It’s been far too long since I’ve submitted my own year-end list, due to many varying reasons, none of which I accept and none of which are viable excuses. But it happened. And almost every year I would go through the arduous process of compiling (and frivolously rearranging) an accurate account of albums I think surpassed and exceeded its musical cohorts, and every year I would fall short of posting them here on SHOM… Reasons varying from; Anxiety, frustration, complacency and something that looks like total Nihilism.
2018 was a weird year in my existence; Ear-marked with things good and bad, but mostly bad. I’ve never enjoyed pity parties so I’ll spare you the invite into what was mostly a year of loss, tough-lessons and vacuum like suckiness and isolation.
I don’t mention the above as a sympathy piece (self-pity has never suited me) I mention it because my choices for the best albums of 2018 are almost directly indicative to these experiences and the flux of my state, suspended animation. My tastes have always favoured the fetid and suffocatingly angry, but now it’s become an ichor, something to turn to when theres nothing else to turn to. It all sounds very serious when reading it over, it’s not, all I mean to suggest is my picks are very much conducive to that.
I know you’re not here to read a block of text, so here’s the first fifteen releases to my top 30 of MMXVIII (2018)
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15) Erdve - Vaitojimas
A brooding amalgam of dissonant hardcore against a gnashing punk backbone with a stout mixing of noise-ladened sludge and doom. Vaitojimas is instantly likeable, from the dark and foreboding dissonant guitars and the expansive atmosphere it creates down to the satisfying snap of the snare drum. You’re not listening to this why?
14) Mahr - Antelux
I posted this album up on Severed Heads Open Minds when it came out, and haven’t looked back since. Again, to repeat what I’ve been saying, is nobody listening to this? Forward thinking Black metal that won’t disturb purists. It’s overwhelming, bleak and crafted with a total understanding of what makes this genre so appealing.
13) Primal Rite - Dirge of Escapism
Wasn’t everyone creaming over the Power Trip release last year? I’m scratching my head, has nobody heard Dirge of Escapism? An album that nails down 80’s crossover with zeal and an approach that is quasi-unconventional; Utilizing the raw ferocity of Japanese and Scandinavian hardcore punk as influences and the filth of old-school death metal for an encompassing sound that is in its nature, primal, almost sounding like a cavernous neanderthal stomp. It’s hard as nails, heavy as a sledgehammer to the nose, and I’m into its core sound much more than the Power Trip release. So there.
12) Serocs - The Phobos / Deimos Suite
I’m super into this, and I don’t think I have been this into a brutal technical death metal album since Defeated Sanity released ‘Chapters of Repugnance’ back in 2012. That’s the bonafide litmus test for me. I normally just feel bored and unmoved by the sheer prowess, intricacies, speed and wankery from the bulk of this ilk but not with The Phobos / Deimos Suite though, not for one second, I’m dialled in, feeling putrid and fowl and wanting a giant meteor to ride into the earths crust through the cacophony of gravity blasts, frenetic growls, galloping riffs and a rich bass sound sturdy enough to hang your pukey leather jacket on. I’m still reeling at the closing minutes of this album, it’s pure, unmitigated sonic assault.
11) Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want
You won’t get what you want, if what you want is Daughters of the past; This isn’t Hell songs, it’s definitely not Canada Songs and it’s certainly no cousin to the self-titled. A monumental shift in sound, a total rebirth and shedding of the skin for Daughters and the directional result is a potent piece of art. Something entirely bleaker, heavier and more self-aware than anything Daughters has created before.
10) Mizmor - Mishlei
Another release so many have neglected in lieu of missing out on one more play through of Yob’s ‘Our Raw Heart’ was Mizmor’s Mishlei. Mercilessly slithering through one-hour and fifteen minutes of labyrinth woven doom/black metal with a strong grip on a raw production and a uniquely harrowing atmospheric curtain. Mizmor as a sound is the sonic embodiment of isolation, depression, anxiety and all things black, dreary and sucky.
09) Ilsa - Corpse Fortress
I’m thinking Ilsa might be the best example of a band that can claim filth on all fronts of their framework; Their production has always been bloated and grimy without sacrificing detail to a wall of noise, the vocals of Orion are of a desperate primordial howl and something that seems to have no exact duplicate within its ilk. I can go on and on about what makes Ilsa great, which is why their so high up on my list and why I feel rocks in my chest at the lack of appreciation circulating this band… Ilsa’s feedback-laden antediluvian doom, occult soaked, bile encrusted crust walked all over so many of those highly touted albums you guys have been complacently drooling over.
08) Hissing - Permanent Destitution
Hissing’s take on death metal is that of a churning, spiralling plunge into the bestial ether with a heinously swampy production and frenetic song structure, a downward (almost whirring) plunge into the fetid abyss of cavernous bloated vocal belch and dizzying hypnotic guitars… I’m reminded of Mitochondrion’s Parasignosis, which is something of a blanket statement, I’ll admit, but the comparison comes to mind. Severely overlooked and mangy death metal for you to start listening to, you’re welcome.
07) Akitsa - Credo
I don’t know what’s in the well water of Quebec but its vast and bleak soil has produced another trumpeting success in executing black metal of the 90’s with a refreshing take on second wave black metal. The riffs are frigid and hypnotizing and the tone is spot on, the vocal shrill is that which raises the hair on the back of your neck and push a wave of desperation into you and this is some of the best sounding drums I’ve heard on any recent black metal album. The underlying punk quality is unequivocally present, not in a Raspberry Bulbs type of approach, but in its simplicity and cadence. This one was obvious for me, raw shit.
06) LLNN - Deads
Another obvious placement in this list is Deads… Denmark’s LLNN are as impressive sonically as they are tenacious, releasing a new full-length every year since their inception in 2016 with ‘Loss’, and everything they touch is right on the money. Weaving a musical fabric of dark and brooding hardcore with flourishes of doom, sludge and post-metal into a masterfully paced album that at times is devastatingly heavy and visceral while at times floating through sections of beautifully sci-fi-esque ambient passages that let LLNN’s tonal assault breathe and gestate into a crude force.
05) Convocation - Scars Across
The very first time I played through the entirety of Scars Across I was as sure as shit isn’t always brown that this album would linger somewhere high up on my albums of the year list. Monolithic doom with a gargantuan atmosphere that is both crushingly isolating and expansive. Listening to this in its entirety is the only way to be suffocated by its sheer heft, and yes, you want that. Or something.
04) Cult Leader - A Patient Man
I initially had A Patient Man sitting at 7th on the list - and honestly, most of the albums in this top 15 are nearly interchangeable - but just recently as I was revisiting it, something resonated and forced my attention on how good everything is; There is a magisterial pacing under its weight and the contrast between the ferociously heavy and fast balance well under the tracks that lean into a more gothic, grunge tinged doom, which still yields a crushingly heavy and bleak sound. The dance between these two sonic realms is seamless and the marriage between them is something I’m really into and it’s for this reason this album is one of the most devastating and impressive albums of the year.
03) Craft - White Noise and Black Metal
Probably the best example this year of moving Black metal in a direction that doesn’t point towards uncreative sterility, puritan boredom, silly pageantry of gimmicks and overcomplicating things for the sake of doing it. White Noise and Black Metal is cold as hell. Endless riffs poured over Craft’s revered take on a sound that many fall so very short of.
02) Obliteration - Cenotaph Obscure
What a fucking beauty Cenotaph Obscure is… It’s perfectly executed winding and mirky death metal with a festering old-school black metal carapace. I can’t find a single flaw with this album, all the way down to how the kick drum is used. There is a definite heir of punk ethos woven throughout it’s crude framework and moments of simplicity, and this amalgam of good taste speaks for itself. Cenotaph Obscure is impetuous…Listen to Detestation Rite, and give thanks to the gods of Obliteration.
01) Thou - Magus
2018 was the year of Thou, just as 2017 was the year of Amenra (Nothing was even close). Thou chewed, clawed, spat, pummelled and worked with an unmatched fervour this year (like most years); Releasing 3 Ep’s, one split with Ragana and this monolith of a full-length, all of which are acutely executed and brilliant in their own right. Magus was the album I needed to be hearing most this year, and I did, I listened to it a lot. I stewed and marinated in in the palpable vitriol, I basked and banged through its churning heft and I grit my teeth and coughed up phlegm under its unearthly weight and felt my blood turn thick with sludge. Magus was basically uncontested. Thank you 2018 for Magus and Mandy.
