partner and me incalculable joy. Here’s to 15 more years!

AMG gave to me …

King Goat // Conduit – Conduit is important to me for several reasons. It was my first Album of the Year at AMG, with the title track a well-deserved Song of the Year. But it was also the album that showed me how wrong I was about doom metal. I had this notion that Swallow the Sun levels of drudgery were the standard for the genre, something I could (at the time) only tolerate in small amounts. Having just begun my AMG career in August that year, I was keen to unearth as much as I could from 2016, and King Goat blew my mind wide open, an obliteration of preconceptions that has served me well since. Despite the cataclysmic recalibration, I have not yet discovered a doom album to top Conduit. The mighty vocals, the colossal riffs, the cosmic scale of it all … it is a truly monumental album. Just thinking of the anthemic duet of the title track’s bridge still sends chills down my spine.

Disillusion // The Liberation – If you didn’t see this coming, welcome to AMG! I have made no secret of how much I love The Liberation.2 It is, quite literally, my all-time favorite album. The first time I heard it, it was overwhelming. The second time, “Time To Let Go” got its powerful hooks into me. Third time round, the sheer scope of “Wintertide” began to land. Every time I span it, I discovered more depth, more hooks, more intricate details, which connected all the tracks like a perfect web. It’s a bold treatise on dying and letting go, emotionally charged not just through the vocals but with every chord. I love progressive music principally for its storytelling ability, as the freedom from structure allows the music to emulate the endless ways to build a narrative arc. It’s why I love Pink Floyd and, more recently, Major Parkinson so much, and it’s the reason Edge of Sanity’s Crimson is one of the only albums I’ve done a YMIO for. But none do it better than Disillusion, and they’ve never done it better than on this album.

Madder Mortem // Red in Tooth and Claw – I’d heard Madder Mortem before, back in their Desiderata days. Although I enjoyed that album, it hadn’t stuck with me somehow. Red in Tooth and Claw brought me back into the fold in a big way, and Madder Mortem’s become one of my favorite bands since, owing to its unique sound and peerless emotional acuity. This album’s closer, “Underdogs,” remains one of the most effective and affecting tracks in the stellar discography of Norway’s best-kept secret. A disastrously scheduled and attended gig during the Marrow tour allowed my partner and me hours of drinks and conversations with the band, especially with vocalist extraordinaire Agnete Kirkevaag, and it remains the best and most personal experience I’ve had with any band. Madder Mortem will always hold a special place in my heart, and I would likely never have gone back to them if I hadn’t read Jean-Luc Ricard‘s review and decided to give a long-forgotten band another shot.

I wish I had written …

Alcest – Kodama Review. We have some mighty fine writers here at AMG, each with their own style and voice. But few could match the poetry of Roquentin. Starting out here, this was the review that made me sigh dreamily and wish for the ability to write such extraordinary prose. When you’ve been writing reviews for a while, you often find yourself trying new ways to phrase the same things; this is good, that is bad, etcetera. The Kodama piece is a masterclass in melding these points into a beautifully phrased flow, which never feels repetitive or perfunctory. Roquentin, you are missed.

I wish I could do over …

Hemina – Venus Review. I’m only human, and humans make mistakes. My biggest mistake, though, was the framing of Hemina’s Venus. A lengthy, winding progressive metal album from my early AMG career, I found the love-themed concept album trite and too cheesy. And though I may have been able to defend that musically, I was completely wrong about the concept, which dealt with the happiness love brings, as well as the drama and destruction. And the band called me out on it in the comments, in the worst way: with polite kindness. One more memory for the ‘lie awake at night’ bank, I suppose.

I wish more people had read …

Wills Dissolve – Echoes Review and Album Premiere. We don’t do a lot of premieres around here, so when we run one, it’s a special event. Hypnotic Dirge is not an unknown label, Wills Dissolve had a very good album with a great Burke cover. All the ducks in a line, right? Crickets. 3 comments, 2 of which talked about the lack of comments. Just a strange fluke, it seems, but certainly one of my bigger AMG disappointments.

Kenstrosity

AMG and me

When I first applied to write for AMG, I felt terribly unconfident that I would get anywhere with it. A certain commenter’s (Septic, you scoundrel, you) and my meatspace friends’ constant, and sometimes irritating, encouragement and support conspired to keep me from chickening out. Lo and behold, I jammed my foot into the Hall door. Just. Brutal though that training was, now that I’m here and somewhat seasoned, I can say that this gig represents one of the most rewarding and meaningful hobbies in my life. I’ve learned a ridiculous amount, both about metal at large and about writing—and made an unprecedented number of great friends along the way—in the last six years (this November), and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I’m not the same person I was when I applied, of that there’s no doubt. But, I like to think that, with the support of the staff, the commentariat, the silly goofy Discordians, and all of the readers that keep this place vibrant and burgeoning with views, I’m better for it. I owe this place and the people in it a huge debt, one I can never repay. Thank you everyone, for everything!

AMG gave to me …

Sulphur Aeon // Gateway to the Antisphere – Up until discovering this review, back when I first encountered AMG in 2017, I listened almost exclusively to metalcore, Evanescence, and operatic symphocheese. Then I hit play on this incredible record, and my life forever changed. I’d heard snippets of death metal and other extreme fare before, but it never clicked. Sulphur Aeon, on the other hand, had me swooning within seconds, initiating what was, effectively, the musical equivalent of the Big Bang in my brain. A whole universe of metal, extreme and otherwise, expanded exponentially before me in an instant. Those cosmic wonders revealed to me in the process, provided endless hours of joy, excitement, and vigor, the likes of which I could never anticipate. With time, I only grew fonder of Gateway to the Antisphere, until it eventually became a Ken icon, the standard by which I judge all other records of its ilk, even today.

Slugdge // Esoteric Malacology – If you asked me to curate a Top 10 metal records of the 2010s, Esoteric Malacology easily hits my Top 3. If you asked me to curate a Top 10 metal records of all time, Esoteric Malacology easily hits my Top 5.[Um … what?! – Carcharodon] Much like Gateway to the Antisphere before it, Slugdge’s fourth LP clicked immediately and, all these years later, shines just as bright, if not brighter. Rarely does a week go by without me picking this back up for some quirky, proggy death metal fun. Esoteric Malacology even transcends the trend of clumsy lyrics endemic to metal writ large, instead showcasing devilishly clever prose and subversive messaging that conveys meaningful themes, and compelling emotional depth. Then you have the stellar performances of this dynamic duo (now trio), perhaps most effectively portrayed in Song o’ the Decade contender “Putrid Fairytale,” which remains to this day my favorite piece of progressive death metal of the modern era. Needless to say, I love this record. HAIL MOLLUSCA!!!

Unfathomable Ruination // Finitude – Brutal tech death doesn’t get better than this. Easily my most cherished Kronos find, Unfathomable Ruination’s unbelievable triumph of crushing artistry left me speechless when I first span it. Considering this was my first foray into the dense, challenging extremities of more technical music, I expected Finitude to fly way over my head. I found myself bewildered that its impenetrable density and ridiculously high level of detail were so effortless for me to access. Blame that on the record’s immense groove and flawlessly structured writing. With enough time to acclimate to the intense environment conjured by Unfathomable Ruination, I found greater appreciation for its nuanced detailing and deeply satisfying tones. Hell, that perfect snare alone brings enough aural pleasure to overwhelm even the coldest spirit. At the end of the day, you should just go read Kronos‘ review of this beast, as it explains, more eloquently than I ever could, why this should be on everyone’s essential listening schedule.

I wish I had written …

In This Moment – A Star-Crossed Wasteland Review. Boy was I mad when I found this piece for one of my favorite metalcore albums. While my confounding taste is the butt of many a joke for my colleagues and our readers alike, seeing a 1.0 for this record truly hurt my soft baby heart at the time. Given the chance, my assessment would’ve likely precluded me from being hired by AMG Inc in the first place, but nothing could change how dear this record is to me. Even now, over a decade since its release, I still regularly reach for these romantic, adventurous, and theatrical tunes.

I wish I could do over …

Ascend the Hollow – Echoes of Existence Review. I’ll be frank, this review is bad. Like, really bad. Partly due to the last minute nature of the piece and partly due to my unbridled enthusiasm for the record itself, I unleashed a tidal wave of unhinged band comparisons, more than half of which don’t make any sense in retrospect. An insane density of passive voice further plagues this write-up. It’s actually kind of embarrassing. The only things that wouldn’t change much are the overall score and some of the hard points of my analysis. Otherwise, this post desperately needs an overhaul.

I wish more people had read …

Into the Obscure: Straight Line Stitch – When Skies Wash Ashore. While I’m over the moon that one of the band members unexpectedly dropped by in the comments to offer kind words for my coverage of Straight Line Stitch’s excellent When Skies Wash Ashore, I do wish more readers had given this album a chance. Many didn’t bother to even read this article because of the tags, unwilling to spend even five minutes of their time. For an album personally significant to me, that felt pretty lame.

Holdeneye

AMG and me

What does Angry Metal Guy mean to me? Honestly, this is a question that I’m constantly trying to answer. As life goes on, and my kids enter their busy teen years, my hunger to listen to, and write about, new music has definitely waned. But there was a time when this music blog was exactly what I needed in my life. I’ve never felt totally fulfilled by my job as a firefighter, and I went through a period where I questioned whether it was actually the career for me. I considered going back to school or switching professions in order to be able to better use some of my seemingly untapped skills. I’d been reading AMG off and on for years at that point and had already fantasized about joining the roster of talented writers when a casting call came about. I answered the call, forever marring the Angry Metal archives with my questionable taste and questionable humor—and forever changing my life. Put simply, Angry Metal Guy is where I found my voice; it’s where I realized that no matter what it is that I want to say, I have a natural ability to say it in a way that seems to resonate with people. I may have dreams of writing something a little more meaningful than a heavy metal review filled with potty humor, but if that dream should one day come to fruition, all those poop, fart, and penis jokes will have been instrumental in bringing it about.

AMG gave to me …

Anaal Nathrakh // The Whole of the Law – When I first heard this record, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Grymm‘s review and the album’s subsequent success during List Season 2016 convinced me to give this thing a whirl, despite it lying way outside my wheelhouse. Sure, I’d enjoyed some extreme metal before, but Anaal Nathrakh was in a whole different league for me. Until The Whole of the Law, I never dreamed I could actually like something so insanely … well … insane. The project’s brand of philosophical violence hit me at a time when I was struggling to reshape my worldview after deconstructing my inherited Christian faith, and just about everything about the album’s aesthetic clicked with me. This record has fueled many a sweaty therapy session in Holdeneye‘s Iron Dungeon of Pain and Enlight(dark)enment™, and it opened me up to a whole new world of musical brutality.

Sabaton // Carolus Rex – This one will probably shock a lot of people. I was a late adopter when it came to Sabaton, and I never really gave their early records a shot because I felt the whole history-metal thing was too gimmicky. But when Angry Metal Guy and Steel Druhm gave Carolus Rex the old tag-team tongue bathing, I took notice. I think the conceptual nature of the album really helped the band’s schtick resonate with me. It was the first time an album had me running to Wikipedia to learn more about the events described in the music, and this combination of learning history and enjoying heavy metal has become the best part of every new Sabaton release since. It’s no exaggeration to say that Sabaton has become one of my favorite bands of all time, and I’ll always be grateful to this site’s malevolent dictators for showing me the way.

Candlemass // Epicus Doomicus Metallicus – If I had to choose a feature that solidified Angry Metal Guy as my go-to metal blog, it would have to be when Angry Metal Guy and Steel Druhm each curated their personal top 50 heavy metal songs of all time back in 2011.3 These features reveal a lot of each of their personalities and their tastes in music, and I found a lot in common with both lists. I used them as tools for broadening my musical horizons, but no other new-to-me album hit me as hard as Candlemass’ EDM. Steel recommended “A Sorcerer’s Pledge” as a ‘doom odyssey akin to Rainbow’s “Stargazer,”‘ and that was all the nudge I needed to give the full album a try. As far as I know, EDM was the first full-fledged doom album I ever loved, and it has grown into a personal desert-island record. Thanks, Boss!

I regret nothing! But I wish I could do over …

Scardust – Strangers Review. While I don’t actually wish I could do this one over, I wish I would have done it harder. Strangers is a world-class album, and it’s only gotten better in the years since its release. This should have been a 4.5, minimum, and it should have been my Album o’ the Year for 2020. I took so much delight in how divisive the album was for our beautiful commenters, and I can only imagine how much more fun it would have been to watch you guys lose it over an even higher score. Scardust is a uniquely talented band, and I really wish I could have helped insert that glowing eggplant into even more earholes.

Sentynel

AMG and me

AMG landed in my life at a pivotal time for my music taste. I stumbled into 70s classic rock and prog in my early teens, and on to Nightwish, Blind Guardian then Isis by my late teens. Searching for more, I found the Skyforger review here and, unwittingly, an endless deluge of new music. I am terribly novelty-seeking, and AMG has kept me interested in music – not for me the endless adulthood of listening to one’s teenage favorites. I’ve picked three highlights I haven’t already written anything about anywhere below, but choosing was a brutal process and I had over a dozen Desert Island Discs-worthy choices shortlisted. But the music is only part of it. Ten years of running the servers here has taught me a lot, and it’s also a source of pride how stable it’s been over that time.4 Eventually, I was talked into trying my hand at reviewing. It’s been rewarding and great for my writing more generally, even if I don’t have time to write as much as I’d like. Huge, huge thanks to Dr. Wvrm‘s editorial help and support. Finally: there’s a weird, worldwide crew of friends behind this site, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

AMG gave to me …

The Ocean // Pelagial – This is the obvious choice for this spot; my favorite record of the 2010s and possibly ever. I never tire of listening to Pelagial, over a decade later. From the opening piano to the last guitar line fading into electrical noise I am transfixed. Sitting on the boundary between prog and post-metal, it’s rich, melodic, even catchy at times, crushing at others. Each of its moods and styles hits perfectly, while the narrative and thematic arc of a descent into the deep gives it an enduring coherence. It’s taken me a few attempts to actually write this piece because I keep getting distracted just listening to it. I’ll never stop seeking out new music, but contenders to Pelagial’s throne are few and far between.

Esben and the Witch // Older Terrors – Perhaps the record I reference the most while trying to explain my specific music taste. This is an incredibly me album. Sparse, hypnotic, atmospheric, Older Terrors does an awful lot with very little. The balance here is incredibly delicate. Getting music this minimalist to have real impact is hard, and the albums where it works are some of my all-time favorites. Here, the folk stylings—the sense of forests, rituals and magic—are key to its success. I associate this album with its cover art much more viscerally than anything else I listen to. It’s genuinely transportive; pressing play feels like stepping into that starlit forest.

Vienna Teng // Aims – Ah, how can I pass up an opportunity to write about an album that only tangentially qualifies for this section on a bunch of axes? I mentioned my love of Teng’s work in my 2023 AotY list, but I think Aims is particularly special. It’s at once incredibly catchy and poppy, yet also very experimental, and really shows off her lyrical and thematic flair. “The Hymn of Acxiom” casts an internet marketing database as a choral hymn, more relevant now than ever; “Landsailor” is a love duet between humanity and capitalism.5 These songs sit alongside more traditional themes of love and loss. They’re heavy subjects handled in a way that’s sensitive and moving. None feel out of place, and I still get them stuck in my head out of the blue regularly. Metal isn’t completely devoid of meaningful lyrics—last year’s Wayfarer did a good job here, for example—but it’s rare that I would describe anything as poetic, or that it makes me think to this degree.

I wish I could do over …

Mitochondrial Sun – Mitochondrial Sun Review. When I penned this review, I was very new to actually writing here, and hadn’t quite figured out my voice or a writing process that really worked for me. I don’t think I did a terrible job by any means, and this isn’t the only thing I’ve underrated here either (looking at you, Musk Ox), but this record is really something special and deserved both a better review and more attention generally.

Huck N Roll

AMG and me

I am olde, and I am stuck in my ways. I only ever read reviews at two sites, and the first of those was AMG. When I applied to write here, I knew for sure I would not get the gig. But by some stroke of luck, AMG Himself missed my application and Steel—perhaps just wanting an equally olde curmudgeon on staff—brought me in. I loved every minute of it. Hopefully, I became a better writer, thanks to all the talented miscreants I was with. What a great group of people – the writers and the regular (and irregular) commenters. It’s certainly a regret of mine that life got in the way and I had to leave the team.

It was the actual reviews on AMG that got me hooked. They were irreverent, entertaining, and always, always brutally honest. Hands down AMG could (and still can, even with 4.0ldeneye)6 be counted on more than any other site for the TRVE review. No 5.0-pandering to labels and bands: if it sucked, it sucked, and if it was good, well, it sucked less.

You might also be surprised to learn what great people these AMG writers are because, once you get behind the review curtain, they are a bunch of sweethearts. I miss them all!7

AMG gave to me

Darkher // Realms – The year I started with AMG, I was a deer in the headlights. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do a full year-end list, just a quick Top Ten(ish). And tops for me was Realms, from Darkher. Thanks to my good friend Grymm’s amazing writeup, I jumped on this album and never jumped off. This album got me more into doom than I’d ever been, and it’s a genre I still go to quite often (although more in the dark of winter than other times). I still spin the vinyl quite a bit. Thanks Grymm!

The Night Flight Orchestra // Amber Galactic – Another of my albums of the year that I discovered thanks to the undying admiration of my (still) good friend Dr. Fisting. Such fun. And when the guy from Bear Mace says he loves it, well, you take him seriously folks! I always read all the reviews here (still do!) and sample anything highly-rated. Amber Galactic is a big reason why.

A whole bunch of super friends // Whether they know it or not – Yes, even you, Grier!8

I wish I had written …

More YMIO features on Kiss. I did manage one for Love Gun but still, the site is sorely lacking in Kiss material.9 There should be two dozen YMIO features now.10 There should be an album ranking.11 There should be … well, maybe that’s enough.

But seriously, I wish I had written a lot more than I did in my final days. Having to cut down to two reviews a month sucked. I love finding new bands (Sermon) and writing about them, and doing it half as much, meant I was also way less engaged with the rest of the staff. So it was a double whammy. Less new music, and less camaraderie.

I wish I could do over …

Raven – Metal City. If I had known the olde feller from Raven was going to pounce on the comments because I said his album was a 2.5, I would have gone lower just to get him going even more. Nothing in my AMG days made me prouder than “Off you fuck, chief” becoming the catchphrase of the year. And Steel, I never bothered listening to All Hell’s Breaking Loose but I know for a fact you overrated it!12

#2024 #Alcest #AMGTurns15 #AnaalNathrakh #AscendTheHollow #BlogPost #BlogPosts #Candlemass #Darkher #Disillusion #EsbenAndTheWitch #Gazpacho #Gorguts #GrymmCommentsOn #Hemina #HypnoticDirgeRecords #InThisMoment #Kanonenfieber #KingGoat #Kiss #MadderMortem #MentalHealthAwareness #Mistur #MitochondrialSun #NaturmachtProductions #Raven #Sabaton #Scardust #Slugdge #StraightLineStitch #SulphurAeon #TheNightFlightOrchestra #TheOcean #TranscendingObscurity #UnfathomableRuination #ViennaTeng #WillsDissolve

AMG Turns 15: Middle Management Speaks

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!

Carcharodon

AMG and me

I lurked quietly on AMG for about five years, reading daily, discovering great records, but never entering the fray. Not so much as a single comment. I didn’t feel qualified to get involved. Until that is, I inexplicably decided—I’m still not sure why—to answer the 2018 casting call. To my surprise, I got a shot and, under the threatening (but surprisingly fair) tutelage of Steel Druhm, I evolved from nameless_n00b_17 to become Carcharodon Sharkboi. I figured it would be a fun hobby for a year or two.

Coming up six years and more than 250 posts later, AMG Industries is so much more than a hobby. It’s become part of my daily life. And that is because of the people and the culture here, not just the staff, but also the regular readers and commenters. Although there’s a wry humor to nearly everything we do, and more in-jokes than even the seasoned staffers can keep up with, people actually care. They care. About the music. About our editorial standards. About the quality of our output. About each other. And, apparently, about Yer Mom. Caring and having standards are rare commodities on the internet, and it makes the AMG community a special place to be a part of. Are we perfect? No. Mistakes have been made. We Melvins that make up AMG are a dysfunctional family, but you love your family and you’re always a part of it. This adoptive family helped me get through some really tough times as a new(ish) dad during the COVID lockdowns and exposed me to some really impressive people, I would likely never have met otherwise. Thanks AMG for starting this place and, along with Steel, Grier and other key players, ensuring that it remains what it’s always been: a place for appreciating the music we love, free from adverts, clickbait, and dicks. I’m proud to have played my small part in it.

AMG gave to me …

Gorguts // Colored Sands – I couldn’t tell you exactly when I started perusing AMG but I remember this being one of the first reviews I stumbled across. Today, it’s not a record I reach for often but it completely changed my perception of death metal. Until I heard Colored Sands, death metal to me fell into either the Cannibal Corpse school, or the progressive Opeth and late-era Death camp. The former wasn’t for me, the latter very much was. Gorguts ripped my preconceptions apart. The band was completely unknown to me but the technical precision and dissonance they channeled into this record blew me away. And having heard it, it’s impossible not to hear Gorguts’ influence on dozens of other bands. As Noctus opined, the “riffs are absorbing, dizzying and uncompromisingly heavy … [while the] mix is dynamic, well-balanced and above all, crushing.” But it’s more than that. It’s such a complete package and, together, all the elements are simply transcendent.

Mistur // In Memoriam – It pains me to say it but Grier was right. Okay, so it was once, about eight years ago but he was still right: Mistur’s In Memoriam is an absolute banger. It does deserve a 4.5. And I did miss it. And it’s absolutely in my top-5 black metal records of the 2010s. Would I have found it without him? Perhaps. Perhaps not. After all, I didn’t know their 2009 debut, Attende. But I didn’t need to do the work because Grier did it for me. He was also right to say that In Memoriam is packed full of highlights but that the “record is impossible to appreciate unless listened to from beginning to end.” It’s a perfectly crafted piece of Windir-inspired melodic black metal, with absolutely no fat on its “magnificently structured” carcass. Every track is excellent in its own way (the duo of “Matriarch’s Lament” and “The Sight” being my personal highlights), but the album is undoubtedly greater than the sum of its parts. As a general rule of thumb, do not trust Grier but he was right on the money about Mistur.

Gazpacho // Demon – Demon is in my top ten records of all time. From the yawing note, fragile vocal line, and keys that open the record on “I’ve Been Walking, Pt. 1a” to the final notes of “Death Room”, it gives me chills every time. I’m not someone who has overly emotional reactions to music, as a rule. But I love Demon. There is something about this record’s dark vulnerability that haunts me. And given the band’s shitty name, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it were it not for the review here. Sitting right on the intersection of alt-rock and prog, with a few heavier riffs, I could say that it has all the progressive chops of Radiohead’s OK Computer and that there’s something of Thom Yorke in Gazpacho frontman Jan-Henrik Ohm’s quiet, emotive power. I could point to the excellent use of violin (the polka that closes “The Wizard of Altai Mountains” is just fun). I could, as AMG did in the review that hooked me in, praise the fantastic production. He also, rightly, said that “[e]very listen to brings forth new experiences, new ideas, new emotions”. But it’s more than that. Demon just has that undefinable something. It’s heart-wrenching, somber and I never tire of it.

I wish I had written …

Grymm Comments: On Mental Health Awareness and Our Favorite Music. Okay, I don’t actually wish I had written this. Nor should I have been allowed to. However, I am extremely glad that Grymm, Kenstrosity and The Artist Formerly Known As Muppet took on this project. In any space, it’s an incredibly important subject but mental health struggles seem to have an outsize impact on people in our (still relatively niche) scene, as the engagement with this piece showed. The number of incredibly personal and moving stories people felt able to share in response to Grymm‘s post made me very proud to be part of this place and I like to think that, perhaps, it helped a few people, who felt they had nowhere else to turn, feel a little less alone. Chapeau gentlemen.

I wish I could do over …

Kanonenfieber – Menschenmühle [Things You Might Have Missed 2021]. In the write-up of my favorite record of 2021, I opened with a disclaimer, setting out what this record categorically was not. It was an effort to head off what I predicted would inevitably become an issue for a German band, writing and singing about war in German … you figure it out. To be fair, when I interviewed its creator, Noise, a couple of years later, it seems I was right. Still, I don’t think my efforts helped. If anything, they sparked a pointless debate in the comments (of which I was part). I should have left well alone and just focused on this outstanding record.

I wish more people had read …

The Art of Labelling – Part I and Part II. All the way back in early 2020, while locked up in my house, I penned a two-part feature looking at three great, independent record labels—Hypnotic Dirge, Naturmacht and Transcending Obscurity. I wanted to understand the challenges, and opportunities, facing them and their founders. I found these fascinating to write and I learned a lot. Part I did ok numbers, not great but ok; Part II … less so. Given the huge amounts of time Nic, Robert and Kunal gave up to help me with these pieces, I had hoped to get more exposure for these excellent labels.

GardensTale

AMG and me

It’s hard to overstate the impact AMG has had on my life. When I found the site, checking out reviews for Book of Souls, I wasn’t listening to that much metal anymore. The quality of the writing drew me in, I got caught up on recent big releases, and the writing bug sank its teeth in me. Soon, metal had become a big part of my life again. Not long after, my partner expressed an interest as well and I introduced her to the various types and subgenres of metal, and we started going to more concerts and festivals, which is our favorite shared experience to this day. We started going to Roadburn, met and befriended several bands. We made friends from Wales at Graspop. During the pandemic, the staff started doing Zoom calls,1 and I got to know many of my fellow writers. After the pandemic, we made more friends through Roadburn and Angry Metal Days. We’ve been to Brutal Assault, with people we met at other festivals. One even moved to our city and has become a close companion since then. How much smaller would our world be without these friendships and experiences! This one shared interest—the love of music—is a wonderful, ongoing journey, that has enriched our lives in ways I can scarcely describe, and the match that set the fire was a click on a link while I was bored at work. AMG has brought my partner and me incalculable joy. Here’s to 15 more years!

AMG gave to me …

King Goat // Conduit – Conduit is important to me for several reasons. It was my first Album of the Year at AMG, with the title track a well-deserved Song of the Year. But it was also the album that showed me how wrong I was about doom metal. I had this notion that Swallow the Sun levels of drudgery were the standard for the genre, something I could (at the time) only tolerate in small amounts. Having just begun my AMG career in August that year, I was keen to unearth as much as I could from 2016, and King Goat blew my mind wide open, an obliteration of preconceptions that has served me well since. Despite the cataclysmic recalibration, I have not yet discovered a doom album to top Conduit. The mighty vocals, the colossal riffs, the cosmic scale of it all … it is a truly monumental album. Just thinking of the anthemic duet of the title track’s bridge still sends chills down my spine.

Disillusion // The Liberation – If you didn’t see this coming, welcome to AMG! I have made no secret of how much I love The Liberation.2 It is, quite literally, my all-time favorite album. The first time I heard it, it was overwhelming. The second time, “Time To Let Go” got its powerful hooks into me. Third time round, the sheer scope of “Wintertide” began to land. Every time I span it, I discovered more depth, more hooks, more intricate details, which connected all the tracks like a perfect web. It’s a bold treatise on dying and letting go, emotionally charged not just through the vocals but with every chord. I love progressive music principally for its storytelling ability, as the freedom from structure allows the music to emulate the endless ways to build a narrative arc. It’s why I love Pink Floyd and, more recently, Major Parkinson so much, and it’s the reason Edge of Sanity’s Crimson is one of the only albums I’ve done a YMIO for. But none do it better than Disillusion, and they’ve never done it better than on this album.

Madder Mortem // Red in Tooth and Claw – I’d heard Madder Mortem before, back in their Desiderata days. Although I enjoyed that album, it hadn’t stuck with me somehow. Red in Tooth and Claw brought me back into the fold in a big way, and Madder Mortem’s become one of my favorite bands since, owing to its unique sound and peerless emotional acuity. This album’s closer, “Underdogs,” remains one of the most effective and affecting tracks in the stellar discography of Norway’s best-kept secret. A disastrously scheduled and attended gig during the Marrow tour allowed my partner and me hours of drinks and conversations with the band, especially with vocalist extraordinaire Agnete Kirkevaag, and it remains the best and most personal experience I’ve had with any band. Madder Mortem will always hold a special place in my heart, and I would likely never have gone back to them if I hadn’t read Jean-Luc Ricard‘s review and decided to give a long-forgotten band another shot.

I wish I had written …

Alcest – Kodama Review. We have some mighty fine writers here at AMG, each with their own style and voice. But few could match the poetry of Roquentin. Starting out here, this was the review that made me sigh dreamily and wish for the ability to write such extraordinary prose. When you’ve been writing reviews for a while, you often find yourself trying new ways to phrase the same things; this is good, that is bad, etcetera. The Kodama piece is a masterclass in melding these points into a beautifully phrased flow, which never feels repetitive or perfunctory. Roquentin, you are missed.

I wish I could do over …

Hemina – Venus Review. I’m only human, and humans make mistakes. My biggest mistake, though, was the framing of Hemina’s Venus. A lengthy, winding progressive metal album from my early AMG career, I found the love-themed concept album trite and too cheesy. And though I may have been able to defend that musically, I was completely wrong about the concept, which dealt with the happiness love brings, as well as the drama and destruction. And the band called me out on it in the comments, in the worst way: with polite kindness. One more memory for the ‘lie awake at night’ bank, I suppose.

I wish more people had read …

Wills Dissolve – Echoes Review and Album Premiere. We don’t do a lot of premieres around here, so when we run one, it’s a special event. Hypnotic Dirge is not an unknown label, Wills Dissolve had a very good album with a great Burke cover. All the ducks in a line, right? Crickets. 3 comments, 2 of which talked about the lack of comments. Just a strange fluke, it seems, but certainly one of my bigger AMG disappointments.

Kenstrosity

AMG and me

When I first applied to write for AMG, I felt terribly unconfident that I would get anywhere with it. A certain commenter’s (Septic, you scoundrel, you) and my meatspace friends’ constant, and sometimes irritating, encouragement and support conspired to keep me from chickening out. Lo and behold, I jammed my foot into the Hall door. Just. Brutal though that training was, now that I’m here and somewhat seasoned, I can say that this gig represents one of the most rewarding and meaningful hobbies in my life. I’ve learned a ridiculous amount, both about metal at large and about writing—and made an unprecedented number of great friends along the way—in the last six years (this November), and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I’m not the same person I was when I applied, of that there’s no doubt. But, I like to think that, with the support of the staff, the commentariat, the silly goofy Discordians, and all of the readers that keep this place vibrant and burgeoning with views, I’m better for it. I owe this place and the people in it a huge debt, one I can never repay. Thank you everyone, for everything!

AMG gave to me …

Sulphur Aeon // Gateway to the Antisphere – Up until discovering this review, back when I first encountered AMG in 2017, I listened almost exclusively to metalcore, Evanescence, and operatic symphocheese. Then I hit play on this incredible record, and my life forever changed. I’d heard snippets of death metal and other extreme fare before, but it never clicked. Sulphur Aeon, on the other hand, had me swooning within seconds, initiating what was, effectively, the musical equivalent of the Big Bang in my brain. A whole universe of metal, extreme and otherwise, expanded exponentially before me in an instant. Those cosmic wonders revealed to me in the process, provided endless hours of joy, excitement, and vigor, the likes of which I could never anticipate. With time, I only grew fonder of Gateway to the Antisphere, until it eventually became a Ken icon, the standard by which I judge all other records of its ilk, even today.

Slugdge // Esoteric Malacology – If you asked me to curate a Top 10 metal records of the 2010s, Esoteric Malacology easily hits my Top 3. If you asked me to curate a Top 10 metal records of all time, Esoteric Malacology easily hits my Top 5.[Um … what?! – Carcharodon] Much like Gateway to the Antisphere before it, Slugdge’s fourth LP clicked immediately and, all these years later, shines just as bright, if not brighter. Rarely does a week go by without me picking this back up for some quirky, proggy death metal fun. Esoteric Malacology even transcends the trend of clumsy lyrics endemic to metal writ large, instead showcasing devilishly clever prose and subversive messaging that conveys meaningful themes, and compelling emotional depth. Then you have the stellar performances of this dynamic duo (now trio), perhaps most effectively portrayed in Song o’ the Decade contender “Putrid Fairytale,” which remains to this day my favorite piece of progressive death metal of the modern era. Needless to say, I love this record. HAIL MOLLUSCA!!!

Unfathomable Ruination // Finitude – Brutal tech death doesn’t get better than this. Easily my most cherished Kronos find, Unfathomable Ruination’s unbelievable triumph of crushing artistry left me speechless when I first span it. Considering this was my first foray into the dense, challenging extremities of more technical music, I expected Finitude to fly way over my head. I found myself bewildered that its impenetrable density and ridiculously high level of detail were so effortless for me to access. Blame that on the record’s immense groove and flawlessly structured writing. With enough time to acclimate to the intense environment conjured by Unfathomable Ruination, I found greater appreciation for its nuanced detailing and deeply satisfying tones. Hell, that perfect snare alone brings enough aural pleasure to overwhelm even the coldest spirit. At the end of the day, you should just go read Kronos‘ review of this beast, as it explains, more eloquently than I ever could, why this should be on everyone’s essential listening schedule.

I wish I had written …

In This Moment – A Star-Crossed Wasteland Review. Boy was I mad when I found this piece for one of my favorite metalcore albums. While my confounding taste is the butt of many a joke for my colleagues and our readers alike, seeing a 1.0 for this record truly hurt my soft baby heart at the time. Given the chance, my assessment would’ve likely precluded me from being hired by AMG Inc in the first place, but nothing could change how dear this record is to me. Even now, over a decade since its release, I still regularly reach for these romantic, adventurous, and theatrical tunes.

I wish I could do over …

Ascend the Hollow – Echoes of Existence Review. I’ll be frank, this review is bad. Like, really bad. Partly due to the last minute nature of the piece and partly due to my unbridled enthusiasm for the record itself, I unleashed a tidal wave of unhinged band comparisons, more than half of which don’t make any sense in retrospect. An insane density of passive voice further plagues this write-up. It’s actually kind of embarrassing. The only things that wouldn’t change much are the overall score and some of the hard points of my analysis. Otherwise, this post desperately needs an overhaul.

I wish more people had read …

Into the Obscure: Straight Line Stitch – When Skies Wash Ashore. While I’m over the moon that one of the band members unexpectedly dropped by in the comments to offer kind words for my coverage of Straight Line Stitch’s excellent When Skies Wash Ashore, I do wish more readers had given this album a chance. Many didn’t bother to even read this article because of the tags, unwilling to spend even five minutes of their time. For an album personally significant to me, that felt pretty lame.

Holdeneye

AMG and me

What does Angry Metal Guy mean to me? Honestly, this is a question that I’m constantly trying to answer. As life goes on, and my kids enter their busy teen years, my hunger to listen to, and write about, new music has definitely waned. But there was a time when this music blog was exactly what I needed in my life. I’ve never felt totally fulfilled by my job as a firefighter, and I went through a period where I questioned whether it was actually the career for me. I considered going back to school or switching professions in order to be able to better use some of my seemingly untapped skills. I’d been reading AMG off and on for years at that point and had already fantasized about joining the roster of talented writers when a casting call came about. I answered the call, forever marring the Angry Metal archives with my questionable taste and questionable humor—and forever changing my life. Put simply, Angry Metal Guy is where I found my voice; it’s where I realized that no matter what it is that I want to say, I have a natural ability to say it in a way that seems to resonate with people. I may have dreams of writing something a little more meaningful than a heavy metal review filled with potty humor, but if that dream should one day come to fruition, all those poop, fart, and penis jokes will have been instrumental in bringing it about.

AMG gave to me …

Anaal Nathrakh // The Whole of the Law – When I first heard this record, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Grymm‘s review and the album’s subsequent success during List Season 2016 convinced me to give this thing a whirl, despite it lying way outside my wheelhouse. Sure, I’d enjoyed some extreme metal before, but Anaal Nathrakh was in a whole different league for me. Until The Whole of the Law, I never dreamed I could actually like something so insanely … well … insane. The project’s brand of philosophical violence hit me at a time when I was struggling to reshape my worldview after deconstructing my inherited Christian faith, and just about everything about the album’s aesthetic clicked with me. This record has fueled many a sweaty therapy session in Holdeneye‘s Iron Dungeon of Pain and Enlight(dark)enment™, and it opened me up to a whole new world of musical brutality.

Sabaton // Carolus Rex – This one will probably shock a lot of people. I was a late adopter when it came to Sabaton, and I never really gave their early records a shot because I felt the whole history-metal thing was too gimmicky. But when Angry Metal Guy and Steel Druhm gave Carolus Rex the old tag-team tongue bathing, I took notice. I think the conceptual nature of the album really helped the band’s schtick resonate with me. It was the first time an album had me running to Wikipedia to learn more about the events described in the music, and this combination of learning history and enjoying heavy metal has become the best part of every new Sabaton release since. It’s no exaggeration to say that Sabaton has become one of my favorite bands of all time, and I’ll always be grateful to this site’s malevolent dictators for showing me the way.

Candlemass // Epicus Doomicus Metallicus – If I had to choose a feature that solidified Angry Metal Guy as my go-to metal blog, it would have to be when Angry Metal Guy and Steel Druhm each curated their personal top 50 heavy metal songs of all time back in 2011.3 These features reveal a lot of each of their personalities and their tastes in music, and I found a lot in common with both lists. I used them as tools for broadening my musical horizons, but no other new-to-me album hit me as hard as Candlemass’ EDM. Steel recommended “A Sorcerer’s Pledge” as a ‘doom odyssey akin to Rainbow’s “Stargazer,”‘ and that was all the nudge I needed to give the full album a try. As far as I know, EDM was the first full-fledged doom album I ever loved, and it has grown into a personal desert-island record. Thanks, Boss!

I regret nothing! But I wish I could do over …

Scardust – Strangers Review. While I don’t actually wish I could do this one over, I wish I would have done it harder. Strangers is a world-class album, and it’s only gotten better in the years since its release. This should have been a 4.5, minimum, and it should have been my Album o’ the Year for 2020. I took so much delight in how divisive the album was for our beautiful commenters, and I can only imagine how much more fun it would have been to watch you guys lose it over an even higher score. Scardust is a uniquely talented band, and I really wish I could have helped insert that glowing eggplant into even more earholes.

Sentynel

AMG and me

AMG landed in my life at a pivotal time for my music taste. I stumbled into 70s classic rock and prog in my early teens, and on to Nightwish, Blind Guardian then Isis by my late teens. Searching for more, I found the Skyforger review here and, unwittingly, an endless deluge of new music. I am terribly novelty-seeking, and AMG has kept me interested in music – not for me the endless adulthood of listening to one’s teenage favorites. I’ve picked three highlights I haven’t already written anything about anywhere below, but choosing was a brutal process and I had over a dozen Desert Island Discs-worthy choices shortlisted. But the music is only part of it. Ten years of running the servers here has taught me a lot, and it’s also a source of pride how stable it’s been over that time.4 Eventually, I was talked into trying my hand at reviewing. It’s been rewarding and great for my writing more generally, even if I don’t have time to write as much as I’d like. Huge, huge thanks to Dr. Wvrm‘s editorial help and support. Finally: there’s a weird, worldwide crew of friends behind this site, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

AMG gave to me …

The Ocean // Pelagial – This is the obvious choice for this spot; my favorite record of the 2010s and possibly ever. I never tire of listening to Pelagial, over a decade later. From the opening piano to the last guitar line fading into electrical noise I am transfixed. Sitting on the boundary between prog and post-metal, it’s rich, melodic, even catchy at times, crushing at others. Each of its moods and styles hits perfectly, while the narrative and thematic arc of a descent into the deep gives it an enduring coherence. It’s taken me a few attempts to actually write this piece because I keep getting distracted just listening to it. I’ll never stop seeking out new music, but contenders to Pelagial’s throne are few and far between.

Esben and the Witch // Older Terrors – Perhaps the record I reference the most while trying to explain my specific music taste. This is an incredibly me album. Sparse, hypnotic, atmospheric, Older Terrors does an awful lot with very little. The balance here is incredibly delicate. Getting music this minimalist to have real impact is hard, and the albums where it works are some of my all-time favorites. Here, the folk stylings—the sense of forests, rituals and magic—are key to its success. I associate this album with its cover art much more viscerally than anything else I listen to. It’s genuinely transportive; pressing play feels like stepping into that starlit forest.

Vienna Teng // Aims – Ah, how can I pass up an opportunity to write about an album that only tangentially qualifies for this section on a bunch of axes? I mentioned my love of Teng’s work in my 2023 AotY list, but I think Aims is particularly special. It’s at once incredibly catchy and poppy, yet also very experimental, and really shows off her lyrical and thematic flair. “The Hymn of Acxiom” casts an internet marketing database as a choral hymn, more relevant now than ever; “Landsailor” is a love duet between humanity and capitalism.5 These songs sit alongside more traditional themes of love and loss. They’re heavy subjects handled in a way that’s sensitive and moving. None feel out of place, and I still get them stuck in my head out of the blue regularly. Metal isn’t completely devoid of meaningful lyrics—last year’s Wayfarer did a good job here, for example—but it’s rare that I would describe anything as poetic, or that it makes me think to this degree.

I wish I could do over …

Mitochondrial Sun – Mitochondrial Sun Review. When I penned this review, I was very new to actually writing here, and hadn’t quite figured out my voice or a writing process that really worked for me. I don’t think I did a terrible job by any means, and this isn’t the only thing I’ve underrated here either (looking at you, Musk Ox), but this record is really something special and deserved both a better review and more attention generally.

Huck N Roll

AMG and me

I am olde, and I am stuck in my ways. I only ever read reviews at two sites, and the first of those was AMG. When I applied to write here, I knew for sure I would not get the gig. But by some stroke of luck, AMG Himself missed my application and Steel—perhaps just wanting an equally olde curmudgeon on staff—brought me in. I loved every minute of it. Hopefully, I became a better writer, thanks to all the talented miscreants I was with. What a great group of people – the writers and the regular (and irregular) commenters. It’s certainly a regret of mine that life got in the way and I had to leave the team.

It was the actual reviews on AMG that got me hooked. They were irreverent, entertaining, and always, always brutally honest. Hands down AMG could (and still can, even with 4.0ldeneye)6 be counted on more than any other site for the TRVE review. No 5.0-pandering to labels and bands: if it sucked, it sucked, and if it was good, well, it sucked less.

You might also be surprised to learn what great people these AMG writers are because, once you get behind the review curtain, they are a bunch of sweethearts. I miss them all!7

AMG gave to me

Darkher // Realms – The year I started with AMG, I was a deer in the headlights. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do a full year-end list, just a quick Top Ten(ish). And tops for me was Realms, from Darkher. Thanks to my good friend Grymm’s amazing writeup, I jumped on this album and never jumped off. This album got me more into doom than I’d ever been, and it’s a genre I still go to quite often (although more in the dark of winter than other times). I still spin the vinyl quite a bit. Thanks Grymm!

The Night Flight Orchestra // Amber Galactic – Another of my albums of the year that I discovered thanks to the undying admiration of my (still) good friend Dr. Fisting. Such fun. And when the guy from Bear Mace says he loves it, well, you take him seriously folks! I always read all the reviews here (still do!) and sample anything highly-rated. Amber Galactic is a big reason why.

A whole bunch of super friends // Whether they know it or not – Yes, even you, Grier!8

I wish I had written …

More YMIO features on Kiss. I did manage one for Love Gun but still, the site is sorely lacking in Kiss material.9 There should be two dozen YMIO features now.10 There should be an album ranking.11 There should be … well, maybe that’s enough.

But seriously, I wish I had written a lot more than I did in my final days. Having to cut down to two reviews a month sucked. I love finding new bands (Sermon) and writing about them, and doing it half as much, meant I was also way less engaged with the rest of the staff. So it was a double whammy. Less new music, and less camaraderie.

I wish I could do over …

Raven – Metal City. If I had known the olde feller from Raven was going to pounce on the comments because I said his album was a 2.5, I would have gone lower just to get him going even more. Nothing in my AMG days made me prouder than “Off you fuck, chief” becoming the catchphrase of the year. And Steel, I never bothered listening to All Hell’s Breaking Loose but I know for a fact you overrated it!12

#2024 #Alcest #AMGTurns15 #AnaalNathrakh #AscendTheHollow #BlogPost #BlogPosts #Candlemass #Darkher #Disillusion #EsbenAndTheWitch #Gazpacho #Gorguts #GrymmCommentsOn #Hemina #HypnoticDirgeRecords #InThisMoment #Kanonenfieber #KingGoat #Kiss #MadderMortem #MentalHealthAwareness #Mistur #MitochondrialSun #NaturmachtProductions #Raven #Sabaton #Scardust #Slugdge #StraightLineStitch #SulphurAeon #TheNightFlightOrchestra #TheOcean #TranscendingObscurity #UnfathomableRuination #ViennaTeng #WillsDissolve

AMG Turns 15: Middle Management Speaks

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!

Carcharodon

AMG and me

I lurked quietly on AMG for about five years, reading daily, discovering great records, but never entering the fray. Not so much as a single comment. I didn’t feel qualified to get involved. Until that is, I inexplicably decided—I’m still not sure why—to answer the 2018 casting call. To my surprise, I got a shot and, under the threatening (but surprisingly fair) tutelage of Steel Druhm, I evolved from nameless_n00b_17 to become Carcharodon Sharkboi. I figured it would be a fun hobby for a year or two.

Coming up six years and more than 250 posts later, AMG Industries is so much more than a hobby. It’s become part of my daily life. And that is because of the people and the culture here, not just the staff, but also the regular readers and commenters. Although there’s a wry humor to nearly everything we do, and more in-jokes than even the seasoned staffers can keep up with, people actually care. They care. About the music. About our editorial standards. About the quality of our output. About each other. And, apparently, about Yer Mom. Caring and having standards are rare commodities on the internet, and it makes the AMG community a special place to be a part of. Are we perfect? No. Mistakes have been made. We Melvins that make up AMG are a dysfunctional family, but you love your family and you’re always a part of it. This adoptive family helped me get through some really tough times as a new(ish) dad during the COVID lockdowns and exposed me to some really impressive people, I would likely never have met otherwise. Thanks AMG for starting this place and, along with Steel, Grier and other key players, ensuring that it remains what it’s always been: a place for appreciating the music we love, free from adverts, clickbait, and dicks. I’m proud to have played my small part in it.

AMG gave to me …

Gorguts // Colored Sands – I couldn’t tell you exactly when I started perusing AMG but I remember this being one of the first reviews I stumbled across. Today, it’s not a record I reach for often but it completely changed my perception of death metal. Until I heard Colored Sands, death metal to me fell into either the Cannibal Corpse school, or the progressive Opeth and late-era Death camp. The former wasn’t for me, the latter very much was. Gorguts ripped my preconceptions apart. The band was completely unknown to me but the technical precision and dissonance they channeled into this record blew me away. And having heard it, it’s impossible not to hear Gorguts’ influence on dozens of other bands. As Noctus opined, the “riffs are absorbing, dizzying and uncompromisingly heavy … [while the] mix is dynamic, well-balanced and above all, crushing.” But it’s more than that. It’s such a complete package and, together, all the elements are simply transcendent.

Mistur // In Memoriam – It pains me to say it but Grier was right. Okay, so it was once, about eight years ago but he was still right: Mistur’s In Memoriam is an absolute banger. It does deserve a 4.5. And I did miss it. And it’s absolutely in my top-5 black metal records of the 2010s. Would I have found it without him? Perhaps. Perhaps not. After all, I didn’t know their 2009 debut, Attende. But I didn’t need to do the work because Grier did it for me. He was also right to say that In Memoriam is packed full of highlights but that the “record is impossible to appreciate unless listened to from beginning to end.” It’s a perfectly crafted piece of Windir-inspired melodic black metal, with absolutely no fat on its “magnificently structured” carcass. Every track is excellent in its own way (the duo of “Matriarch’s Lament” and “The Sight” being my personal highlights), but the album is undoubtedly greater than the sum of its parts. As a general rule of thumb, do not trust Grier but he was right on the money about Mistur.

Gazpacho // Demon – Demon is in my top ten records of all time. From the yawing note, fragile vocal line, and keys that open the record on “I’ve Been Walking, Pt. 1a” to the final notes of “Death Room”, it gives me chills every time. I’m not someone who has overly emotional reactions to music, as a rule. But I love Demon. There is something about this record’s dark vulnerability that haunts me. And given the band’s shitty name, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it were it not for the review here. Sitting right on the intersection of alt-rock and prog, with a few heavier riffs, I could say that it has all the progressive chops of Radiohead’s OK Computer and that there’s something of Thom Yorke in Gazpacho frontman Jan-Henrik Ohm’s quiet, emotive power. I could point to the excellent use of violin (the polka that closes “The Wizard of Altai Mountains” is just fun). I could, as AMG did in the review that hooked me in, praise the fantastic production. He also, rightly, said that “[e]very listen to brings forth new experiences, new ideas, new emotions”. But it’s more than that. Demon just has that undefinable something. It’s heart-wrenching, somber and I never tire of it.

I wish I had written …

Grymm Comments: On Mental Health Awareness and Our Favorite Music. Okay, I don’t actually wish I had written this. Nor should I have been allowed to. However, I am extremely glad that Grymm, Kenstrosity and The Artist Formerly Known As Muppet took on this project. In any space, it’s an incredibly important subject but mental health struggles seem to have an outsize impact on people in our (still relatively niche) scene, as the engagement with this piece showed. The number of incredibly personal and moving stories people felt able to share in response to Grymm‘s post made me very proud to be part of this place and I like to think that, perhaps, it helped a few people, who felt they had nowhere else to turn, feel a little less alone. Chapeau gentlemen.

I wish I could do over …

Kanonenfieber – Menschenmühle [Things You Might Have Missed 2021]. In the write-up of my favorite record of 2021, I opened with a disclaimer, setting out what this record categorically was not. It was an effort to head off what I predicted would inevitably become an issue for a German band, writing and singing about war in German … you figure it out. To be fair, when I interviewed its creator, Noise, a couple of years later, it seems I was right. Still, I don’t think my efforts helped. If anything, they sparked a pointless debate in the comments (of which I was part). I should have left well alone and just focused on this outstanding record.

I wish more people had read …

The Art of Labelling – Part I and Part II. All the way back in early 2020, while locked up in my house, I penned a two-part feature looking at three great, independent record labels—Hypnotic Dirge, Naturmacht and Transcending Obscurity. I wanted to understand the challenges, and opportunities, facing them and their founders. I found these fascinating to write and I learned a lot. Part I did ok numbers, not great but ok; Part II … less so. Given the huge amounts of time Nic, Robert and Kunal gave up to help me with these pieces, I had hoped to get more exposure for these excellent labels.

GardensTale

AMG and me

It’s hard to overstate the impact AMG has had on my life. When I found the site, checking out reviews for Book of Souls, I wasn’t listening to that much metal anymore. The quality of the writing drew me in, I got caught up on recent big releases, and the writing bug sank its teeth in me. Soon, metal had become a big part of my life again. Not long after, my partner expressed an interest as well and I introduced her to the various types and subgenres of metal, and we started going to more concerts and festivals, which is our favorite shared experience to this day. We started going to Roadburn, met and befriended several bands. We made friends from Wales at Graspop. During the pandemic, the staff started doing Zoom calls,1 and I got to know many of my fellow writers. After the pandemic, we made more friends through Roadburn and Angry Metal Days. We’ve been to Brutal Assault, with people we met at other festivals. One even moved to our city and has become a close companion since then. How much smaller would our world be without these friendships and experiences! This one shared interest—the love of music—is a wonderful, ongoing journey, that has enriched our lives in ways I can scarcely describe, and the match that set the fire was a click on a link while I was bored at work. AMG has brought my partner and me incalculable joy. Here’s to 15 more years!

AMG gave to me …

King Goat // Conduit – Conduit is important to me for several reasons. It was my first Album of the Year at AMG, with the title track a well-deserved Song of the Year. But it was also the album that showed me how wrong I was about doom metal. I had this notion that Swallow the Sun levels of drudgery were the standard for the genre, something I could (at the time) only tolerate in small amounts. Having just begun my AMG career in August that year, I was keen to unearth as much as I could from 2016, and King Goat blew my mind wide open, an obliteration of preconceptions that has served me well since. Despite the cataclysmic recalibration, I have not yet discovered a doom album to top Conduit. The mighty vocals, the colossal riffs, the cosmic scale of it all … it is a truly monumental album. Just thinking of the anthemic duet of the title track’s bridge still sends chills down my spine.

Disillusion // The Liberation – If you didn’t see this coming, welcome to AMG! I have made no secret of how much I love The Liberation.2 It is, quite literally, my all-time favorite album. The first time I heard it, it was overwhelming. The second time, “Time To Let Go” got its powerful hooks into me. Third time round, the sheer scope of “Wintertide” began to land. Every time I span it, I discovered more depth, more hooks, more intricate details, which connected all the tracks like a perfect web. It’s a bold treatise on dying and letting go, emotionally charged not just through the vocals but with every chord. I love progressive music principally for its storytelling ability, as the freedom from structure allows the music to emulate the endless ways to build a narrative arc. It’s why I love Pink Floyd and, more recently, Major Parkinson so much, and it’s the reason Edge of Sanity’s Crimson is one of the only albums I’ve done a YMIO for. But none do it better than Disillusion, and they’ve never done it better than on this album.

Madder Mortem // Red in Tooth and Claw – I’d heard Madder Mortem before, back in their Desiderata days. Although I enjoyed that album, it hadn’t stuck with me somehow. Red in Tooth and Claw brought me back into the fold in a big way, and Madder Mortem’s become one of my favorite bands since, owing to its unique sound and peerless emotional acuity. This album’s closer, “Underdogs,” remains one of the most effective and affecting tracks in the stellar discography of Norway’s best-kept secret. A disastrously scheduled and attended gig during the Marrow tour allowed my partner and me hours of drinks and conversations with the band, especially with vocalist extraordinaire Agnete Kirkevaag, and it remains the best and most personal experience I’ve had with any band. Madder Mortem will always hold a special place in my heart, and I would likely never have gone back to them if I hadn’t read Jean-Luc Ricard‘s review and decided to give a long-forgotten band another shot.

I wish I had written …

Alcest – Kodama Review. We have some mighty fine writers here at AMG, each with their own style and voice. But few could match the poetry of Roquentin. Starting out here, this was the review that made me sigh dreamily and wish for the ability to write such extraordinary prose. When you’ve been writing reviews for a while, you often find yourself trying new ways to phrase the same things; this is good, that is bad, etcetera. The Kodama piece is a masterclass in melding these points into a beautifully phrased flow, which never feels repetitive or perfunctory. Roquentin, you are missed.

I wish I could do over …

Hemina – Venus Review. I’m only human, and humans make mistakes. My biggest mistake, though, was the framing of Hemina’s Venus. A lengthy, winding progressive metal album from my early AMG career, I found the love-themed concept album trite and too cheesy. And though I may have been able to defend that musically, I was completely wrong about the concept, which dealt with the happiness love brings, as well as the drama and destruction. And the band called me out on it in the comments, in the worst way: with polite kindness. One more memory for the ‘lie awake at night’ bank, I suppose.

I wish more people had read …

Wills Dissolve – Echoes Review and Album Premiere. We don’t do a lot of premieres around here, so when we run one, it’s a special event. Hypnotic Dirge is not an unknown label, Wills Dissolve had a very good album with a great Burke cover. All the ducks in a line, right? Crickets. 3 comments, 2 of which talked about the lack of comments. Just a strange fluke, it seems, but certainly one of my bigger AMG disappointments.

Kenstrosity

AMG and me

When I first applied to write for AMG, I felt terribly unconfident that I would get anywhere with it. A certain commenter’s (Septic, you scoundrel, you) and my meatspace friends’ constant, and sometimes irritating, encouragement and support conspired to keep me from chickening out. Lo and behold, I jammed my foot into the Hall door. Just. Brutal though that training was, now that I’m here and somewhat seasoned, I can say that this gig represents one of the most rewarding and meaningful hobbies in my life. I’ve learned a ridiculous amount, both about metal at large and about writing—and made an unprecedented number of great friends along the way—in the last six years (this November), and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I’m not the same person I was when I applied, of that there’s no doubt. But, I like to think that, with the support of the staff, the commentariat, the silly goofy Discordians, and all of the readers that keep this place vibrant and burgeoning with views, I’m better for it. I owe this place and the people in it a huge debt, one I can never repay. Thank you everyone, for everything!

AMG gave to me …

Sulphur Aeon // Gateway to the Antisphere – Up until discovering this review, back when I first encountered AMG in 2017, I listened almost exclusively to metalcore, Evanescence, and operatic symphocheese. Then I hit play on this incredible record, and my life forever changed. I’d heard snippets of death metal and other extreme fare before, but it never clicked. Sulphur Aeon, on the other hand, had me swooning within seconds, initiating what was, effectively, the musical equivalent of the Big Bang in my brain. A whole universe of metal, extreme and otherwise, expanded exponentially before me in an instant. Those cosmic wonders revealed to me in the process, provided endless hours of joy, excitement, and vigor, the likes of which I could never anticipate. With time, I only grew fonder of Gateway to the Antisphere, until it eventually became a Ken icon, the standard by which I judge all other records of its ilk, even today.

Slugdge // Esoteric Malacology – If you asked me to curate a Top 10 metal records of the 2010s, Esoteric Malacology easily hits my Top 3. If you asked me to curate a Top 10 metal records of all time, Esoteric Malacology easily hits my Top 5.[Um … what?! – Carcharodon] Much like Gateway to the Antisphere before it, Slugdge’s fourth LP clicked immediately and, all these years later, shines just as bright, if not brighter. Rarely does a week go by without me picking this back up for some quirky, proggy death metal fun. Esoteric Malacology even transcends the trend of clumsy lyrics endemic to metal writ large, instead showcasing devilishly clever prose and subversive messaging that conveys meaningful themes, and compelling emotional depth. Then you have the stellar performances of this dynamic duo (now trio), perhaps most effectively portrayed in Song o’ the Decade contender “Putrid Fairytale,” which remains to this day my favorite piece of progressive death metal of the modern era. Needless to say, I love this record. HAIL MOLLUSCA!!!

Unfathomable Ruination // Finitude – Brutal tech death doesn’t get better than this. Easily my most cherished Kronos find, Unfathomable Ruination’s unbelievable triumph of crushing artistry left me speechless when I first span it. Considering this was my first foray into the dense, challenging extremities of more technical music, I expected Finitude to fly way over my head. I found myself bewildered that its impenetrable density and ridiculously high level of detail were so effortless for me to access. Blame that on the record’s immense groove and flawlessly structured writing. With enough time to acclimate to the intense environment conjured by Unfathomable Ruination, I found greater appreciation for its nuanced detailing and deeply satisfying tones. Hell, that perfect snare alone brings enough aural pleasure to overwhelm even the coldest spirit. At the end of the day, you should just go read Kronos‘ review of this beast, as it explains, more eloquently than I ever could, why this should be on everyone’s essential listening schedule.

I wish I had written …

In This Moment – A Star-Crossed Wasteland Review. Boy was I mad when I found this piece for one of my favorite metalcore albums. While my confounding taste is the butt of many a joke for my colleagues and our readers alike, seeing a 1.0 for this record truly hurt my soft baby heart at the time. Given the chance, my assessment would’ve likely precluded me from being hired by AMG Inc in the first place, but nothing could change how dear this record is to me. Even now, over a decade since its release, I still regularly reach for these romantic, adventurous, and theatrical tunes.

I wish I could do over …

Ascend the Hollow – Echoes of Existence Review. I’ll be frank, this review is bad. Like, really bad. Partly due to the last minute nature of the piece and partly due to my unbridled enthusiasm for the record itself, I unleashed a tidal wave of unhinged band comparisons, more than half of which don’t make any sense in retrospect. An insane density of passive voice further plagues this write-up. It’s actually kind of embarrassing. The only things that wouldn’t change much are the overall score and some of the hard points of my analysis. Otherwise, this post desperately needs an overhaul.

I wish more people had read …

Into the Obscure: Straight Line Stitch – When Skies Wash Ashore. While I’m over the moon that one of the band members unexpectedly dropped by in the comments to offer kind words for my coverage of Straight Line Stitch’s excellent When Skies Wash Ashore, I do wish more readers had given this album a chance. Many didn’t bother to even read this article because of the tags, unwilling to spend even five minutes of their time. For an album personally significant to me, that felt pretty lame.

Holdeneye

AMG and me

What does Angry Metal Guy mean to me? Honestly, this is a question that I’m constantly trying to answer. As life goes on, and my kids enter their busy teen years, my hunger to listen to, and write about, new music has definitely waned. But there was a time when this music blog was exactly what I needed in my life. I’ve never felt totally fulfilled by my job as a firefighter, and I went through a period where I questioned whether it was actually the career for me. I considered going back to school or switching professions in order to be able to better use some of my seemingly untapped skills. I’d been reading AMG off and on for years at that point and had already fantasized about joining the roster of talented writers when a casting call came about. I answered the call, forever marring the Angry Metal archives with my questionable taste and questionable humor—and forever changing my life. Put simply, Angry Metal Guy is where I found my voice; it’s where I realized that no matter what it is that I want to say, I have a natural ability to say it in a way that seems to resonate with people. I may have dreams of writing something a little more meaningful than a heavy metal review filled with potty humor, but if that dream should one day come to fruition, all those poop, fart, and penis jokes will have been instrumental in bringing it about.

AMG gave to me …

Anaal Nathrakh // The Whole of the Law – When I first heard this record, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Grymm‘s review and the album’s subsequent success during List Season 2016 convinced me to give this thing a whirl, despite it lying way outside my wheelhouse. Sure, I’d enjoyed some extreme metal before, but Anaal Nathrakh was in a whole different league for me. Until The Whole of the Law, I never dreamed I could actually like something so insanely … well … insane. The project’s brand of philosophical violence hit me at a time when I was struggling to reshape my worldview after deconstructing my inherited Christian faith, and just about everything about the album’s aesthetic clicked with me. This record has fueled many a sweaty therapy session in Holdeneye‘s Iron Dungeon of Pain and Enlight(dark)enment™, and it opened me up to a whole new world of musical brutality.

Sabaton // Carolus Rex – This one will probably shock a lot of people. I was a late adopter when it came to Sabaton, and I never really gave their early records a shot because I felt the whole history-metal thing was too gimmicky. But when Angry Metal Guy and Steel Druhm gave Carolus Rex the old tag-team tongue bathing, I took notice. I think the conceptual nature of the album really helped the band’s schtick resonate with me. It was the first time an album had me running to Wikipedia to learn more about the events described in the music, and this combination of learning history and enjoying heavy metal has become the best part of every new Sabaton release since. It’s no exaggeration to say that Sabaton has become one of my favorite bands of all time, and I’ll always be grateful to this site’s malevolent dictators for showing me the way.

Candlemass // Epicus Doomicus Metallicus – If I had to choose a feature that solidified Angry Metal Guy as my go-to metal blog, it would have to be when Angry Metal Guy and Steel Druhm each curated their personal top 50 heavy metal songs of all time back in 2011.3 These features reveal a lot of each of their personalities and their tastes in music, and I found a lot in common with both lists. I used them as tools for broadening my musical horizons, but no other new-to-me album hit me as hard as Candlemass’ EDM. Steel recommended “A Sorcerer’s Pledge” as a ‘doom odyssey akin to Rainbow’s “Stargazer,”‘ and that was all the nudge I needed to give the full album a try. As far as I know, EDM was the first full-fledged doom album I ever loved, and it has grown into a personal desert-island record. Thanks, Boss!

I regret nothing! But I wish I could do over …

Scardust – Strangers Review. While I don’t actually wish I could do this one over, I wish I would have done it harder. Strangers is a world-class album, and it’s only gotten better in the years since its release. This should have been a 4.5, minimum, and it should have been my Album o’ the Year for 2020. I took so much delight in how divisive the album was for our beautiful commenters, and I can only imagine how much more fun it would have been to watch you guys lose it over an even higher score. Scardust is a uniquely talented band, and I really wish I could have helped insert that glowing eggplant into even more earholes.

Sentynel

AMG and me

AMG landed in my life at a pivotal time for my music taste. I stumbled into 70s classic rock and prog in my early teens, and on to Nightwish, Blind Guardian then Isis by my late teens. Searching for more, I found the Skyforger review here and, unwittingly, an endless deluge of new music. I am terribly novelty-seeking, and AMG has kept me interested in music – not for me the endless adulthood of listening to one’s teenage favorites. I’ve picked three highlights I haven’t already written anything about anywhere below, but choosing was a brutal process and I had over a dozen Desert Island Discs-worthy choices shortlisted. But the music is only part of it. Ten years of running the servers here has taught me a lot, and it’s also a source of pride how stable it’s been over that time.4 Eventually, I was talked into trying my hand at reviewing. It’s been rewarding and great for my writing more generally, even if I don’t have time to write as much as I’d like. Huge, huge thanks to Dr. Wvrm‘s editorial help and support. Finally: there’s a weird, worldwide crew of friends behind this site, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

AMG gave to me …

The Ocean // Pelagial – This is the obvious choice for this spot; my favorite record of the 2010s and possibly ever. I never tire of listening to Pelagial, over a decade later. From the opening piano to the last guitar line fading into electrical noise I am transfixed. Sitting on the boundary between prog and post-metal, it’s rich, melodic, even catchy at times, crushing at others. Each of its moods and styles hits perfectly, while the narrative and thematic arc of a descent into the deep gives it an enduring coherence. It’s taken me a few attempts to actually write this piece because I keep getting distracted just listening to it. I’ll never stop seeking out new music, but contenders to Pelagial’s throne are few and far between.

Esben and the Witch // Older Terrors – Perhaps the record I reference the most while trying to explain my specific music taste. This is an incredibly me album. Sparse, hypnotic, atmospheric, Older Terrors does an awful lot with very little. The balance here is incredibly delicate. Getting music this minimalist to have real impact is hard, and the albums where it works are some of my all-time favorites. Here, the folk stylings—the sense of forests, rituals and magic—are key to its success. I associate this album with its cover art much more viscerally than anything else I listen to. It’s genuinely transportive; pressing play feels like stepping into that starlit forest.

Vienna Teng // Aims – Ah, how can I pass up an opportunity to write about an album that only tangentially qualifies for this section on a bunch of axes? I mentioned my love of Teng’s work in my 2023 AotY list, but I think Aims is particularly special. It’s at once incredibly catchy and poppy, yet also very experimental, and really shows off her lyrical and thematic flair. “The Hymn of Acxiom” casts an internet marketing database as a choral hymn, more relevant now than ever; “Landsailor” is a love duet between humanity and capitalism.5 These songs sit alongside more traditional themes of love and loss. They’re heavy subjects handled in a way that’s sensitive and moving. None feel out of place, and I still get them stuck in my head out of the blue regularly. Metal isn’t completely devoid of meaningful lyrics—last year’s Wayfarer did a good job here, for example—but it’s rare that I would describe anything as poetic, or that it makes me think to this degree.

I wish I could do over …

Mitochondrial Sun – Mitochondrial Sun Review. When I penned this review, I was very new to actually writing here, and hadn’t quite figured out my voice or a writing process that really worked for me. I don’t think I did a terrible job by any means, and this isn’t the only thing I’ve underrated here either (looking at you, Musk Ox), but this record is really something special and deserved both a better review and more attention generally.

Huck N Roll

AMG and me

I am olde, and I am stuck in my ways. I only ever read reviews at two sites, and the first of those was AMG. When I applied to write here, I knew for sure I would not get the gig. But by some stroke of luck, AMG Himself missed my application and Steel—perhaps just wanting an equally olde curmudgeon on staff—brought me in. I loved every minute of it. Hopefully, I became a better writer, thanks to all the talented miscreants I was with. What a great group of people – the writers and the regular (and irregular) commenters. It’s certainly a regret of mine that life got in the way and I had to leave the team.

It was the actual reviews on AMG that got me hooked. They were irreverent, entertaining, and always, always brutally honest. Hands down AMG could (and still can, even with 4.0ldeneye)6 be counted on more than any other site for the TRVE review. No 5.0-pandering to labels and bands: if it sucked, it sucked, and if it was good, well, it sucked less.

You might also be surprised to learn what great people these AMG writers are because, once you get behind the review curtain, they are a bunch of sweethearts. I miss them all!7

AMG gave to me

Darkher // Realms – The year I started with AMG, I was a deer in the headlights. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do a full year-end list, just a quick Top Ten(ish). And tops for me was Realms, from Darkher. Thanks to my good friend Grymm’s amazing writeup, I jumped on this album and never jumped off. This album got me more into doom than I’d ever been, and it’s a genre I still go to quite often (although more in the dark of winter than other times). I still spin the vinyl quite a bit. Thanks Grymm!

The Night Flight Orchestra // Amber Galactic – Another of my albums of the year that I discovered thanks to the undying admiration of my (still) good friend Dr. Fisting. Such fun. And when the guy from Bear Mace says he loves it, well, you take him seriously folks! I always read all the reviews here (still do!) and sample anything highly-rated. Amber Galactic is a big reason why.

A whole bunch of super friends // Whether they know it or not – Yes, even you, Grier!8

I wish I had written …

More YMIO features on Kiss. I did manage one for Love Gun but still, the site is sorely lacking in Kiss material.9 There should be two dozen YMIO features now.10 There should be an album ranking.11 There should be … well, maybe that’s enough.

But seriously, I wish I had written a lot more than I did in my final days. Having to cut down to two reviews a month sucked. I love finding new bands (Sermon) and writing about them, and doing it half as much, meant I was also way less engaged with the rest of the staff. So it was a double whammy. Less new music, and less camaraderie.

I wish I could do over …

Raven – Metal City. If I had known the olde feller from Raven was going to pounce on the comments because I said his album was a 2.5, I would have gone lower just to get him going even more. Nothing in my AMG days made me prouder than “Off you fuck, chief” becoming the catchphrase of the year. And Steel, I never bothered listening to All Hell’s Breaking Loose but I know for a fact you overrated it!12

#2024 #Alcest #AMGTurns15 #AnaalNathrakh #AscendTheHollow #BlogPost #BlogPosts #Candlemass #Darkher #Disillusion #EsbenAndTheWitch #Gazpacho #Gorguts #GrymmCommentsOn #Hemina #HypnoticDirgeRecords #InThisMoment #Kanonenfieber #KingGoat #Kiss #MadderMortem #MentalHealthAwareness #Mistur #MitochondrialSun #NaturmachtProductions #Raven #Sabaton #Scardust #Slugdge #StraightLineStitch #SulphurAeon #TheNightFlightOrchestra #TheOcean #TranscendingObscurity #UnfathomableRuination #ViennaTeng #WillsDissolve

Sentynel and Twelve’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023

By sentynel

Sentynel

Is it that time already? Whew. 2023 has raced past me, carried by a blizzard of endless Stuff. I need a goddamn break, which is currently tentatively scheduled for about 2025. As a result, I’ve been desperately behind on my listening for most of the year. I barely scraped together five reviews, all for bands I knew and liked, and was impressed by… one of them. I was nervous about my list all the way through to about November. Fortunately, I have once again ended up with a solid list of great albums, though the best doesn’t quite top last year’s The Otolith. I have lost track of what a normal selection looks like for me at this point, but this year’s big genre winner is apparently instrumental prog, while I felt it was a slightly weak year for post-metal. I also suspect I have more overlap with some of the cooler members of staff than I usually do, amongst all the records you already know are going to be on my list.

Despite a heavy year, contributing to Angry Metal Guy dot com continues to be one of my favorite hobbies. The other staff continue to have questionable taste, but I’ve found music that brings me joy anyway. We have new writers, I’ve met a couple of last year’s crop, and they’re all pretty chill despite their opinions on music. Everyone continues to put a huge amount of free work into this weird little corner of the internet. And my server load stats confirm that you, the readers, are still out there, using my bandwidth.

Finally, following Twitter’s ongoing trainwreck killing off the review autoposting there, we are now available on a slightly experimental basis on Mastodon and compatible platforms. Simply follow @[email protected]. (Note that comments don’t sync in from Mastodon, so you’ll still need to come to the site in order to tell us we’re wrong.) Of course, RSS and Facebook continue to be available.

#ish. Angus McSix // Angus McSix and the Sword of Power – I’ll defend last year’s Fellowship record to the death as serious music. The sophistication of its writing and the adulthood of its themes proves that upbeat, catchy power metal doesn’t have to be silly or lightweight. I offer no such defense for this record. This is incredibly silly. Honestly, between the track titles and how nakedly the whole thing leans on Winkler’s previous role, I was expecting to write this off as a failed attempt to recapture past glories without the wit—another soulless, forgettable pop-power metal band going through the motions. And yet it works. The fun feels genuine, the runtime too brief to be self-indulgent, the songwriting too varied to be a lazy cash-in. It’s infectious, it’s miles better than the new Gloryhammer record, and I’ve ended up listening to it a lot. I embrace the upcoming savaging in the comments section.

#10. Nuclear Power Trio // Wet Ass Plutonium – Speaking of silly, it’s the guys in creepy dictator masks. As I said when I wrote about this album, after a great EP they’ve stuck the landing on the album as well, cementing their position as serious musicians and not a one-off novelty. Fun, triumphant, soaring, Wet Ass Plutonium is an absolute blast to listen to. The musicianship is fantastic, and in particular I’ll highlight again just how great Putin is. (On bass.)

#9. Sermon // Of Golden Verse – Starring a rather more seriously masked musician, this is an emotional, gripping prog album. The only thing holding this back from a higher list placing is that I haven’t found myself compelled to listen to it all the time, which is definitely a me problem (see intro). The moment I actually do put it on I’m hooked. The dynamic, catchy songwriting has an urgent edge to it that gets under your skin and sets it apart from a lot of other prog metal, which can lack a bit of bite.  I absolutely love the vocal performance here in particular, but the whole thing is written and performed thoughtfully and impactfully.

#8. Ok Goodnight // The Fox and the Bird – In the best tradition of prog, this is a weird album. It tries to do a lot of things and manages nearly all of them. Williams’ charismatic, mood-changing vocals carry this whimsical tale. The first few times I listened I wasn’t sure it was going to stick, but I kept finding fragments of her lines in my head. With a few more listens, the whole thing settled. There are still a few little stumbles where weird and shifting gives way to just disjointed, but I find the rest of the album far too addictively, earwormily interesting to mind too much.

#7. Scaphoid // Echoes of the Rift – I owe this record more complete thoughts than I have space for here—there’s a TYMHM piece due, but see the intro for why it probably hasn’t appeared yet. In short: I’m a huge fan of this sort of pretty, thoughtful instrumental prog. I loved Absent Passages, and Echoes of the Rift is an improvement in effectively every meaningful way. Hobart has developed as a composer, and as a result it’s shorter, tighter, more varied, and more memorable. As with a lot of music on this list, my love for it is in the mood it conjures. It’s thoughtful, meditative, exploratory, and has been a favorite work and travel soundtrack for me.

#6. Sanguine Glacialis // Maladaptive Daydreaming – This record is A Lot. I mentioned it to Dr. Wvrm, who described it as “like Cradle of Filth bodysnatched Epica, then showed up to the studio and found it double booked with Nik Sundin hanging out with a jazz quartet. And instead of throwing them out being like ‘yea you know what let’s do all of it at once'”. Frankly, I have nothing further to add to this bit of poetry. If this sounds utterly horrifying, you’re not going to like Maladaptive Daydreaming. But if you’re maybe interested, know that it’s way more cohesive than it has any right to be and a lot of fun. The main thing holding it back is an inexplicably loud mastering job.

#5. Night Crowned // Tales – Here’s an interesting study in genre and reviewers’ tastes. Thus, who is far more brvtal than me, describes this as “symphonic/melodic blackened death.” I, meanwhile, relate to this as a folk metal album, though one much more interesting than the genre typically delivers. Just listen to that hurdy-gurdy or the styling of the vocals. (The female vocals really remind me of the Witcher 3 soundtrack’s Eastern European folk, for example. It’s notable that the cover art here features the Wild Hunt.) Either way, Tales is a wild ride and a certified banger through and through.

#4. Fires in the Distance // Air Not Meant for Us – This is so pretty. That seems like an odd thing for melodic death metal to be striving for, but there’s really no other word for it. Soaring guitar melodies, sweeping strings, and airy piano tug at your heartstrings. But a core of heavy riffs and harsh vocals keeps it anchored. The two mesh startlingly well. Fires in the Distance really lean into the lilting piano at times—if you’d told me a band were going to put this much piano into a melodeath record and everyone would love it, I would have laughed at you. You’d think it would sound insubstantial against the rhythm section, but it never does. Genuinely beautiful.

#3. Helga // Wrapped in Mist – This record reminds me of Gåte (who put out a good EP this year!) gone atmospheric, both in the folk composition but also in the slightly unusual vocals. There’s also some hints of Meer. It’s been criticized, not unfairly, for imperfectly mixing its folk takes on post-metal and airy dream-pop. I like both, but the more I listen, the less I think that separation is the right lens to view it through. Both these genres are characterized by a prioritization of atmosphere and feeling over immediacy, and that’s where Wrapped in Mist’s success lies. I’ve spoken before about my love of music that feels like a witches’ forest ritual, and this is the exact button Helga presses for me. Wherever it sits among its contributing genres, it conjures that feeling.

#2. Essence of Datum // Radikal Rats – Wildly underrated by some hack at little-known music blog Angry Metal Guy, “a heavier God is an Astronaut do the Mass Effect soundtrack” is right up my alley. Even then, I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve listened to this album. It’s not the world’s most challenging record, which has probably contributed to me reaching for it so often over a difficult few months. But don’t confuse that with a lack of impact. It’s cleverly written and impeccably performed, catchy, interesting and varied. This would be a fantastic soundtrack to a top-notch sci-fi film. (I listened to it a lot while reading the new Murderbot book.) As I said above, this has been a good year for instrumental prog, and the placement of this record despite two other strong contenders in the genre should speak volumes.

#1. Wayfarer // American Gothic – This one shouldn’t come as a surprise if you read my thoughts on Lathe on last year’s list. I’m a sucker for the micro-genre I’ll call industrial bluegrass, and last year Lathe mixed it with post-metal with unexpectedly successful results. Wayfarer, meanwhile, bring in black metal, a genre I normally find myself bored by. Indeed, A Romance with Violence didn’t quite do it for me. American Gothic though absolutely knocks it out of the park. The genre blend is utterly seamless, to the extent that to simply call it black metal does it a disservice. This is the best of bleak country painted with the instrumentation of black metal. Electric guitars pick up melody lines from banjos with a twang. Distorted slide guitars get that pedal steel feeling. There’s even a honky-tonk piano. It’s all deceptively melodic, and it helps there’s a heavy twist of post here. This seems to have put some members of the staff off—the second half is less immediate than the first—but these people are wrong. The atmosphere that results is pitch-perfect. The vocals and the lyrics are great. This is not an album that I expected, nor did I expect to love it like this. But it shot to the top of my list within the first couple of listens, and I love it a bit more with every spin.

Honorable Mentions

• BRIQUEVILLE // IIII – I saw these guys play at ArcTanGent this year and was dead impressed. This is really slow-burn post, but it’s worth it.
• Mutoid Man // Mutants – Another ATG band, although from many years ago. Not a big departure from their prog/punk usual, but a lot of fun.
• healthyliving // Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief – “Bloom” narrowly missed out on my Song of the Year. The rest of the album is also really good post-metal, with a great vocalist.
• Svalbard // The Weight of the Mask – This didn’t blow me away like When I Die, but it’s not for lack of quality; it’s a great album still, it’s just not a huge evolution.
• Tribunal // The Weight of Remembrance – A really solid bit of classic doom. As with any well-trodden genre it takes a lot to stand out, and Tribunal nail it with some great interplay—on vocals and instruments—between the duo.

Disappointment of the Year

Repeatedly giving poor-to-middling reviews to bands I like. Also, the production on that Anareta album, which I wanted so badly to love.

Song of the Year

Vienna Teng “The Riversitter” – I’m not even going to pretend to claim that this is metal, though I did of course first hear Teng on this very website. She is my favorite lyricist ever, and one of my favorite musicians in general. It’s been a long ten years since Aims, and it’s fantastic to have new music from her again. This is a pretty, moving piece, based on a short story, about not overthinking or overplanning, community, beauty, and building on each other’s ideas. I can’t fully explain why I’ve been so gripped by this song, but it spoke to me. I’m not normally a “same song on repeat” person, but I’ve listened to this song over three times as often as anything else this year.

Twelve

Up until a few weeks ago, I’d have said this was a pretty solid year, all things considered—but alas, here I am, ending the year on a low note. 2023 felt both very long and very quick, and we weren’t too far into it when I realized my contributions to this here blog were pretty much abysmal. Thankfully, my fellow writers and alternate personas are very understanding people, but it’s still rough to realize that the year has ended to mark my lowest output yet here at Angry Metal Guy.

At least the music was solid. While I was off doing who-knows-what offline, a whole bunch of talented and wonderful writers ghostwrote a whole bunch of compelling reviews and recommendations here that have come to dominate my listening. So before I properly dive into sharing my top albums for 2023, I’ll take a second to thank every one of them, from the newest n00b to the oldest olde, for a level of dedication and talent I just didn’t reach this year. I’m looking forward to the next one, and the one after that as well.

Anyway…

#ish. David Eugene Edwards // Hyacinth – Usually there’s a space or two on this list for the most exciting neofolk that comes my way in a given year, but this year was a quiet one on that front. In its absence, however, the dark country tellings of David Eugene Edwards are quickly becoming a favourite. It’s not a style I’m very familiar with—hence the #ish—but owing to the gorgeously ominous storytelling on Hyacinth, that’s something I’m determined to fix in 2024.

#10. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – Life™ works in mysterious ways; when I was unable to review Towers of Gold following my excitement at Sacred Outcry’s debut, I felt pretty badly. Thankfully, Holdeneye’s account captures what is so special about this power metal odyssey better than I’d have been able to at the time. An adventure for the whole family, and an impressively emotive power metal opus.

#9. Theocracy // Mosaic – Speaking of power metal, I also loved Mosaic in a way I haven’t been taken by a Theocracy album in some time. The balance of joyful and serious themes is something the band does really, really well here, and it’s a splash of positivity that I was happy to receive just as the weather began to turn cold. Not to mention it’s impressively heavy on top of it all, and the choruses stick around long after the album is done.

# 8. The Ocean // Holocene – I’ve said in a couple of places that I don’t care much for post metal, but I do like it when The Ocean does it. The trend continued this year with Holocene, which felt more experimental, less heavy, and altogether weirder than a lot of their past work. This all works great for me, and I found I kept returning to Holocene as the year went by. “Atlantic” in particular may be one of my most listened-to songs for the year. High defeatism, am I right?

#7. Warfarer // American Gothic – Blistering, beautiful black metal; a heartfelt reason for the anger; influence from the wild, wild West to keep it all fresh. What could there possibly be to not like about American Gothic? In the past, Wayfarer haven’t quite captured my attention, but this album broke through my resistance and pummelled it to the ground within the first four seconds of “The Thousand Tombs of Western Promise.” A phenomenal album, through and through.

#6. Briqueville // IIII – IIII is not an album I expected to list here; in fact, one of the first things I did when I saw Charcharodon’s 4.0 review for it was ignore it. More fool I. I thought I had this list down when I finally spun Briqueville’s latest for the first time and it tore its way up these IIII spaces astonishingly fast. Dreamy, experimental doom atmospheres are not easy to pin down, but the songwriting here is incredible. The time passes so quickly, and then what’s left to do but to spin the whole album over again?

#5. Godthrymm // Distortions – Rounding out the other half of my top doom metal albums of the year is Distortions, essentially because this album is heavy. I love the straightforward style, the well-produced misery, and the way Godthrymm is able to so cleanly convey such powerful emotions. This album is a testament to doom metal done well, and it’s been a welcome companion since the first time I heard it—I was hooked pretty much instantly.

#4. Burden of Ymir // Heorot – If you read my reviews, you already know that the accordion is the way into my heart. This feast of black metal incorporates exactly that, and makes for a heavy, folky journey, an amazing album with a story to tell and a ton of heart. It’s also a sneaky album, the kind that grows on you the more you listen to it, with small details hidden in clever songwriting. It’s hard to ask for more; this is an album that feels made exactly for me.

#3. Angus McSix // Angus McSix and the Sword of Power – Speaking of albums that feel made exactly for me, Angus McSix is some of the most fun you can have listening to power metal. I am a sucker for cheesiness, and Angus McSix’s debut dials the cheese factor up to the maximum. The other, crucial side of the dial, however, is the songwriting. Thanks to that, everything works in a way that makes the album more than the sum of it’s ridiculous concept1. It’s a very strong album, and one that’s only grown on me with time.

#2. Sodomisery // Mazzaroth – I can only imagine that Dr. A. N. Grier and I have dramatically different year-end lists, but his review of Mazzaroth is spot-on, and I’m certain we’ll share this entry. As orchestral black metal goes, this album is grand, heavy, and huge, making for a phenomenal opus that is my top black metal album of the year. The vocal performance, the orchestrations, the songwriting—everything on Mazzaroth is top-tier, larger-than-life, incredible black metal.

#1. Vanishing Kids // Miracle of Death – It will be difficult to sum up my appreciation for Miracle of Death in the short blurb I have before me. From the first seconds of “Spill the Dark,” this album takes me to a cold, comfortable place. It’s emotional, but it feels like numbness; it’s quiet, but leaves a huge impression. Everything about this album works to create atmospheres of bleakness and hopelessness, and any time I’ve felt low throughout the year, Vanishing Kids has been there2. Miracle of Death is, in that regard, an amazing album, and one that was always going to take this spot on my list. Truthfully, I’m shocked to realize this only came out a couple of months ago—it’s been so right for my 2023 that it feels like it’s been there since January 1.

Honorable Mention

• Suotana // Ounas I – I had a lot of fun reviewing Ounas I, and have had a lot of fun listening to it since. The black/melodeath/power metal thing Suotana does so well lends itself to an extremely fun, energetic album that is just so solid. This is an album done well, and I’m still recommending it to pretty much all of you!

Song of the Year

Sometimes, you just need to have some fun. No matter how difficult, irritating, or otherwise negative this year may have been, “Ride to Hell” has been the pick-me-up song to deal with it. This is a terrific power-meets-traditional metal anthem, and the enthusiasm in which Angus McSix performs it is a huge part of the appeal. It’s catchy, it’s fun, it’s wildly addictive—it’s everything you need when times are rough and you don’t know any supernatural motorcyclists in the real world. It’s also a great song when you’re having a good day already and want to make it better.

#2023 #AngusMcSix #BlogPost #Briqueville #BurdenOfYmir #DavidEugeneEdwards #EssenceOfDatum #FiresInTheDistance #Godthrymm #healthyliving #Helga #Lists #Listurnalia #MutoidMan #NightCrowned #OkGoodnight #SacredOutcry #SanguineGlacialis #Scaphoid #SentynelSAndTwelveSTopTenIshOf2023 #Sermon #Sodomisery #Suotana #Svalbard #TheOcean #TheOtolith #Theocracy #Tribunal #VanishingKids #ViennaTeng #Wayfarer

Sentynel and Twelve’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023

By sentynel

Sentynel

Is it that time already? Whew. 2023 has raced past me, carried by a blizzard of endless Stuff. I need a goddamn break, which is currently tentatively scheduled for about 2025. As a result, I’ve been desperately behind on my listening for most of the year. I barely scraped together five reviews, all for bands I knew and liked, and was impressed by… one of them. I was nervous about my list all the way through to about November. Fortunately, I have once again ended up with a solid list of great albums, though the best doesn’t quite top last year’s The Otolith. I have lost track of what a normal selection looks like for me at this point, but this year’s big genre winner is apparently instrumental prog, while I felt it was a slightly weak year for post-metal. I also suspect I have more overlap with some of the cooler members of staff than I usually do, amongst all the records you already know are going to be on my list.

Despite a heavy year, contributing to Angry Metal Guy dot com continues to be one of my favorite hobbies. The other staff continue to have questionable taste, but I’ve found music that brings me joy anyway. We have new writers, I’ve met a couple of last year’s crop, and they’re all pretty chill despite their opinions on music. Everyone continues to put a huge amount of free work into this weird little corner of the internet. And my server load stats confirm that you, the readers, are still out there, using my bandwidth.

Finally, following Twitter’s ongoing trainwreck killing off the review autoposting there, we are now available on a slightly experimental basis on Mastodon and compatible platforms. Simply follow @[email protected]. (Note that comments don’t sync in from Mastodon, so you’ll still need to come to the site in order to tell us we’re wrong.) Of course, RSS and Facebook continue to be available.

#ish. Angus McSix // Angus McSix and the Sword of Power – I’ll defend last year’s Fellowship record to the death as serious music. The sophistication of its writing and the adulthood of its themes proves that upbeat, catchy power metal doesn’t have to be silly or lightweight. I offer no such defense for this record. This is incredibly silly. Honestly, between the track titles and how nakedly the whole thing leans on Winkler’s previous role, I was expecting to write this off as a failed attempt to recapture past glories without the wit—another soulless, forgettable pop-power metal band going through the motions. And yet it works. The fun feels genuine, the runtime too brief to be self-indulgent, the songwriting too varied to be a lazy cash-in. It’s infectious, it’s miles better than the new Gloryhammer record, and I’ve ended up listening to it a lot. I embrace the upcoming savaging in the comments section.

#10. Nuclear Power Trio // Wet Ass Plutonium – Speaking of silly, it’s the guys in creepy dictator masks. As I said when I wrote about this album, after a great EP they’ve stuck the landing on the album as well, cementing their position as serious musicians and not a one-off novelty. Fun, triumphant, soaring, Wet Ass Plutonium is an absolute blast to listen to. The musicianship is fantastic, and in particular I’ll highlight again just how great Putin is. (On bass.)

#9. Sermon // Of Golden Verse – Starring a rather more seriously masked musician, this is an emotional, gripping prog album. The only thing holding this back from a higher list placing is that I haven’t found myself compelled to listen to it all the time, which is definitely a me problem (see intro). The moment I actually do put it on I’m hooked. The dynamic, catchy songwriting has an urgent edge to it that gets under your skin and sets it apart from a lot of other prog metal, which can lack a bit of bite.  I absolutely love the vocal performance here in particular, but the whole thing is written and performed thoughtfully and impactfully.

#8. Ok Goodnight // The Fox and the Bird – In the best tradition of prog, this is a weird album. It tries to do a lot of things and manages nearly all of them. Williams’ charismatic, mood-changing vocals carry this whimsical tale. The first few times I listened I wasn’t sure it was going to stick, but I kept finding fragments of her lines in my head. With a few more listens, the whole thing settled. There are still a few little stumbles where weird and shifting gives way to just disjointed, but I find the rest of the album far too addictively, earwormily interesting to mind too much.

#7. Scaphoid // Echoes of the Rift – I owe this record more complete thoughts than I have space for here—there’s a TYMHM piece due, but see the intro for why it probably hasn’t appeared yet. In short: I’m a huge fan of this sort of pretty, thoughtful instrumental prog. I loved Absent Passages, and Echoes of the Rift is an improvement in effectively every meaningful way. Hobart has developed as a composer, and as a result it’s shorter, tighter, more varied, and more memorable. As with a lot of music on this list, my love for it is in the mood it conjures. It’s thoughtful, meditative, exploratory, and has been a favorite work and travel soundtrack for me.

#6. Sanguine Glacialis // Maladaptive Daydreaming – This record is A Lot. I mentioned it to Dr. Wvrm, who described it as “like Cradle of Filth bodysnatched Epica, then showed up to the studio and found it double booked with Nik Sundin hanging out with a jazz quartet. And instead of throwing them out being like ‘yea you know what let’s do all of it at once'”. Frankly, I have nothing further to add to this bit of poetry. If this sounds utterly horrifying, you’re not going to like Maladaptive Daydreaming. But if you’re maybe interested, know that it’s way more cohesive than it has any right to be and a lot of fun. The main thing holding it back is an inexplicably loud mastering job.

#5. Night Crowned // Tales – Here’s an interesting study in genre and reviewers’ tastes. Thus, who is far more brvtal than me, describes this as “symphonic/melodic blackened death.” I, meanwhile, relate to this as a folk metal album, though one much more interesting than the genre typically delivers. Just listen to that hurdy-gurdy or the styling of the vocals. (The female vocals really remind me of the Witcher 3 soundtrack’s Eastern European folk, for example. It’s notable that the cover art here features the Wild Hunt.) Either way, Tales is a wild ride and a certified banger through and through.

#4. Fires in the Distance // Air Not Meant for Us – This is so pretty. That seems like an odd thing for melodic death metal to be striving for, but there’s really no other word for it. Soaring guitar melodies, sweeping strings, and airy piano tug at your heartstrings. But a core of heavy riffs and harsh vocals keeps it anchored. The two mesh startlingly well. Fires in the Distance really lean into the lilting piano at times—if you’d told me a band were going to put this much piano into a melodeath record and everyone would love it, I would have laughed at you. You’d think it would sound insubstantial against the rhythm section, but it never does. Genuinely beautiful.

#3. Helga // Wrapped in Mist – This record reminds me of Gåte (who put out a good EP this year!) gone atmospheric, both in the folk composition but also in the slightly unusual vocals. There’s also some hints of Meer. It’s been criticized, not unfairly, for imperfectly mixing its folk takes on post-metal and airy dream-pop. I like both, but the more I listen, the less I think that separation is the right lens to view it through. Both these genres are characterized by a prioritization of atmosphere and feeling over immediacy, and that’s where Wrapped in Mist’s success lies. I’ve spoken before about my love of music that feels like a witches’ forest ritual, and this is the exact button Helga presses for me. Wherever it sits among its contributing genres, it conjures that feeling.

#2. Essence of Datum // Radikal Rats – Wildly underrated by some hack at little-known music blog Angry Metal Guy, “a heavier God is an Astronaut do the Mass Effect soundtrack” is right up my alley. Even then, I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve listened to this album. It’s not the world’s most challenging record, which has probably contributed to me reaching for it so often over a difficult few months. But don’t confuse that with a lack of impact. It’s cleverly written and impeccably performed, catchy, interesting and varied. This would be a fantastic soundtrack to a top-notch sci-fi film. (I listened to it a lot while reading the new Murderbot book.) As I said above, this has been a good year for instrumental prog, and the placement of this record despite two other strong contenders in the genre should speak volumes.

#1. Wayfarer // American Gothic – This one shouldn’t come as a surprise if you read my thoughts on Lathe on last year’s list. I’m a sucker for the micro-genre I’ll call industrial bluegrass, and last year Lathe mixed it with post-metal with unexpectedly successful results. Wayfarer, meanwhile, bring in black metal, a genre I normally find myself bored by. Indeed, A Romance with Violence didn’t quite do it for me. American Gothic though absolutely knocks it out of the park. The genre blend is utterly seamless, to the extent that to simply call it black metal does it a disservice. This is the best of bleak country painted with the instrumentation of black metal. Electric guitars pick up melody lines from banjos with a twang. Distorted slide guitars get that pedal steel feeling. There’s even a honky-tonk piano. It’s all deceptively melodic, and it helps there’s a heavy twist of post here. This seems to have put some members of the staff off—the second half is less immediate than the first—but these people are wrong. The atmosphere that results is pitch-perfect. The vocals and the lyrics are great. This is not an album that I expected, nor did I expect to love it like this. But it shot to the top of my list within the first couple of listens, and I love it a bit more with every spin.

Honorable Mentions

• BRIQUEVILLE // IIII – I saw these guys play at ArcTanGent this year and was dead impressed. This is really slow-burn post, but it’s worth it.
• Mutoid Man // Mutants – Another ATG band, although from many years ago. Not a big departure from their prog/punk usual, but a lot of fun.
• healthyliving // Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief – “Bloom” narrowly missed out on my Song of the Year. The rest of the album is also really good post-metal, with a great vocalist.
• Svalbard // The Weight of the Mask – This didn’t blow me away like When I Die, but it’s not for lack of quality; it’s a great album still, it’s just not a huge evolution.
• Tribunal // The Weight of Remembrance – A really solid bit of classic doom. As with any well-trodden genre it takes a lot to stand out, and Tribunal nail it with some great interplay—on vocals and instruments—between the duo.

Disappointment of the Year

Repeatedly giving poor-to-middling reviews to bands I like. Also, the production on that Anareta album, which I wanted so badly to love.

Song of the Year

Vienna Teng “The Riversitter” – I’m not even going to pretend to claim that this is metal, though I did of course first hear Teng on this very website. She is my favorite lyricist ever, and one of my favorite musicians in general. It’s been a long ten years since Aims, and it’s fantastic to have new music from her again. This is a pretty, moving piece, based on a short story, about not overthinking or overplanning, community, beauty, and building on each other’s ideas. I can’t fully explain why I’ve been so gripped by this song, but it spoke to me. I’m not normally a “same song on repeat” person, but I’ve listened to this song over three times as often as anything else this year.

Twelve

Up until a few weeks ago, I’d have said this was a pretty solid year, all things considered—but alas, here I am, ending the year on a low note. 2023 felt both very long and very quick, and we weren’t too far into it when I realized my contributions to this here blog were pretty much abysmal. Thankfully, my fellow writers and alternate personas are very understanding people, but it’s still rough to realize that the year has ended to mark my lowest output yet here at Angry Metal Guy.

At least the music was solid. While I was off doing who-knows-what offline, a whole bunch of talented and wonderful writers ghostwrote a whole bunch of compelling reviews and recommendations here that have come to dominate my listening. So before I properly dive into sharing my top albums for 2023, I’ll take a second to thank every one of them, from the newest n00b to the oldest olde, for a level of dedication and talent I just didn’t reach this year. I’m looking forward to the next one, and the one after that as well.

Anyway…

#ish. David Eugene Edwards // Hyacinth – Usually there’s a space or two on this list for the most exciting neofolk that comes my way in a given year, but this year was a quiet one on that front. In its absence, however, the dark country tellings of David Eugene Edwards are quickly becoming a favourite. It’s not a style I’m very familiar with—hence the #ish—but owing to the gorgeously ominous storytelling on Hyacinth, that’s something I’m determined to fix in 2024.

#10. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – Life™ works in mysterious ways; when I was unable to review Towers of Gold following my excitement at Sacred Outcry’s debut, I felt pretty badly. Thankfully, Holdeneye’s account captures what is so special about this power metal odyssey better than I’d have been able to at the time. An adventure for the whole family, and an impressively emotive power metal opus.

#9. Theocracy // Mosaic – Speaking of power metal, I also loved Mosaic in a way I haven’t been taken by a Theocracy album in some time. The balance of joyful and serious themes is something the band does really, really well here, and it’s a splash of positivity that I was happy to receive just as the weather began to turn cold. Not to mention it’s impressively heavy on top of it all, and the choruses stick around long after the album is done.

# 8. The Ocean // Holocene – I’ve said in a couple of places that I don’t care much for post metal, but I do like it when The Ocean does it. The trend continued this year with Holocene, which felt more experimental, less heavy, and altogether weirder than a lot of their past work. This all works great for me, and I found I kept returning to Holocene as the year went by. “Atlantic” in particular may be one of my most listened-to songs for the year. High defeatism, am I right?

#7. Warfarer // American Gothic – Blistering, beautiful black metal; a heartfelt reason for the anger; influence from the wild, wild West to keep it all fresh. What could there possibly be to not like about American Gothic? In the past, Wayfarer haven’t quite captured my attention, but this album broke through my resistance and pummelled it to the ground within the first four seconds of “The Thousand Tombs of Western Promise.” A phenomenal album, through and through.

#6. Briqueville // IIII – IIII is not an album I expected to list here; in fact, one of the first things I did when I saw Charcharodon’s 4.0 review for it was ignore it. More fool I. I thought I had this list down when I finally spun Briqueville’s latest for the first time and it tore its way up these IIII spaces astonishingly fast. Dreamy, experimental doom atmospheres are not easy to pin down, but the songwriting here is incredible. The time passes so quickly, and then what’s left to do but to spin the whole album over again?

#5. Godthrymm // Distortions – Rounding out the other half of my top doom metal albums of the year is Distortions, essentially because this album is heavy. I love the straightforward style, the well-produced misery, and the way Godthrymm is able to so cleanly convey such powerful emotions. This album is a testament to doom metal done well, and it’s been a welcome companion since the first time I heard it—I was hooked pretty much instantly.

#4. Burden of Ymir // Heorot – If you read my reviews, you already know that the accordion is the way into my heart. This feast of black metal incorporates exactly that, and makes for a heavy, folky journey, an amazing album with a story to tell and a ton of heart. It’s also a sneaky album, the kind that grows on you the more you listen to it, with small details hidden in clever songwriting. It’s hard to ask for more; this is an album that feels made exactly for me.

#3. Angus McSix // Angus McSix and the Sword of Power – Speaking of albums that feel made exactly for me, Angus McSix is some of the most fun you can have listening to power metal. I am a sucker for cheesiness, and Angus McSix’s debut dials the cheese factor up to the maximum. The other, crucial side of the dial, however, is the songwriting. Thanks to that, everything works in a way that makes the album more than the sum of it’s ridiculous concept1. It’s a very strong album, and one that’s only grown on me with time.

#2. Sodomisery // Mazzaroth – I can only imagine that Dr. A. N. Grier and I have dramatically different year-end lists, but his review of Mazzaroth is spot-on, and I’m certain we’ll share this entry. As orchestral black metal goes, this album is grand, heavy, and huge, making for a phenomenal opus that is my top black metal album of the year. The vocal performance, the orchestrations, the songwriting—everything on Mazzaroth is top-tier, larger-than-life, incredible black metal.

#1. Vanishing Kids // Miracle of Death – It will be difficult to sum up my appreciation for Miracle of Death in the short blurb I have before me. From the first seconds of “Spill the Dark,” this album takes me to a cold, comfortable place. It’s emotional, but it feels like numbness; it’s quiet, but leaves a huge impression. Everything about this album works to create atmospheres of bleakness and hopelessness, and any time I’ve felt low throughout the year, Vanishing Kids has been there2. Miracle of Death is, in that regard, an amazing album, and one that was always going to take this spot on my list. Truthfully, I’m shocked to realize this only came out a couple of months ago—it’s been so right for my 2023 that it feels like it’s been there since January 1.

Honorable Mention

• Suotana // Ounas I – I had a lot of fun reviewing Ounas I, and have had a lot of fun listening to it since. The black/melodeath/power metal thing Suotana does so well lends itself to an extremely fun, energetic album that is just so solid. This is an album done well, and I’m still recommending it to pretty much all of you!

Song of the Year

Sometimes, you just need to have some fun. No matter how difficult, irritating, or otherwise negative this year may have been, “Ride to Hell” has been the pick-me-up song to deal with it. This is a terrific power-meets-traditional metal anthem, and the enthusiasm in which Angus McSix performs it is a huge part of the appeal. It’s catchy, it’s fun, it’s wildly addictive—it’s everything you need when times are rough and you don’t know any supernatural motorcyclists in the real world. It’s also a great song when you’re having a good day already and want to make it better.

#2023 #AngusMcSix #BlogPost #Briqueville #BurdenOfYmir #DavidEugeneEdwards #EssenceOfDatum #FiresInTheDistance #Godthrymm #healthyliving #Helga #Lists #Listurnalia #MutoidMan #NightCrowned #OkGoodnight #SacredOutcry #SanguineGlacialis #Scaphoid #SentynelSAndTwelveSTopTenIshOf2023 #Sermon #Sodomisery #Suotana #Svalbard #TheOcean #TheOtolith #Theocracy #Tribunal #VanishingKids #ViennaTeng #Wayfarer

Who are some #MusicalArtists that have been the most (long-lasting) influential to you, the way you think, the way you feel, the way you live & move in the world, most influential on the way your musical genealogy has moved?

Boiled down, mine are (ish)
#ToriAmos
#ViennaTeng
#FionaApple
#WuTang
#KendrickLamar
#Beyonce and #JayZ (#TheCarters)
#AngelHaze
#SnottyNoseRezKids
#LauraMarling
#Jaurim
#DrunkenTiger
#IndigoGirls #AniDifranco

when I was young
#TheMonkees
#JoniMitchell
#JamesTaylor