Every year, I divide these records into the truly terrible, and those that merely disappoint me. What I've come to realize in doing this is that the disappointing albums might be the better group, but they hurt to listen to much more, for the simple fact that having hope and watching it deflate is far worse than never having any in the first place. I've used that as a bit of advice for portions of life, despite knowing how depressing it sounds, and lets face the facts; it doesn't really work.
Avoiding the bad doesn't seem possible, so we dive headlong into it. Here we go (in alphabetical order).
The Worst Albums:
AFI - Silver Bleeds The Black Sun
Can this really be the same band that made "Sing The Sorrow"? I don't expect them to ever have a magical moment like that again, but this time around they adopt a goth aesthetic, complete with Davey Havok sporting a 70s porn mustache and a fake baritone voice. The songs themselves are rather boring pieces of goth, but what sets this over the top as being bad instead of merely boring is how fake and artificial the whole thing is. AFI have been around so long, we know what they sound like, we know what Davey sounds like. This is not AFI as they have ever been, it's a band playing the part of something other than who they are. To abandon their identity to make a shitty record is pretty unforgivable. This wasn't them running out of inspiration, this was them giving themselves a black eye thinking it would serve as makeup.
The Darkness - Dreams On Toast
I sort of hate myself for still loving "Permission To Land", because The Darkness have never done anything since then I think is worth a damn. This record might be the worst of them all, as they not only trade in bad 'comedy', but can't even do so with a decent hook or two. The whole thing feels like someone who got sober, only to realize the alcohol was their entire personality. Remember the 'Fun Bobby' episode of "Friends"? That's this album, except for the fact that Justin Hawkins thinks every character needs to be as dumb as Joey. Why else would anyone write a song about trying not to fart/shit on his wife while celebrating their anniversary? I hate them for making me write that sentence. Fuck this band.
Ethel Cain - Perverts
Here's an 'album' that made me question the very nature of what music is. As I skimmed through the very long running time, I was given ample time to ask myself what a song is if it doesn't have a musical idea in it. Ethel Cain is one of those critical darlings who makes the musical equivalent to boring HBO dramas that think pretty camera shots make up for not having a decent script. She drones on through waves of soft noise for more than an hour, never once giving us anything that sounds like a reason why she made this music. I truly cannot tell what in any of these songs inspired her enough to think it needed to be turned into a song. There's nothing here at all... nothing but the bleeding pain in my ears.
Spiritbox - Tsunami Sea
Speaking of critical darlings, Spiritbox is the hottest name in the metal world at the moment, so I gave their record a shot. I really did, if for no other reason than Courtney Laplante being a genuinely talented singer. That's the only good thing I can say about them, as my time with the album consisted of me asking when the songs were going to get good. They either scream their way through one-note breakdowns, or float on ethereal sections that have no melody. It's as if you took two bands trying to be Killswitch Engage, one good at only the heavy and one only at the hooky, and you used the pieces they suck at. I'm so confused.
Steven Wilson - The Overview
Leave it to Steven Wilson to write an album about the effect being in space and seeing the scale and scope of the earth, and having it come out this turgid and boring. His progressive 'songs' are not twenty-minute epics, but strings of shorter songs glued together. It's the laziest version of prog songwriting, but the fact of the matter is that Steven has not been good at writing pop since "In Absentia" twenty years ago. He loves sound, but not songs, and that shines through as he spends more time dialing in tones than he does in writing anything worth playing or listening to. The universe is a vast nothing, and so is this bloody album.
The Most Disappointing Albums:
Avatarium - Between You, God, The Devil & The Dead
I want to love Avatarium. Jenny-Ann Smith is a hell of a singer, and they have a handful of songs that nail the doom atmosphere as well as anything I've ever heard. Their "The Fire I Long For" is a good album, and sadly their only good one. This record finds them once again relying on sound and atmosphere, which they are great at, with few songs able to match the tone. The pieces are there, but they have been regressing since staking their own path. Sadly, I don't know how many more chances I will give them to show they don't have that killer instinct.
Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death
After four albums, I'm ready to write off Creeper. It's bad enough that they are constantly play-acting to the point I don't know who they are supposed to be underneath the costumes and characters, but they aren't able to lean into the camp factor anymore. This record is their second 'goth' album, and after teasing us with two singles that seemed like they had found their way, we discover that was merely a camera trick. Creeper is still bland and boring in this guise, and I'm rather tired of trying to figure out why they can't play music that actually has a human heart to it.
Dream Theater - Parasomnia
The return of Mike Portnoy was supposed to be a huge moment, but to be honest, I miss the Mike Mangini era already. I'm not blaming Portnoy in particular, but the choices the band made for this record play into everything I don't like about their sound. There are more random instrumental bits, more self-aware metal context, and more focus on being heavy above all else. "Bend The Clock" is a stroke of magic, but it's the only song on the album that stands up at that level. The rest of the album is dark and dull, trying my patience in a way the intervening years rarely did.
Ghost - Skeleta
I shouldn't be disappointed in Ghost anymore, since "Meliora" is the only album of theirs I don't need to cherry-pick for the highlights. But after the initial singles for this album came out, I thought they might have swung the pendulum in my direction. I was wrong. Those singles are indeed great, but the rest of the album fell into the put of mediocrity once again. Hearing Tobias singing "love rockets" again and again was not what I had in mind, and his embrace of arena rock came with putting some of the cheesy fun of the band to the background. This actually feels like the most sincere Ghost album, but that's not what we want from a cartoonish band with this kind of lore. At least they make for a good compilation.
Katatonia - Nightmares As Extensions Of The Waking State
"A Sky Void Of Stars" was my AOTY, and now Katatonia is here in the dregs. What made that album so special was blending Katatonia's trademark gloom with just enough energy to make it sound like the back end of a depressive storm. This time, the tempos are slowed again, the production becomes oppressive, and the songs drag along as dirges. That slight bit of optimism is gone, and with it the feeling I was always hoping Katatonia could achieve. Perhaps the band's lineup turmoil had something to do with the writing, but I think it's more likely we were two perpendicular lines, and we're destined to have only connected at the one instant.
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