That Metal Thread

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DoomsdayElite said:
Anyone have a top ten list yet? (or however many you fancy)
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IIRC I posted a few weeks/months ago about Fugitive Wizard and the Wergild label and how I absolutely love everything this little label has put out this year. Basically nothing has changed here. The FW album would be my AOTY. The follow-up EP is just as good as the album.
IRON FIRMAMENT of Wergild released two albums and two EPs this year and all four releases are just this freaking good. Their latest EP:

LANDER put out an EP first and then their debut album:

There were some other releases on Wergild but these three bands and their records are what got me most interested throughout the whole year. I'm not overexaggerating when I say that I listend to at least one of these releases once on a daily basis.

All three bands share the same label and share some members. All three bands play Black Metal. While FW incorporates more Dungeon Synth-y parts IF plays a more Satanic Warmaster-esque styled Black Metal and me personally I hear some resemblances to Graveland's "Thousand swords" album too. At least the spirit of a 1000 swords is there. Lander call their music "Tactical Espionage Black Metal" and saw somewhere some random internet guy calling it "Metal Gear Sold Black Metal" and I think both are a pretty perfect label.
You mentioned the new AKHLYS album. I read and heard from a lot of people a lot of good things about this one so I gave a shot. Didn't resonate with me. Way to "overproduced" (not really but in terms of Black Metal) and way to "modern" (not really but in terms of how I like my Black Metal). Compared to the Akhlys album or the 1349 album FW, IF and Lander are more on the raw side of Black Metal which is way more my cup of tea.

Other albums I listened a lot to this year in no particular order (Metal Archives links given):

CONIFERE "L'impot du sang" - Raw and punkish Black Metal from Quebec, Canada.
HAIL CONJURER "Satanic Phenomenology" - no brainer. Hail Conjurer is a label of Black Metal excellency itself. I'm a total Hail Conjurer / Ride For Revenge fanatic.
CHEVALLIER SKROG "Betrayal in realms of two pillars" - Raw Black Metal from rural Czechia.
HELVETETS PORT "Warlords" - Swedish Heavy Metal. You take a look at this band pic and you know immediately what you are into it for.
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DOPETHRONE "Broke Sabbath" - Stoner Doom Metal, surprise.
SATURNALIA TEMPLE "Paradigm Call" - Very simple and repetitive Stoner Doom Metal and holy shit is this album dark. It's ripping off Electric Wizard ripping off Black Sabbath but it's not Black Sabbath but Black Black. So fucking good.
ROSTORCHESTER "Der Zinnen Sang Vom Niedergand" - Raw excentric Black Metal from Switzerland.
ARA "Blutroter Mond" - Raw Black Metal from Austria with some hints of Punk and Post-Punk but not really. It's weird. Weird but good.
DARKTHRONE "It beckons us all" - I'm a Darkthrone die hard fan. If you didn't their latest few albums you won't like this one too.
TAROT "Glimpse of the dawn" - It's the BMSS guy and I'm totally obsessed with everything he does. It's psychedelic Hard Rock/Heavy Metal that sounds like you have heard a 1000 times already but still fresh and new. I like how he manages to write music that takes you down memory lane but still feels new and never-heard before.
CONCRETE WINDS "Concrete winds" - Pure violence.
COFFINS "Sinister Oath" - Doomy Death Metal from Japan. Nothing new here but you don't expect Coffins to reinvent themselves over and over again. You have heard one Coffins album you have heard them all - but they are all just so good.
DIOCLETIAN "Inexorable Nexus" - Diocletian doing Dicletian things (playing Black/Death Metal aka War Metal).
DEATHRITE "FLAMES LICKING FEVER" - Punkish Motörhead Death Metal.
FALSA LUZ "Por linhas tortas" - Raw punkish Black Metal from Brazil. Some nice Akitsa vibes in there.

ARBOR, FELLWINTER and GAUNTLET'S RING all released new albums, all are pretty good (all 3 play Black Metal). Same for the new HÄXENZIJRKELL album (Black Metal again). Oh and the KUKA'ILIMOKI split EP with some Finnish band and an unspeakble name is fucking awesome (again, Black Metal, very raw and punkish and even hints of OI!). The new AULD RIDGE album is freaking good too (Black Metal, surprise). The new Unhold-ABSURD album is NOT good tho. Quite a disappointment actually.
And I listened a lot to the new THE BODY album (bandcamp).
 
I would add the new HEXENBRETT album to my top list for this year but it was only released two days ago and I'm acutally just listening it yet. But it's so fucking good.
If you have never heard of Hexenbrett you are in for a wild ride. Weirdo horror Heavy Black Metal that oozes 60's horror and Italian giallo movies.

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Listen here on bandcamp.
 
Lone Wandering Courier said:
Which album? Unhold-Absurd released 2 albums this year (one of them just came out a few days ago).
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Oh, didn't know that the Kyffhäuserreich album got released. The teaser that was released earlier this year sounded promising. But the Werwolflicht album was a let down, especially the vocals and especially after the Pure Darkness EP from a few years ago.
 
Onni Kalsarikännit said:
Oh, didn't know that the Kyffhäuserreich album got released. The teaser that was released earlier this year sounded promising. But the Werwolflicht album was a let down, especially the vocals and especially after the Pure Darkness EP from a few years ago.
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I didn't even listen to Werwolficht, that AI-generated furry softporn cover made me stay away from it.
 
DoomsdayElite said:
Anyone have a 2024 top ten list yet? (or however many you fancy)
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...incoming metal autism...

1. Coffins - Sinister Oath
The veteran gods of death doom. I never expected to put this in the top spot but as the year went by I kept coming back to it, and it steamrolled over records that're objectively more interesting. Definitely their best album since Buried Death and it peaks insanely high with "Everlasting Spiral" which is still my favorite track of the year.

2. Vendel - Out in the Fields
Amazing album, the closest I came to dishing out a 9/10 this year. Like the Wastelander album from last year, this benefits a lot from having re-recorded tracks from their old EP's ("Defender" and "Dirge") which I had on tape and played the fuck out of in the 2010's. Makes it feel nostalgic like I was already half-familiar with the album, and they actually managed to improve on those tracks instead of merely rehashing them. The riffs have so much weight to them, some of the best epic doom/heavy metal I've heard in ages.

3. Funereality - Through the Black Holes of the Dead
One-man Autopsy-worship with real drums. Deep in my heart this is probably my actual AOTY. I'll be jamming Funereality long after the appeal of newer bands fade, because he's a close buddy of mine and I know this material like the back of my hand. I'm also a sucker for anything that seems personal to the artist, like there's in-jokes or references only they (and a select few others) get in the music. It's the definition of a passion project and he's been at it over a decade.

4. Metastasis - Fatal Morphosis
A win for the boomers. Fat old bastards making all other 2024 thrash sound low energy. Death, Possessed, Dark Angel, Sadus, Kreator, Pestilence, Massacra, all the best 80's influences are in here. Also the title track is one of the year's best songs. Might go higher when I've had more time with it. They're so out of touch they still link Myspace on their Bandcamp!

5. Hail Spirit Noir - Fossil Gardens
An amazing return-to-form event for these guys, after their last couple albums really disappointed me. Progressive black space metal with shimmering, crashing waves of synths forming the backdrop. Clearly their brief detour into doing a synthwave soundtrack levelled their craft up, and I'm glad they decided to make metal again.

6. Mayhemic - Toba
Just a total and complete landslide of riffs! Deadly triumphant metallic savagery! Although I had to leave Desolus off the list, this has actually been a very thrashy year for me. So many great bands keeping the spirit alive. Ignacio's vocals are unhinged on "Triumph Portrait" haha what a maniac!

7. Void Moon - Dreams Inside the Sun
Always surprised by how overlooked these guys are. I really love their vocal hooks and how they approach doom metal with a lighter touch. Vaguely reminds me of Revelation, with a faint influence of Solitude Aeturnus. Their songs at their best are insanely catchy and get stuck in my head for days, even more so with this album. Maybe their emphasis on the vocals and not enough on the riffs turns many off? Just check the album closer "The Wolf (At the End of the World)" because that riff fucking rules.

8. Boarhammer - II: Chemognosis – A Shortcut to Mushrooms
This was one of the first albums I fell in love with this year, as it dropped in January, so I've jammed it many times. It was my highest rated album for a bit there and I'd assumed it would be my AOTY. It dropped down quite a bit since then I guess. The wild heavy metal energy of the opening track is so infectious, like croaky-voiced trickster gods interpreting black metal and not quite getting it correct. Off-kilter and weird like Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom often are. When I close my eyes I picture it's Radagast who is singing.

9. Acerus - The Caliginous Serenade
The only album on here that I would consider a grower. It took some spins for it to finally click with me, probably because it has a somewhat muted and flat production. But its charm is just so good that it overcomes it. Opening the album with one of the catchiest songs ever just completely sets the pace perfectly. So much amazing galloping epic metal here.

10. Grendel's Sÿster - Katabasis into the Abaton
"Creaking of thee OOOOAAAARRRRSSSS!"
Caro is one of my favorite vocalists right now, the way she delivers lines and annunciates certain words is just like no other in metal these days. Bilingual albums are insane too. Who can be arsed to record the same album twice in different tongues? Each version sounds just as good, too. This is one of those nerdy trad metal bands that're clearly just doing their own thing. The opening trio of tracks "Boar's Tusk Helmet," "The Plight of a Sorcerer" and "Rose Arbor" might be the best of the year, though I haven't looked deeply into it. Shout-out to The Flintstones theme song.
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Honourable mention to Dipygus who, although their S/T album didn't make my list, did drop my second favorite track of the year:


Also honourable mention to Diskord and Atvm for releasing the best split of the year:


Total and complete weirdo death metal insanity. Easily holds its own against most full lengths.
 
Onni Kalsarikännit said:
How?
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I don't have a social life, so the first three days of the month, a weekend, I listened to about 75 albums.
Then I've have a job where I wear hearing protection with Bluetooth, so there's 8 hours of music every day. Plus about an hour of music just getting to and from work. Then I'd listen to some more until maybe a couple of hours before I went to bed.

When I reached the 100th album, I just wanted to see how many individual albums I could get.
Thought I would get more, but I sometimes get hit with "music fatigue", and it really set in at the end of the month.

Oh, and it was only black metal.
 
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I find it very amusing these fags are being mislabeled as metal after the gay ass performance on jimmy kimmel and the apparent "outrage" from viewers who were "scared"
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Terrifying, I think I just shit my pants
I still don't see metal going mega mainstream. Maybe thats just cope on my part.
 
Brenda Holiday said:
I find it very amusing these fags are being mislabeled as metal after the gay ass performance on jimmy kimmel
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Knocked Loose is not metal, they are hardcore, but hopefully that is what you are suggesting here.
Brenda Holiday said:
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Terrifying, I think I just shit my pants
I still don't see metal going mega mainstream. Maybe thats just cope on my part.
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Metal has been mainstream, depending on how marketable the artist in question is, for countless times throughout the history of the genre. Metallica has been in the mainstream for literal decades now. Slipknot has been in the mainstream for literal decades now. Their heaviest album (Iowa) has 2 songs on it that received grammy nominations in 2001, and it goes without mentioning that that album is undeniably heavy and even contains blast beats. To insinuate that "metal" has never been mainstream is just downright erroneous.

With that said, however, it is safe to say that heavy music is very much more accepted now than it used to be. Not that it has the potential to be any more "mainstream" now than it ever was, but you can look at it this way: The Acacia Strain saw number 1's across 3 different charts in 2020 for their album Slow Decay, which was the highest charting album they ever did. The album contains no clean vocals and is just is heavy, if not more so, than their previous efforts.
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And if you don't like -core but prefer more of the brutal death metal variety such as myself, the same case can be made about Defeated Sanity. A few years ago, their album that was released the same year too saw an album that charted on iTunes and Apple Music charts, which was the first time this ever happened with the group. Actually surprising achievement for a band this brutal.

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Molesting the Decapitated said:
Knocked Loose is not metal, they are hardcore, but hopefully that is what you are suggesting here.
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Yeah. Seen many people referring to them as metal which is just wrong, but they get mad when someone corrects them.
Lol Metallica is so damn popular I forget they're metal. You're right though, metal has been mainstream, and definitely its more acceptable now like you said. I just found the insinuation that knocked loose is metal, and "scary", amusing. That's cool about Defeated Sanity too, didn't know that.
Between gojira at olympics and knocked loose on kimmel I do wonder where "heavy" music is going in relation to mainstream music though. The pop punk influence is getting old. I want to see an olivia rodrigo clone growling and screaming.
 
Top favorite album:
Theurgy - EOUL
Very innovative, technical and eccentric brutal death metal, if you want to hear some unusual/experimental riffs for the genre then check this one out. The vocals are something else as well

Spotify | Bandcamp

Top favoerite EP:
Pestilectomy - STAER
This is probably one of my favorite releases in the slamming brutal death genre for a while. Slam became very very oversaturated in recent years, but man I love this. Riffs are top game in between all the slammage and the vocals are next fucking level.

Spotify | Bandcamp

I do have a bucket of other favorites but can't really be bothered to name everything atm. Check those out if you need some brutality though.
 
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