D.M's Best Albums of 2019

My statements at the head of this will be brief this year, because I think a lot of these albums speak for themselves.  As usual, we begin with a recitation of the rules – original studio albums only.  No compilations, no re-releases, no live albums, no cover albums.  And, as ever, my list goes to 11.

I think I will say only this – I love and would defend all these records against naysayers of any stripe, but I find myself wishing that more bands I didn’t already know had made the final cut this year.  I suppose it’s something that there are three or four bands who have never the cut of my top ten before, but that’s a small consolation.  I’m fearful that the drought of new names is because I’m in my middle thirties and I’m subconsciously rejecting things are new and different.  More optimistically, and this is what I’m telling myself, I’m hoping the lack of new bands is a signal of two things – one, that several resurgences and comebacks were truly, unequivocally excellent, and second, that maybe as Chris C and I discussed, it was a slightly down year.

In the end, there were sixteen finalists.  To get the final roster down to the necessary eleven players (and one honorable mention,) four worthy albums got left in the lurch.  I have commemorated them below, and I parenthetically feel a little bad for Toothgrinder, as both of their last two albums fell just short.

And so I leave you with this list, one man’s humble opinion of the musical year that was.  Good luck and godspeed.

Others Receiving Votes:
Deathchant – Deathchant
Lord Vapour – Semuta
Death Angel – Humanicide
Toothgrinder – I Am

Honorable Mention - While She Sleeps - So What?

Every year there’s an album that populates my list because it simply overwhelms with power and reminds me of the heady days of my youth, when thunderous alt metal ruled the roost and Rob Zombie had spawned a legion of soundalikes and also-rans.  That’s where While She Sleeps make their headway, and they’ve gone and combined it with a twist of layered songwriting to add some depth.

11 - A Pale Horse Named Death - When the World Becomes Undone

This album absolutely deserves to be here, but I feel a little torn about starting with it, only because it’s hard to get excited about the year’s records when the list starts with the most depressing one.  Many of the bands born from the ashes of Type O Negative have failed to really hit home (Seventh Void and Silvertomb being two of them,) but APHND has something.  They’re both the closest spiritual successor to Type O and the most adept at carrying the spark of that band’s infectious songwriting.  The primary difference is that APNHD generally lacks Type O’s tongue in cheek humor, instead focusing on the darkness of a world gone mad.  Cue up the slow dirges, it’s a long, enjoyable ride.

10 - John Garcia - John Garcia & The Band of Gold

Speaking of artists who have it, John Garcia has it.  I admit I’m eating a little crow here – if you had asked me who the member of Kyuss was who was destined to succeed as a solo act, I don’t know that I would have picked John.  But there’s something about his dry, slow-burning band that’s clean and pure and infectious.  Who knows if Vista Chino will end up being a one-off or not, but in the meantime, John Garcia is capably carrying the torch for desert rock.

9 - Devil to Pay - Forever, Never or Whenever

Nothing is more frustrating than a band from the underground who isn’t getting nearly the publicity or exposure they deserve.  Overseas, that band is Red Eleven and in the good old continental United States, it’s Devil to Pay.  Darlings of the metal scene in the Midwest, these crusaders for sludge from Indianapolis have been putting out one killer album after another since 2004’s Thirty Pieces of Silver.  Fifteen years later, they’ve lost none of their steam and can spin out a killer riff at a moment’s notice.  Get on the bandwagon, already.

8 - Children of Bodom - Hexed

It’s weird to think of Children of Bodom as elder statesmen, but at this point that’s where we are.  They’ve taken a lot of twists and turns in their sound over the years, and Hexed is the natural evolution of their sound into a whole new phase.  It’s not easy to write accessible and catchy death metal, but they’re figured out the formula and are better off for it.  The news that three core members of the band are departing in December comes as a shock – particularly amidst the persistent rumor that the band’s name may have to change as a result.  If this be the end of Children of Bodom as we know it, it’s a fine effort to go out on.

7 - BRKN LOVE - BRKN LOVE

And finally, we get to a band making their debut this year.  2019 was light on new acts who truly impressed, but these Canadians can bring it.  To some extent, this album feels like a long EP more than a true album, but it’s still groovy and dire and heavy in all the right places.  BRKN LOVE wears all their influences in plain sight, and that’s just fine, because they’re drawing on great material.  I don’t know that I’ve had this much fun being introduced to a new band in this stripe since Wolfmother.

6- John 5 & The Creatures - Invasion

John 5 should no longer just be known as the guitarist for Rob Zombie and former guitarist for Marilyn Manson.  He’s a musician unto his own right now, and the fact that Zombie allows him time and space on stage to touch ever so slightly on his solo pieces is sufficient testament to that fact.  What separates John 5 from every other guitar virtuoso is that, and this sounds facile even as I say it but it’s true, he’s writing actual songs and telling stories, not just showing how many arpeggios he can play in thirty seconds (though he leaves plenty of space for that, too.)

5 - Combichrist - One Fire

Nobody is happier about the recent Industrial Revolution than me.  Suddenly the genre is undergoing a huge comeback, and the big beats, cranked gain and scorched sounds are welcome in my ears any time.  Combichrist has taken a lot of turns to make their sound more metal and less abstractly industrial, and I dare say they get better with every album.  One Fire is a great listen for when you’re mad at the world.  Or working out.  Or playing sports.  Or doing dishes.  Or whatever damn time you want to listen to it.

4 - Life of Agony - The Sound of Scars

I wrote in great detail during my full review of this album why I’m conflicted about it.  I won’t rake you all over the details again, but know that it’s because I’m not sure if I love this album because of what it is, or because it represents something that used to be.  In any event, I’m quite certain the fault, if there is one, is with me, and not with the album.  There are piled of bands out there who have tried to ape this sound in the past twenty years and fallen completely on their faces in the process.  As a result, the door is open for Life of Agony to come marching in and teach a master class on the subject.

3 - Indestructible Noise Command - Terrible Things

The comeback is complete! INC now has more albums post-hiatus than pre-hiatus, and they appear to be here to stay (do some touring already, would you?)  This album is an old-school thrash masterpiece, brimming with attitude and big riffs and speedspeedspeed.  The band got away from the Pantera sound that had colored their other two recent albums (which I use only as a recognizable standard – INC predates Pantera and the intertwined history of the two bands is well documented,) and returned to the pure core of thrash from which they were born, to great effect.

2 - Royal Republic - Club Majesty

This album is fucking magnificent.  It’s probably the album on this list that I go back and listen to the most.  It’s a delicious blend of disco, rock and pure sleaze, molded together over cheap cocktails and sardonic songwriting.  There’s only one thing that keeps this record from the top spot, and it’s that you have to be in the right mood to listen to it.  The album lives right on the edge between sassy, over-the-top rock excess and completely and totally annoying.  It plays that line to perfection, but boy, if you come into it with the wrong state of mind…..but don’t get me wrong.  This is album #2 for a reason.

1 - Destrage - The Chosen One

I feel bad about this only because some might think I’m starting to show favoritism.  Including this one, Destrage’s last three albums have finished 1, 1 and 2 in my end of year rankings (and Are You Kidding Me? No. could still make a case for number 1 over Red Eleven’s Round II.)  Like all Destrage albums, this one grew me on over time.  When it released in May, I thought it was good, but not as strong as the prior two.  And then it wore on me.  And wore on me.  And for reasons I couldn’t understand, I just kept going back to it over and over again.  Slowly it became a constant companion on road trips and when travelling for work.  So, it’s hard not to think that some of this placement is based on the luck of timing – if it had released in October, I don’t know that I would have had enough time with it.  There’s something about this band, though – they write lyrics way past the margin, bend their idiom for riffs that barely make sense and reach outside the comfort zone of genre to craft huge choruses and songs that are too irresistible to be denied.  The Chosen One does nothing but continue the band’s dominance.

Album Review: Children of Bodom - "Hexed"

The first time listening to “Hexed,” the new album from Finnish death metal powerhouse Children of Bodom, compels the listener to immediately recall the past. 

For myself, this meant going back to three albums in particular, all in an effort to make sure that what I thought I thought was actually what I thought (my consciousness is a strange place.)  With haste, “Halo of Blood,””I Worship Chaos,” and reaching all the way back to “Follow the Reaper,” all went into my playlists.

The first two because “Hexed” sounds like a stark departure from the path CoB had been inexorably marching down for two complete album cycles.  The last because this was the closest touchstone to what “Hexed” represents.

That is not to say that this new album is simply a re-tread by a band wending their own nostalgic avenue through the corridors of what was successful before.  “Hexed” is a grinning, sauntering demon all its own, though it does remorselessly abandon the tenets of its two predecessors.

From the opening crunch of “This Road,” the mission statement could not be more lucid – “Hexed” is to draw from the myriad of influences that have shaped both Children of Bodom and their chosen genre since its collective inception.  Certainly and above all there is blistering metal in its undiluted form, but the molten liquid is poured into punk rock casts, producing ingots of an altogether different composition.

At the tip of this album’s spear is the glossy precision of Alexi Laiho’s guitar playing, which remains the band’s feature element more than twenty years into their career.  The acrobatics of the primary riff of “Glass Houses” is evidence enough that in an era of metal gone mad with brutality, Children of Bodom still carries the banner for comparatively clean guitar artistry and provides a safe haven where six-string nerds can get their daily bread.

Where the punk roots start to show is right at the album’s fulcrum from side A to side B with “Kick in a Spleen,” which surely bears the hallmarks of death metal’s doctrine, but abbreviates it with staccato riffs and gang choruses that sound like the intersection of the Casualties and classic Anthrax.
One need not get farther than the title track to see the tie-in to “Follow the Reaper.”  “Hexed” the song would have fit right in between “Children of Decadence” and “Everytime I Die” some eighteen years ago.  The very same idiomatic guitar exhibitions, furious snare pounding and consummate keyboard dressing that propelled that album lives in the blast furnace of this one.

As the album begins to sunset, it lashes out again with “Say Never Look Back,” which for all the memorable tracks contained within, might be the album’s singly most infectious.  A fire-starter at the outset, the song pauses with genius at the one-minute mark to introduce a new, simple and entirely too catchy main riff, before it folding it back into the larger mix to be revisited later.  The insistent but not overbearing beat makes the song easily digestible and suddenly we have the makings of a true album ear worm.

“Hexed” is easily the best CoB album since 2011’s “Relentless Reckless Forever,” though it is an entirely different beast than that timeless classic.  “RRF” reveled in deep riffs and groovy hooks, which “Hexed” eschews in favor of climatic guitarcraft.  Neither is right or wrong in the grand scheme of composing a great album, but the dichotomy serves to illustrate just how versatile the band has been across their career.

There are no real weak points to “Hexed.”  Even the lesser cuts such as “Soon Departed” are enjoyable and can be disparaged only in the sense that they do not meet the lofty ambitions of some of the selections discussed above.  The album also goes by in a flash; in just a shade over forty-five minutes, eleven songs have come and gone, so the album doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Following the incessant hammering of “Halo of Blood” and the introspection and change of “I Worship Chaos,” “Hexed” is a reminder that Children of Bodom hasn’t forgotten their roots, or forgotten how to set to standard for the occasionally floundering genre of death metal.  This album damn near everything right and is a worthy addition to the band’s evolving legacy.

The Top 11 Albums of 2015!

I think by this point we’ve covered everything that needs to be said by way of introductions, so here we go with a recap on the rules of this game: To merit consideration, all records must be composed of entirely new studio material – no re-releases, live albums, re-masters or compilations.  Also, we do a top eleven here, because as we all know, 'it goes to eleven.'  Got it?  Here we go:

Other Receiving Votes) Clutch – “Psychic Warfare,” Iron Maiden – “The Book of Souls”, Mongol Metal – “Mongol Metal” (disqualified only because it was made up of previously released material.)

Honorable Mention) Niche – “Heading East”

A late comer to the party!  Niche blends classic rock and with folk and just drop a psychedelia in a way that harkens back to the storytelling rock heavyweights of yesteryear.  Three part vocal harmony and intricately layered melodies make “Heading East” an absorbing and yet relaxing listen.

11) The Great Game – “The Great Game”

This record doubles as my Little Record That Could for 2015, as it stuck in my memory for most of the year.  For those following, 2015 was the Year I Tried to Hear Something Different, and really, each time someone would ask me what I had heard this year that fit the bill, “The Great Game” jumped back in my head.  Infectious in its liberal deployment of genres and tropes, The Great Game, a band of the world if ever there was one, can tie together a melody with everything from a guitar to an accordion and back again.  This is an expansive effort that can be a challenging listen, but its heart is a passion for experimental music that just plan works.

10) Annihilator – “Suicide Society”

Because very year there’s a record that’s worthy of the cut solely because it’s fun to listen to, more than that it actually possesses novel artistic merit.  Jeff Waters’ guitar tone remains one of the all-time greats, and becomes his de facto signature on every track of this album.  You can say what you want about Annihilator; that they’ve put out some very average records (true) and that they’ve never really tried to change their game plan (also probably true,) but that steadfast dedication to what got them here also means that they can drop a great record at any time.  “Suicide Society certainly isn’t going to qualify for the ‘Something Different’ title like The Great Game does, but it’s a blast to listen to, and damn it, that counts for something.

9) Pentagram – “Curious Volume”

And yet, amidst all the upstarts, we see a second legacy act join the fray and produce their best record in years.  Every metal fan keeps in his or her heart a small, burning love of doom metal, and Pentagram fills that niche will not getting bogged down in the idea that doom must be slow or plain.  Rich melodies, hook-y blues riffs and veteran craftsmanship show those damn kids how we did it back in the day!  (Note: back in the day for me was like, 1992, so I can’t really lay legitimate claim to the ‘we’ there.)  Anyway, Pentagram.

8) Children of Bodom – “I Worship Chaos”

After the shoulder-shrug of “Halo of Blood,” CoB comes back re-engineered as a quartet, which oddly ends up expanding their repertoire rather than collapsing it.  Alexi Laiho ends up writing a couple emotional pieces that no one would have ever expected from the alcohol celebrating, Finnish, metal champions and perhaps most surprising of all, they work!  This is a more mature sound from Children of Bodom while at the same time really bringing their keyboard work back into the fore.  The style is a work in progress for these guys still, but this record shows a ton of promise.

7) 6:33 – “Deadly Scenes”

Am I cheating here?  I think I might be cheating a little.  If memory serves, there were parts of the globe that got this album in the latter half of 2014, but Kaotoxin Records lists the official release date at January 15th, 2015, so I’m going with them.  Anyway, 6:33 is in that same vein as The Great Game, music designed to go way beyond the borders, except that 6:33’s production is both more compelling and well, this might sound simple, but more fun.  The best moments on “Deadly Scenes” have a jaunty swing in an inverse relationship with how much sense the songs make, which is weirdly all the album’s benefit.  Five dudes in masks with no live drummer playing music that wanders in a hundred directions?  Sold!

6) Cancer Bats – “Searching for Zero”

Following up the singular greatness that was “Dead Set on Living” was a tall order, but Cancer Bats delivered with “Searching for Zero,” an album that eschewed some of the rock overtones of its predecessor to deliver crunchy, ugly riffs circled around personal torment and rebellion.  There’s depth here in the bass tones alone, never mind the slow, churning drudgery that the band mated with it to create an authentic feeling of dread.  It’s rare that a band with hardcore roots can show this much discipline and growth, but Cancer Bats fit the bill.

5) Midnight Ghost Train – “Cold Was the Ground”

I’m starting to sense a theme within my own list, which is that everything I really connected to this year largely fell into one of two categories – different and complex, or ugly and fun.  Midnight Ghost Train swings the needle the farthest in the latter direction, slopping out fuzzy riffs and channeling immense amounts of distortion to create a romp that sounds, well, like I imagine a midnight ghost train would.  What sets this album apart and finishes its showcase is two-fold; first, that if you can sift through the grime, there’s a really accessible metal album underneath and second, there’s a sense of humor here that makes the proceedings lighter than the music would seem at first blush.  An enjoyable ride, and hey, they made a tour poster with a vintage-style nude woman hiding in the shadows on it.  Bonus!

4) Mountain of Wizard – “Casting Rhythms and Disturbances”

Apparently, it’s becoming a trend that I put an instrumental album in my top ten.  Well, here’s this year’s entry, an avalanche of inspired, monster riffs that nod heads and demand notice.  It’s a curious thing when an album can capture attention without speaking a single syllable, and that makes Mountain of Wizard all the more notable for what they’ve accomplished here.  Each of these songs feels like an organic, handcrafted creation, a thoughtful plan executed by musicians who had an idea and then jammed it out a bunch of times until it sounded right.  There’s a lot to like here.

3) Powerwolf – “Blessed and Possessed”

Okay, if Midnight Ghost Train was the ugliest of these albums, then by comparison in the ‘ugly and fun’ category, “Blessed and Possessed” is the most fun.  Don’t get me wrong, every Powerwolf is fun just because of what it is and what the band does, but this album in particular screams ‘road-trip sing-a-long.’  The Christian werewolves have outdone themselves this time, creating a tome of epic anthem after epic anthem, running the gamut from thumping arena rock to heart-pounding chase.  Attila Dorn’s vocals are as resonant as ever, but the brothers Greywolf outdid themselves this time with sharp, poignant riffs and excellent articulation.  Just look at that video!  I mean, doesn’t that look like fun?

2) Graveyard – “Innocence and Decadence”

Okay, at this point, Chris C and I have salivated over this album enough that everyone knows why it’s on here.  “Innocence and Decadence” is the most complete, best composed record of 2015, assembled and executed by talented musicians who display not only a complete mastery of their sound, but a healthy respect for the heritage of it.  So, what’s holding it back from being #1?

1) Shawn James and the Shapeshifters – “The Gospel According to Shawn James and the Shapeshifters”

This would be the answer.  Sometimes, there is an album so raw, echoing with the vibrations of sheet power, that it overwhelms even the best-laid blueprint of its competitors.  “The Gospel According…” may not be a match for “I&D” when it comes to precision or craft, but the pulpit-shaking bellow of Shawn James stirs the listener on a different level altogether.  This is vigorous, commanding music that’s tempered with enough sense of humor to prevent it from being melodramatic.  The fury and bluster of opener “No Gods” is balanced only too perfectly by the stark, cold grip of “Lost.”  Each track has a different character, a different feel, as the down-home riffs and bluegrass instrumentation create a dynamic sound from the album’s beginning to end.  If you are someone who appreciates being moved by music, or if you simply enjoy being absorbed by the album you’re listening to, there’s something for everyone on this record.  It’s the clear choice for Album of the Year.

Album Review: Children of Bodom - "I Worship Chaos"

Children of Bodom has long since passed the point of necessary introductions, so the instant question for their new album “I Worship Chaos” becomes ‘what do we need to know?’  Well, here’s the rundown.  There’s one fundamental change to the band this time around, which is that rhythm man Roope Latvala is gone and was not replaced, which leaves leading idea man and axe magician Alexi Laiho alone in lifting the band’s heavy guitar weight.  So for the first time ever, we now see the Finnish metal masters as a four-piece, which means an altered workload for bassist Henkka Seppala and keyboardist Janne Wirman.

The record begins with the nominal helping of CoB’s powerful and characteristic flair.  “I Hurt” is both a certified earwig of a song with a big chorus and a great hook and also a thudding maul that relentlessly strikes the anvil time and again.  This kind of single has become part and parcel for the band, the kind of tunefully punishing anthem that has long served to distance CoB from the rest of the pack.

Not to be outdone, the album continues into “My Bodom (I am the Only One)” which is essentially a variation on the same song and also a stylistic throwback to the heady days of “Follow the Reaper.”  The song builds to a major crescendo on multiple points and accents Laiho’s underlying rhythm with a welcome heavy dose of Wirman’s keyboards, which is a tactic the band hasn’t utilized as much of in recent years.

Yet, what strikes most about “I Worship Chaos” is the way that long sections of the record…well, aren’t chaotic at all.  There’s a lot of new look from CoB this time around, a cadence that shifts slower and channels that speed into low-gear power.  Not necessarily in the headbanging capacity, but in the infectious simplicity of rock rhythms that allow these songs to be more than bite-sized chunks of accelerated death.  The band’s hand is steadier for this record, which not only shows some diversity in the band’s landscape, but also the confidence to take the risk.

Sure, it’s a more mature sound with greater deliberation and less purely virile frenzy, but that’s hardly something to note in the loss column.  “I Worship Chaos” wants you to hear and feel it beyond just letting it breeze by and pick you up in swirling winds.  It’s a new face for CoB, but not a bad one.  “Prayer  for the Afflicted” is a totally new face of the band, injecting something bordering on sentimentality into the usual metal proceedings.  In the intervening space, Laiho uses his talents to craft an artfully executed solo, which sacrifices his usual biting speed for a soulful, borderline inspiring presence.  It’s a change of pace and paradigm that requires a little getting used to, but the end product is one of the album’s better selections.

“I Worship Chaos” essentially works like a cosine wave, starting with the ferocity of “I Hurt” and dipping into the drama of “Prayer for the Afflicted” before coming back again.  There are fluctuations of both idioms on the album’s second half, as the title track pounds cement with galvanized fists, but then “All for Nothing” immediately takes us back to a more introspective place.  Nevertheless, the album concludes high on tempo and excitement with “Widdershins,” (which means essentially to go counterclockwise, but also sounds like the name of a Welsh rugby club.)  The finale’s outro is interestingly marked by a chain of punchy guitar chords played in repetition, sounding curiously like a hardcore anthem, but it still fits the overall picture of the album.

So for the first time we see Children of Bodom as a four piece, and the result is a record that is in many ways superior to the previous album “Halo of Blood.”  The measured pacing and deliberate delivery are both nice additions to the general deck of CoB and make for a more versatile experience that can adapt to different listening situations.  The band is no long simply a straight-ahead bullet train, and while they were great then (“Relentless, Reckless, Forever” is one of the all-time great records,) this new affect gives extra dimension and a greater array of possibilities down the line.