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.

A Conversation with Erik Barath of Indestructible Noise Command

During the most lengthy hiatus in recent memory, Indestructible Noise Command was in danger of becoming a once-successful band that time had forgotten.  In 2010, they made their triumphant, violent return to the metal world, and everything has been trending up since.  Fresh off the release of their newest album "Terrible Things," we sat down with guitarist and ideaman Erik Barath

D.M.: Let’s start with how you feel about “Terrible Things.”  How does it separate itself from your previous albums, and what’s on there that fans won’t have heard from you before?

ERIK BARATH: On Terrible Things, we went back to our roots. It’s really a pure, old school thrash album so the fans that have been with us from the start will find it a familiar road they are traveling upon.

D.M.: It seems there’s less of the groove we saw on “Heaven Sent… …Hellbound,” (or “Black Hearse Serenade,”) and what feels like a return to traditional thrash – what made you go that way?

EB: Our music is dictated by whatever flows out of me. I just wrote “Fist Go Rek” and that opened a doorway in me. The rest of the album just followed that track as if it were an out of control freight train. We  are very comfortable with where we are right now. I think we’ll live here for a while.

D.M.: As you’ve gotten a little older, has the thrash writing process changed for you?  You can’t be the same person you were twenty years ago.  What’s your headspace like when you’re writing?

EB: Well now with the digital age, we don’t have to all cram into some dank rehearsal space and try and hash out a song. I can now record the song complete in my little studio and the boys just run with it from there. Much easier.

D.M.: One of the things that I appreciate about Indestructible Noise Command the most is your incorporation of the piano or a classical overture to enhance the sense of the moment – where does that come from?  What’s your influence in those moments?

EB: That probably comes from my first obsessions in music, which were Queen and The Beatles. Those bands showed there are no restriction or rules to rock n roll. You can make any other style or genre fit if you are clever enough and I love the challenge of making all the styles I love and feeling streaming through me fit together in one neat package.

D.M.: I believe I described the lyrics of “Identifier” as “deliriously random.”  It’s the album’s best song (one man’s opinion,) but what’s going on there?

EB: The song focuses on the madness following the 2016 elections so at the surface it’s political, but I approached it with poetic comedy. You will get it if you read between the lines. I left it as a bit of a puzzle.

D.M.: Talk about your band’s guitar tandem.  It’s one of the great pairs working today – if you were to compare them to the great metal tandems of then and now, whose company are you in?

EB: Oh I don’t know, Anthony [Fabrizi] and I are so different from each other and I especially from anyone else because I have no proper training, I know no theory so I learned to play my own way, which at times is unorthodox and chaotic, I think that’s why it works and has the sound it does.

D.M.: Once and for all – what happened that the band decided to go on hiatus in the first place?

EB: We had some really solid success with our first two albums in the mid-‘80s and wanted to get with a bigger label that could get us to the next level. Epic Records offered to sign us, and the deal was worked out and ready to sign when the head of A&R got fired. Our deal got cancelled. Then time just kept passing and we were lost at sea with wind in our sails. Being we were just over 20 years of age, we started fighting with each other and eventually called it quits.

D.M.: INC now has more albums post-hiatus than pre-hiatus.  What does that feel like?  Does it feel like you’ve crossed a threshold?

EB: It feels great. We actually feel like we’re at the top of our game and getting better. I have new material written already for the next record and it will be massive.

D.M.: What changed in the industry that made it the right time to end your hiatus and begin the second phase of your career?

EB: Oh, the industry sucks more than ever, it wasn’t that. I just started writing and it just started sounded better and better and it sparked the fire in the band. We do this for us and for the hard core fans that are still with us. The industry is a nightmare these days. And by Industry I don’t just mean record companies, I mean the overall business. It’s a money pit and recouping is harder than ever.

D.M.: Describe your hiatus as it relates to the band members – was there ever a falling out, or was everyone on board no matter how long it took?

EB: There had been talk of [a comeback] for years and years but it was always presented as getting together and playing some shows and I wanted to do a full comeback with new material, the whole 9 yards. It wasn’t until I started writing that it all clicked.

D.M.: As you look around in the modern version of a genre you helped foster, who gets it right in your opinion?  Who are the young thrash bands that are carrying on the torch properly?

EB: Municipal Waste are very cool. Kinda has the fun thrash thing that we were doing back in the ‘80s. Havok is a really solid thrash band as well. I am sure there are others that slipped my mind. The thrash scene is always pretty healthy with newbies carrying the torch.

D.M.: Okay, I gotta know – your band is from Connecticut and your bass player is Dave Campo.  Now, the Dallas Cowboys used to have a head coach named Dave Campo, and he’s from Groton, Connecticut.  Is there a relation there?  How many Campos can be there in such a small state?

EB: You know I have no idea [laughs]. I wish, he could hook us up with some sweet tickets [laughs].

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Album Review: Indestructible Noise Command - "Terrible Things"

It’s official.  For all the press about Indestructible Noise Command’s accomplishment and influential power back in the day, they now have more full albums post-reunion than in their original iteration.  Which is significant because it means the band is living up to their commitment from so many years ago of resuming their career once the marketplace make it possible to do so without the complicating machinations of a major record label.

The interesting twist here is that “Terrible Things,” this shiny, new compendium of classic thrash, bears more resemblance to the albums before the hiatus than it does to the ones recently.

The album sees the band return to thrash in its truest sense – a snarled vocal, a shredded guitar riff, a pulse-pounding drive that inspires the listener to tear their furniture apart and run up and down the street screaming until a concerned neighbor summons the local constables.

There’re some conscious choices being made by the band here.  In making what was old new again, the band has sacrificed the platforms that made “Heaven Sent…  …Hellbound” and “Black Hearse Serenade” stand out from so many of their competitors.

That doesn’t mean that “Terrible Things” comes as a pale echo from three decades ago, far from it.  What it does mean is that gone are the ravine-deep groovy riffs of their reinvention, and also gone is vocalist Dennis Gergely’s stylings in the vein of Phil Anselmo.  The latter of these is a more than fair trade – Phil and his ilk have their place and their legacy, but that style only goes so far, and wouldn’t have worked as well for this effort.

As for the former, the value of the tradeoff is really contingent on the listener’s preference.  Erik Barath and Tony Fabrizi are equally at home as a guitar tandem working in this idiom as they were in crafting the deep undulations that previous albums required.  Their craft comes with the confidence of having played together for the majority of their respective lives.  From the album’s thumping opener “Fist Go Rek” to the more measured closure of “Devil of Hearts,” the pair creates a symphony of thrash brilliance.

As it happens, the mastery displayed by the duo is one of the two things that sets Indestructible Noise Command apart from their modern contemporaries, and if we’re being honest, disciples.  There are few bands in the world of thrash who can contend with the level of guitar virtuosity that these two bring to the table on a track by track basis.  Their blend of speed and craft, as evidenced in the solo of…oh, just pick one…”Declaration” is the kind of lost art that we haven’t really seen since Lazarus A.D and recalls the original, untamed days of Slayer.

The second thing that separates INC is their ability to flip the switch and instantly go big on their presentation.  This was something “Heaven Sent… …Hellbound” did with great success, and we see the seeds of that here as well.  The opening build of “Nemesis” is a tremendous example of the way in which even as straight-ahead a genre as thrash can set a scene and create an atmosphere.

For all that, the album’s jewel is actually the second track, “Identifier.”  It’s possessed of a simple, wide-open riff that doesn’t evolve into something more until Gergely’s vocals, of all things, set the pace for the entire track.  The lyrics are deliriously random and better for the fact, so when the song finally breaks, the listener can’t help but start to smile.  The open space and throaty bassline come together to set the table for the Judas Priest-esque galloping guitar solo that follows.  This is the album’s high-water mark.

We’ve heaped well-deserved praise to this point, but there are some cautionary notes worth mentioning.  There are choruses that are disjointed to the point of being distracting, including “Unscathed” and even the title track.  In these moments, the attempt to change the pace or shift the focus of a song breaks too far from the established rhythm and loses momentum.  Also, as ever with a thrash album, the reality is that there will be songs that just don’t work as well, and “Salmonella” isn’t a bad track per se, but it’s easily skippable when weighed against the album’s other triumphs.

In the grand scheme, those are relatively minor and ultimately forgivable transgressions.  “Terrible Things” is an excellent return to form from a band who is proving with each effort that they are still vital and relevant in their chosen genre.  This album, when paired with the two that came before it, also cements the band’s versatility, which means the horizon is still an intriguing prospect; INC, after so many years, is still leaving us with the idea that we haven’t seen everything they can do yet.  In terms of pure thrash, INC stands at the forefront with Power Trip in leading the genre into the next age.  In fact, they should tour together.  Let’s make that happen.