Before I dig into my top picks for 2021, I reached out to a few familiar faces within the sphere of metal and got them to send me the albums they dug the most this year. I told them the rules for the list are pretty flippant. Here's what they sent me:
Horus aka James Brown III (Harassor, Moonknight, Vorpal Sword, Rising Beast Recordings)
* In no particular order
10) Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime
09) Trhä - Endelhëtonëg
08) Tardigrada - Vom Bruch Bis Zur Freiheit
07) Circle of Ouroborus - Kiromantia
06) Sadness - April Sunset
05) Kuka'ilimoku - Pahu O ka Ua
04) Zhmach - Euphoria Never Leaves
03) Kêres - Flaming Ash
02) Mooschops - Adventures Above the 61st Parallel North
01) Fugitive Wizard - Obscuri Æternum
Artur de Carvalho (Forever Cursed—Best underground metal blog laid to rest (R.I.P.)
10) The Devouring Void - Hypnagogic Hallucinations
Holy shit I just realised these guys are from Portugal as well.. fuck me!
09) Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen the Light, and It Was Repulsive
Repulsive as fuck
08) Carcinoma - Labascation
Good shit from the UK
07) Gosudar - Morbid Despotic Ritual
Some good OSDM shit from Russia
06) Koldovstvo - "Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga"
Great entrancing BM
05) Fuoco Fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis
Feels like being swallowed by a black hole
04) Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia
A two track, total 48 minutes of filthy obscure DM? Yes please
03) Lykhaeon - Opprobrium
A more traditional approach to BM as we know it, still a banger though)
02) Labored Breath - Dyspnea
A fucking trip into the bowels of the most insane BM you’ll hear this year
01) Reverorum ib Malacht - Svag i Döden
I know these guys have released two albums this year, but I’m a huge fan of this approach
A.L.N. (Mizmor, Hell)
07) Emma Ruth Rundle - Engine of Hell
06) Hoverkraft - Schwebende Musik
05) Vouna - Atropos
04) Grouper - Shade
03) Walt McClements - A Hole in The Fence
02) Andrew Black - Welcome Home
01) Yautja - The Lurch
Mattias Alagna (Abstracter)
06) Filth Chasm - Demo 2021
05) Apostasy - Death Return
04) Grinning Death's Head - Cataclysm
03) Altarage - Succumb
02) Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment
01) Moonscape - Monolith
Big thanks for those that contributed!
• † •
Another year down the hatch. And another year where I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have overlooked a few releases (I always do) but I'd say this year in particular I have a pretty firm grip on the records that impressed me the most—I can say that in order to whittle the list down to 30 I have made some hard omissions, but that's just the nature of the beast! Pretty heavy on the black/death metal releases, which either speaks to the quality of the release or where my palette is at. It really doesn't matter, here's what moved me in order:
30) Forsman - Dönsum í Logans Ljóma (Ván Records)
Another example as to why Icelandic black metal is legitimately one of the most consistent and innervating within the second wave of black metal.
29) Abstracter - Abominium (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)
A dizzying descent into a mix of well articulated doom blackened crust, doom, sludge and sonic overall sonic hostility.
28) Tentation - Le Berceau des Dieux (Gates of Hell Records)
An absolute nod to the old days of heavy metal and a hell of a debut.
27) Divide and Dissolve - Gas Lit (Invada Records)
2-piece doom metal enveloped in a thick cloud of doom. Hits hard and feels significant.
26) Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime (Van Records)
Much like Havukruunu, Stormkeep have managed to capture all the elusive grandeur found in pagan black metal and dungeon synth without succumbing to the frivolity often found in it.
25) Concrete Winds - Nerve Butcherer (Sepulchral Voice Records)
Fast and dizzying death metal with very intentional glances towards grind and thrash. Pretty Spot on!
24) Wanton Attack - Wanton Attack (Black Writs Records)
A potent mix of early heavy metal rife with gritty duelling guitars and speed metal vitatlity!
23) Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning (Profound Lore Records)
Suffocatingly heavy death metal from a label that knows a good thing when it sees it. I don't think this record has any weak spots.
22) Vorpal Sword - Omens (Rising Beast Recordings)
The best account of blown out raw black metal I heard all year! A pastiche of noise punk, experimental ambient and shoegaze—It's perplexing how something so abrasive and corrosive in nature can be perceived as beautiful, but it does.
21) Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen The Light, and It Was Repulsive (I, Voidhanger Records)
A bubbling cauldron of cacophonous death metal infused with sludge, crust, doom and black metal with incredibly devastating pace.
20) Ekulu - Unscrew My Head (Cash Only Records)
Nailed down New York Hardcore with a heavy grip on 80’s metal. Why even bother with Turnstile?
19) Labored Breath - Dyspnea (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)
A spiralling churn of death metal infused black metal pushing through a feral wall of sound that straddles the line of the obscure and barbaric.
18) Labor Intvs - Sunken Crucible (Unsigned/Independant)
This has got to be one of the most overlooked albums on this list. Some of the nastiest death/black metal releases this year heavily exploring elements of doom and the underground obscure.
17) Mork - Katedralen (Peaceville Records)
Mork have pretty consistently been the best example as to how we can still successfully draw from the nearly dried up well of 90's black metal, and this year on Katedralen they prove that point yet again with a bullet.
16) Phrenelith - Chimaera (Nuclear Winter Records)
Massively over-looked death metal in my opinion. Phrenelith aren't exactly incorporating anything new into their sound, but somehow they manage to sound like nothing else—A black hole of dynamic death metal with reverence to the underground. Some of the best drumming on a death meal album this year?
15) Succumb - XXI (The Flenser)
Incredible death metal with Cheri’s possessed vocal belch being the backbone of what makes them unique from their contemporaries. I'm so glad they didn't fuck this up.
14) Fuoco Fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis (Profound Lore Records)
Crushing funeral doom with a lot of mid-tempo death metal influence that will drag you through an hour of some of the most potent and unyielding metal this year. A full listen through of this colossus will leave you bereft and beaten, just the way we like it.
13) Big Brave - Vital (Southern Lore Recordings)
Big Brave's suffocatingly plodding doom intertwined around a whirring mix of reverb-ladened guitars and vacuous space comes full-force on Vital. Beauty and brutality.
12) Koldovstvo - Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga (Unsigned/Independant)
Atmospheric black metal with heavy emphasis on the atmospheric, bordering on ambient or shoegaze. Incredibly raw, visceral and avant-garde with a lot of uncertainty surrounding any information around the band. It's hard to explain, but theres also this inexplicable feeling that comes over me when I listen to this album… Like I am slowly being consumed by madness. A mix of euphoria and malaise.
11) Altarage - Succumb (Season of Mist Underground Activists)
This release can hang with any of the aforementioned in the department of ferocity and heaviness, clocking in at over an hour of downright unfettered black/death from Spain.
10) Defacement - Defacement (I, Voidhanger Records)
Back when I talked about this release earlier in September I said "This is one of those albums that drags you through the abyss—A serpentining downward spiral through cavernous death metal that is equal parts technical, murky and experimental." Yet another album of extremely high caliber that has been buried amidst an ocean of sub-par music with high pay-grades and a full marketing team throwing petals at their feet. Stick with this, you'll thank me later.
09) Fyrnask - VII - Kenoma (Ván Records)
Fyrnask have been quietly creating some of the best atmospheric black metal around for over a decade now and VII - Kenoma is at the helm of it all. Powerfully melodic and thought provoking—Something between Misþyrming, Ash Borer, Morne, and Bölzer.
08) Voidsphere - To Overtake, To Overcome (Amor Fati Productions)
Spirit inducing black metal that takes shape through blistering riffs built upon a wall of sound. One of the best uses of atmospheric ambience, dense but not without melody or purpose. These Prava Kollektiv guys sure know how to write a record.
07) Warloghe - Three Angled Void (Northern Heritage Records)
Dizzying black metal from the nether, ugly, brutish and filled with cold riffs! I'd even go as far as saying some of the best riffing I heard in a black metal album all year, this is pure fucking armageddon.
06) Portal - Avow (Profound Lore Records)
Portal remain thee lords of hypnotically plodding and nauseating death metal. Lovecraftian obscurity in sonic form. This is up there with my favourite Portal has ever released—It sounds like a lobotomy. And It feels like a nauseating decent into the abyss. Encompassing.
05) Sulpur - Embracing Hatred and Beckoning Darkness (Amor Fati Productions)
Blown-out black metal doing everything MGLA does but even colder. A barrage of eerie riffs against a galloping tempo with some of the best sounding cymbals in the genre.
04) Darkthrone - Eternail Hails…… (Peaceville Records)
Has everyone forgot about Darkthrone? Hardly any mentions of Darkthrone this year… Am I the only one who loves the direction they’re moving in? I still think they're one of the most important bands in all of music right now. Three decades later and they’re still moving a worn-out genre into new territory.
03) Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia (Dark Descent Records)
One of the most crushing death metal albums released in 2021. Two songs of obscure death metal that drag you through a serpentining labyrinth of riffs that sound like a spiral into your own absolute insanity. Much like the Defacement release sitting at my number 10, this album is and was way under-appreciated for how good it is. I'm not sorry to sorry to say it, but it's more dynamic and crushing than 99% of the other releases that pass off as death metal.
02) Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment (Nuclear War Now! Productions)
Few try (with little success) to be as primitive and feral sounding as Antediluvian, its not something that can (or should) be contrived. It needs to come from a festering open wound or a sincere disapproval with some inner or outward force. The Divine Punishment is a pantheon in where these negative forces can live—A barbaric pile of forward-thinking death metal built upon an altar of whirring guitars, abyssal vocals and drumming that sounds like none of its contemporaries. Plodding, perverse, esoteric and entirely new.
01) Lykhaeon - Opprobrium (Repose Records)
Bestial death metal married with black metal and doom is hardly a new concept within the walls of metal, but very few albums are able to traverse new and refreshing soundscapes the way Opprobrium successfully does—An overtone of of ritualistic rites and dirges permeate the many layers of this album as you're dragged through a swath of of musical landscapes, all equally barbaric and mind altering. The best metal release of the year for me for sure, not a single flaw to be found.
Glad to see Fyrnask on your list, I don't find it in end year lists often. I missed your highest picks (except Darkthrone) so I'm gonna be going through them soon. Concrete Winds was great!
ReplyDeleteYeah I'm always baffled by that considering Fyrnask hasn't released anything short of great since Eldir Nótt. Definitely do that, all those releases are worth your attention!
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