Frosty's Favorite Metal of 2014
This is in no way meant to be a comprehensive, full accounting of what I consider to be the best metal albums of 2014, so keep that in mind when you notice there is no Triptykon listed here (WHAT?! NO TRIPTYKON??!!? *adjusts monocle, dictates angry comment*) or Teitanblood (kvlt cred - shot to hell) or YOB (though "Marrow" is one of the best songs of 2014). By way of compromise, I've relegated these items of interest to the "Extremely Honorable Mentions" section at the bottom of this page. Instead, I've chosen to simply make a list of my personal favorites of the year. The records I recommended to friends and followers the most because they excited me. These are the albums I almost can't help but gush about whenever anyone brings them up (this would be a good time to ask your forgiveness for the inevitable hyperbole you will encounter here). The first part of this list is in alphabetical order, with no indication of ranking at all. The second part of this list ranks my top 5 favorite albums of the year, as any ranking beyond that proved arbitrary and muddy. Without further ado, Frosty's favorite metal albums of 2014 were... A Pregnant Light - My Game Doesn't Have A Name (Colloquial Sound Recordings)
Damian Master calls A Pregnant Light “purple metal.” It’s not exactly black, or even all that metal. It’s bright, yet aggressive. Weaving fuzzed out rock riffs together with tremolo picks and melodic lead guitar lines, shifting from hardcore to punk to metal and back again, and bellowing down-in-a-well, reverb-soaked screams, Masters has crafted a truly unique and emotional listening experience. The last 2 tracks of My Game Doesn't Have a Name are a worthy payoff, and constitute probably the best 1-2 punch in heavy music I've heard all year.
My Game Doesn't Have A Name by A PREGNANT LIGHT
Abigor - Leytmotif Luzifer (Avantgarde Music)
Leytmotif Luzifer sounds like a literal conjuring of demonic forces. Like the actual Lucifer is dancing in the corner of the studio this entire recording session. Satanic black metal rarely actually achieves this quality - SOUNDING Satanic. Or at least what my bible school, urban legend version of Satan would sound like. Abigor has been at this game for a while, but Leytmotif may be their best effort yet. The random and horrific sound effects and the chanting choirs. The flat out evil tone of the guitar. The blasphemy-laced, demonic snarls of vocalist Silenius. The theatrical mysticism. It all works together to put on quite a scary production that doesn't come off as hammed up in the least.
Leytmotif Luzifer by Abigor
Alraune - The Process of Self-Immolation (Profound Lore)
The Process of Self-Immolation is Alraune’s first proper release, following a few demos that gained them some traction among underground metal fans and caught the eye of the mighty Profound Lore Records. It’s a doozy of a debut. It’s not necessarily ambitious or boundary-pushing, but what it lacks in musical experimentation, it more than makes up for with gritty, nasty and sometimes downright haunting and scary black metal that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the genre.
The Process Of Self-Immolation by ALRAUNE
Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation (Profound Lore)
Artificial Brain's Labyrinth Constellation is an avant-garde take on technical death metal in the vein of Gorguts' Colored Sands, and it's almost as good. Even more remarkable is that this is the band's debut album. That a band so young has created a record so mature and so unique could almost be described as virtuosic. Gutteral growls, technical prowess, progressive and hooky melodies, a drummer who sold his soul to Satan probably, and an uncanny creative prowess all work together to make Labyrinth Constellation the best death metal album of the year.
Labyrinth Constellation by ARTIFICIAL BRAIN
Black Monolith - Passenger (All Black Recording Company)
Black Monolith plays crusty, atmospheric, fuck-you punk-infused black metal. It's loud, harsh, and relentless, yet somehow melodic and beautiful at the same time. D-beats, hardcore riffs, black metal tremolo and blast beats. Throw in some synths for atmosphere and Passenger becomes quite possibly the only essential blackened crust album I've come across. But that's just one man's (highly respected) opinion.
Passenger by Black Monolith
Dead Congregation - Promulgation of the Fall (Martyrdoom)
With Promulgation of the Fall, the death metal pride of Greece kicked in the door and cleaned house, reminding us all why they've been so often imitated yet never duplicated these last few years. You could practically hear the egos shattering on the floor of every wannabe "brutal" death metal band's Facebook page. Simply put, Dead Congregation has once again reset the bar for the imitators. This time I'm afraid it may be out of reach altogether.
Promulgation of the Fall by Dead Congregation
Doom:VS - Earthless (Solitude Productions)
Doom:VS is Johan Ericson of Draconian's solo funeral doom project. Earthless is Johan's third outing under this moniker, and with a little help from collaborator Thomas A.G. Jensen of Saturnus, his best. The record is heavy, sure. Some of these riffs are mammoth, and Ericson's from-the-depths-of-sorrow growls only enhance the effect. But what really sticks out about Earthless is how perfectly hopeless and bleak the atmosphere is right out of the gate. The darkness and gloom are palpable, almost smothering. The guitar leads, almost like slow, plodding solos, add rich melodies and solid direction to each song, preventing them from getting lost in their own heavy fog.
Fuck the Facts - Abandoned (Independent)
Fuck the Facts have been DIY grindcore visionaries since they began around 2000. Abandoned finds the band at their most melodic and their most razor-sharp. This is grindcore that separates itself from the pack, somehow tempering the coldness of mechanical technicality with the fiery DIY soul of punk and hardcore. Abandoned is a 3 track EP that runs a scant 12 minutes. The fact that they managed to make it onto this end of year list with such a meager offering should testify to the quality and superiority of their songwriting.
Abandoned by Fuck The Facts
Indian - From All Purity (Relapse)
From All Purity is fucking filthy. It’s a doom train gone off the tracks into a river of sludge, slowly sinking into a soft bed of pulp and grime from which there is no escape, all while trapped passengers scream bloody razor blades. Violent suffocation, I think, would be the best way to describe the experience. Nothing else in 2014 quite satisfied my craving for malevolence quite like this one.
From All Purity by Indian
Inter Arma - The Cavern (Relapse)
I wrote a review of The Cavern over on Metal Bandcamp. You can check it out here.
Nux Vomica - Nux Vomica (Relapse)
"Nux Vomica" is the Latin phrase for strychnine. Seems about right. Tim Messing and co. play some of the angriest sludge/hardcore put to wax, and Messing's frustration - with society's hypocrisy and poisonous inaction, specifically - is practically palpable. Nux Vomica was in serious consideration for one of those top 5 spots below, and deservedly so. Music this visceral is rarely so meticulous in its composition or so given to pointed restraint in its delivery. These guys know when to pull on the reins and leave some breathing room for the listener to reflect and absorb. It's a standout record that gets its hooks in immediately and wraps itself around your consciousness like a vine. You can't help but listen again and again.
Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore)
This one took some time to grow on me. I expected Pallbearer to evolve, but I never thought the evolution would come so quickly or so drastically. Perhaps ironically, this was the source of my initial trepidation. I didn't really "get" what Pallbearer were trying to do. It wasn't until I saw them play the new material live that everything fell into place. Everything we loved about Sorrow and Extinction is here. The infectious lead guitar melodies and the emotive clean vocals. The heaviness of the long, drawn out riffs. The effervescence, if something so slow and measured could be described as such. Pallbearer has taken all of those elements and dialed them to eleven on Foundations of Burden. Every single aspect of their outstanding debut has been improved upon. It's heavier. It's catchier. It's practically crackling with energy. And perhaps most importantly, it's a promise. Sophomore albums are notoriously difficult, and the fact that Pallbearer has nailed their second effort so squarely on the head is great news for the future.
Foundations Of Burden by PALLBEARER
Panopticon - Roads To the North (Bindrune Recordings)
Austin Lunn’s Appalachia obsessed folk/black metal project picks up where it left off on Kentucky with Roads to the North, a somewhat long-winded but otherwise stellar offering in an already stellar discography. Lunn packs so many ideas into his songwriting that his brilliance can sometimes be overshadowed by his enthusiasm, but the music is brilliant nonetheless. Roads to the North is bursting at the seams with epic folk-infused black metal that hits all the right spots and is a must-listen for 2014.
Roads To The North by Panopticon
Rotting Sky - Sedation (Independent)
Apparently Tim Messing (guitarist/vocalist for Nux Vomica) had my number this year. Rotting Sky is his solo black metal/noise project, and it’s just…evil. Heavily distorted, loud guitar riffs and feedback are juxtaposed with the continuous background presence of piano and synths picking out delicate melodies. Messing screams over the ordered chaos like a banshee losing his voice. Sedation makes for one of the most interesting listens of the year - a must for fans of harsh textures and blackened noise.
Schammasch - Contradiction (Prosthetic Records)
Clocking in at a daunting 85 minutes and spanning across 2 CDs, Contradiction is a metal tour de force. Despite its epic length, the record remains focused and cohesive, never really slipping into excess or masturbatory noodling. It’s an unrelenting and thorough expansion on a single idea and a limited palate of sounds that are stretched to their very limits. The Psalm-like lyrics add a poetic and convincing zeal to the proceedings that gives Schammasch’s Satanic obsession an air of authenticity.
Contradiction by Schammasch
Sun Worship - Elder Giants (Independent)
On Elder Giants, Sun Worship play atmospheric black metal layered with dizzying, unrelenting blast beats. A wall of thick, tremolo picked fog delicately smothers the singer’s would-be harsh vocals. Every note, every hit of the snare, and every blood-curdling scream on this record is given equal focus. No sound is left to languish on the back burner, nor take center stage at the front of the mix. It’s all perfectly balanced. All that’s left then, is the carefully crafted atmosphere of the music itself. Dark, cold, and black. Just as it should be. If that’s what atmospheric black metal sets out to accomplish, Sun Worship have mastered it beautifully.
Elder Giants by Sun Worship
Void Ritual - Holodomor (Tridoid Records)
Dan Jackson just went and wrote himself one of the best black metal EPs of the year with Holodomor. An aggressively hateful and angry sound that meshes well with the events surrounding the album title - a “man-made famine which killed millions of Ukranian people in the 1930s.” The world’s unnecessary suffering and the evil men behind it are what “gave Void Ritual its birth." The musicianship here is tight and precise, particularly the drumming, which drives these 3 songs forward at an almost perilous pace. The icy progression of tremolo picked melodies break out into rock and roll riffs and pure heaviness at just the right times to add a multidimensional feel to the record. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Void Ritual could do with a full-length album, but for now these three superb black metal gems will do nicely on repeat.
Wo Fat - The Conjuring (Small Stone Records)
If you were looking for a new model of what stoner doom is supposed to sound like, Wo Fat just built it. No other stoner record this year came quite as close to perfection as The Conjuring. It's a fully immersive experience, like soaking in a warm bath that never cools down. The sensation, in a word - stoned. The charismatic, bluesy charm of vocalist Kent Stump (think a smoked-out Dr. Teeth) disposes of any hint of seriousness or pretension. The Conjuring gives stoner fans all they could ask for. Just riffs and relaxation.
Woods of Desolation - As the Stars (Northern Silence Productions)
Vacillating between the loud/soft dynamics of post rock and ugly blasts of black metal, As the Stars finds the perfect balance between cold and warmth, darkness and vibrancy. The result is a shimmering atmospheric black metal record that soars with emotion and beauty at every turn. It's a series of triumphant moments in an otherwise disillusioned world, and that's a feat black metal rarely achieves.
As The Stars by Woods of Desolation
Yellow Eyes - Stillicide (Sibir Records)
Yellow Eyes released 2 Eps in 2014. The Desert Mourns, which contains one of the best black metal songs I've ever heard, "One Rock for the Wild Dog," was released in January. Stillicide was released on cassette in December. While The Desert Mourns seemed like more of a continuation of the band's excellent 2012 album Hammer of Night, the two songs on Stillicide are the most promising and fully-realized in Yellow Eyes' catalog to date, and that’s a mouthful considering their previous output. Since the band released Hammer of Night, Yellow Eyes have been touted by many as the saviors of USBM. If Stillicide is any indication of what the band’s future holds, those accolades and predictions will be fully justified. The title track "Stillicide" is available for streaming via Stereogum The other track "Heat From Other Days" is available for streaming via Pitchfork. 5. Nightfell - The Living Ever Mourn (Southern Lord)
Nightfell are craftsmen. Yes, The Living Ever Mourn is their debut album, but this Portland duo is nothing if not experienced. Tim Call, the drummer/vocalist has spent time playing with such well-known acts as The Howling Wind and Mournful Congregation. The guitarist Todd Burdette is a current member of Tragedy and a former member of the legendary His Hero is Gone. Each has had plenty of time and experience to understand the intricacies of their respective crafts, and to witness them working in harmony with that knowledge and know-how is nothing short of breathtaking. The Living Ever Mourn is a fairly straightforward blend of funeral doom and death metal. There isn’t much, if any, experimentation here and, as expected, the lyrical content is bleak and macabre. That being said, this is among the best doom-death records I’ve ever heard. Nightfell are extraordinarily adept songwriters, knowing exactly when and how to introduce new elements or themes, when to build tension, and when to release it all and rattle your ribcage with lumbering, elephantine riffs. Throughout the record, Call and Burdette play off of each other’s strengths and build powerful atmospherics and balanced song structures that come off as deceptively easy.
THE LIVING EVER MOURN by NIGHTFELL
4. Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith (I, Voidhanger Records)
Phobos Monolith is a space-faring black metal journey with so many peaks and swells it's almost exhausting. Each song builds steadily until it practically explodes, pushing out waves and waves of cathartic crescendos and pure intergalactic beauty. Mare Cognitum is the solo project of Jacob Buczarski. That this record is the work of one man is truly impressive, but perhaps explains why the artists' vision is so thoroughly realized. Listening to this, it's quite clear that this music is the work of a perfectionist. Everything flows together so smoothly and the album is so cohesive that to put this into the hands of a full band would likely render it clinical or dispassionate. Emotionless. A yearning to get the technicalities of the music so perfect that the feeling gets lost. Not so with Phobos Monolith. This is as complete a black metal vision as any, and not much else in 2014 came close to comparing.
Phobos Monolith by Mare Cognitum
3. Gridlink - Longhena (Handshake, Inc.)
My first honest reaction upon hearing Longhena for the first time? Holy. Shit. In the rarefied air of brilliant swan song records, Gridlink has shoved their grind masterpiece up all of our asses and made us like it. Forced entry isn't always a bad thing. Longhena is 21 minutes of the most aggressive, technically adventurous and flat out pummeling grind I've heard in years. The high-pitched, nails-on-a-chalkboard scream of Jon Chang is the sound of a desperate and final communiqué - the burning of a final legacy into our collective melting brains. Longhena is not an easy listen. It's grind, so that's a given. It is, however, an essential one. I can all but guarantee if you can take your medicine for that first 21 minutes, you'll be begging for 42. 2. Behemoth - The Satanist (Metal Blade)
Despite its title and image, The Satanist is a joyful record. It’s the sound of a man making the best art of his life, because he no longer takes tomorrow for granted. Tracks like “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel” and “O Father O Satan O Sun!” bring an enthusiastic fervor to the band’s all-too-familiar preoccupation with the dark lord. This isn’t something you can manufacture. It’s just something that you are. In this way, The Satanist is Behemoth's renaissance. Not since Evangelion have these Polish black/death metallers sounded so fresh and alive. Perhaps it was Nergal’s victory over leukemia that lit that spark. It seems likely considering the timing, but these speculations have been done to death. The proof is in the pudding, as some assuredly white person once said, and Behemoth has thrown down the black/death metal gauntlet here.
1. Dirge - Hyperion (Debemur Morti Productions)
No other album this year was there for me quite like Hyperion. When I couldn't sleep. When I needed something to help me clear my racing thoughts. When I had my first panic attack in over a year. When I felt depression starting to chip away at its medicinal walls. Dirge always brought me back to center. It sank into me and soothed my overactive mind like a balm. Hyperion has been a steady and loyal companion through all of this. It may not have even registered on most end of year lists, but for me nothing else even came close. Dirge uses repetition to build atmosphere and texture, creating hypnotic sludge/doom with an industrial and psychedelic bent. Hyperion is music of light. With each new riff or melody comes a new shadow or a new fleeting ray in the darkness. Any given track can take you from dusk to twilight in a matter of moments, but never into impenetrable darkness or blinding sun. Each song, though part of the whole, grows into its own entity as it progresses. Dirge allows every track here to "find itself" in an organic way. The band is very patient, but never pushy. Each wave of dense guitar and each subtle flourish and pivot work together to create lush soundscapes that reward the listener with each successive listen. Hyperion has been my go-to album for most of the year, and thus snags the top spot on my favorite metal albums of 2014.
Extremely honorable mentions: Agalloch - The Serpent & The Sphere - Listen Avichi - Catharsis Absolute - Listen Baring Teeth - Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins - Listen Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III - Saturnian Poetry - Listen Coffinworm - IV.I.VIII - Listen Couch Slut - My Life as a Woman - Listen Darkspace - Dark Space III I - Listen Dawnbringer - Night of the Hammer - Listen Diocletian - Gesundrian - Listen Earth - Primitive and Deadly - Listen Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen - Listen Pyrrhon - The Mother of Virtues - Listen Teitanblood - Death - LIsten Thantifaxath - Sacred White Noise - Listen Thou - Heathen - Listen Tombs - Savage Gold - Listen YOB - Clearing the Path to Ascend - Listen
