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2021 In Review: Music

Peter Jones Leave a comment

Best of 2021

  • Archspire – Bleed the Future
    • A tour de force of technical death metal. Yet still balances that with more quiet, calm moments. Understanding that, even at only 32 minutes, it would be too much if it was unrelenting. Also, songs. Not just display of technical ability, actual songs.
  • 1914 – Where Fear and Weapons Meet
    • WWI will always be a bleak subject, and here it is handled with aplomb. Blackened death metal, with the addition of some symphonic elements this go around. Interspersed with music and quotations from the time. The music is perfect for the subject matter: harsh, harrowing, yet with moments of emotion.
  • Mastodon – Hushed and Grim
    • Too long, yes. But honestly, every song wins me over at some point. Even the songs that start off in a style I despise (country anyone?) eventually grow into something that I appreciate. Packed with emotion, this one took a couple of listens, but definitely won me over.
  • AMENRA – De Doorn
    • Not Mass VII. And shame on us for wanting Mass VII. De Doorn is still classic AMENRA. Powerful, haunting, balancing being abrasive with being introspective. A shining example of what draws me to post-metal: quiet contemplation balanced with crushing brutality.
  • Black Sites – Untrue
    • Just damn good heavy metal in the classic sense of the term. Lead member’s previous band Trials was a much heavier act. Black Sites brings some of that edge, but couches it in a modern yet classic metal veneer. Catchy songs, excellent choruses, interesting compositions.
  • IOTUNN – Access All Worlds
    • Progressive death metal with a sci-if theme? Sign me up! And Jón Aldará on lead vocals? Oh hells yes. This is huge, grandiose progressive metal with death growls and soaring cleans, this just hits all the right spots for me.
  • LLNN – Unmaker
    • So. Heavy. LLNN deal in the heavier aspects of post-metal. This is crushing, brutal, truly heavy music. Yet it is still subtle. That seems impossible, but mixed in with the monolithic riffs and the tortured vocals are weaved synths as well as layered “field recordings” of sounds from the real world. Probably the best single word for this is devastating.
  • Spiritbox – Eternal Blue
    • On paper, I shouldn’t really like Spiritbox. While difficult to place in a genre, metalcore would be the best fit. And I don’t really love most metalcore. And while I appreciate and love the heavy (“Holy Roller”), what elevates Spiritbox and Eternal Blue for me are all the things that are distinctly NOT metalcore. The gorgeous cleans of Courtney Laplante, the electronic elements, the ambience, the effects and the ever present guitar skills of Mike Stringer. Spiritbox just strikes me as something special, and their first full length album confirms that.
  • Year of No Light – Consolamentum
    • I love almost all things post. It’s true. Add post-metal or post-rock tag to anything and I am immediately 5 times more likely to check it out. Then make it instrumental? Gaaaahh. Okay, I’m sold. And then the fact that the music is so good, moving, driving, atmospheric. Having never heard of Year of No Light before, I immediately became a huge fan.
  • Crescent – Carving the Fires of Akhet
    • Egyptian themed death metal. Yawn. Nile has been doing that for years. But Nile has also not really wowed me for years (though their most recent album is a winner). Enter Crescent. Combining the heaviness of death metal with middle eastern musical cues and styles, they have created a really powerful album of music. This was an easy one to keep coming back to this year.

Honorable mentions

  • Be’lakor – Coherence
    • I really like the melodeath of Be’lakor, and this album is no different. Could have been higher had I listened to it more.
  • Emma Ruth Rundle – Engine of Hell
    • “Return” might be my favorite song of the year. This album is raw, simple, ERR. And she excels and bringing the emotion she is so adept at conveying.
  • Evergrey – Escape of the Phoenix
    • I just love Evergrey. This is an excellent distillation of what makes this band who they are. And that is why it isn’t ranked higher. It is Evergrey, once again, doing what they do. Good thing they do it so well.
  • Exodus – Persona Non Grata
    • Exodus be Exodus. Don’t expect them to change. And here they don’t. This is reliable thrash with a brutal guitar tone and Zetro’s unhinged vocal delivery.
  • Frontierer – Oxidized
    • WTF. Literally every time I listen to Frontierer I just think WTF over and over. Pure chaos in musical form, cranked all the way to 11.
  • Impure Wilhelmina – Antidote
    • I really like this band and their blend of metal with smooth, Brit pop style crooning. And this might be the best example of that blending ever. Probably should be higher on my list, I just didn’t listen as much as I would have liked.
  • Khemmis – Deceiver
    • Late in the year, not enough time to really appreciate this. But a reliable Khemmis record. Not their best (don’t know if Hunted will be able to be topped), but another great release from this band and an album I have enjoyed quite a bit this year.
  • Swallow the Sun – Moonflowers
    • Where are the tissues? Why is it so dusty in here? Why won’t my eyes stop watering? Death doom designed to rip your heart out and leave it on the floor. The loss of Aleah Stanbridge continues to haunt Juha Raivio, and that radiates from this record.
  • Clouds – Despartire
    • Yeah, seconded. Minus the loss of Aleah. Do not, I repeat DO NOT listen unless you want to wrap yourself in sadness and despair. But if you do, this is the softest, fuzziest blanket of despair you’ll find.

Better Than it Should Be

  • Chevelle – Niriatas
    • Chevelle hasn’t really interested me in years. But somehow this one grabbed my attention enough I listened to it multiple times this year. That shocked me.
  • Between the Buried and Me – Colors II
    • Following up such a landmark album like Colors is a difficult task. And the fact that BtBaM do it as well as they do here is surprising. I still have to be in the correct mindset for BtBaM and their “kitchen sink” approach to music, but here it works better than expected.

Disappointments

  • Gojira – Fortitude
    • Too many moments or tracks that just halt the momentum of this album. Like it’s predecessor Magma, this album just doesn’t click for me. I know a lot of the metal community continue to slather praise on Gojira and treat them like the second coming of the Lord. But while I admit they have had some amazing albums in the past, Fortitude continues the trend of albums that I have little to no interest in coming back to.
  • Iron Maiden – Senjutsu
    • It’s Maiden. It’s reliable. It’s also getting slower, songs feel more bloated, and fewer and fewer moments really stand out. This isn’t a bad album, it just isn’t one I came back to after the first week or so. I love that these guys are still rocking into their late 60s, but maybe it is time to wind down? Maybe?
  • Leprous – Aphelion
    • It is fine, if you want proggy pop-rock. But if what you loved about Leprous all started to fade with 2015s The Congregation this album will do little to nothing to win you back over. It certainly didn’t win me over. At least it isn’t any worse than their last 2 albums.

Altars of Grief – Iris

Peter Jones Leave a comment

I’m not sure I’m really able to do this album justice.

How’s that for a start? Iris by Canada’s Altars of Grief is a staggeringly powerful album, that draws me back regularly. It is a harrowing journey, emotionally wrenching, and leaves me feeling wrung out when the final notes fade.

So powerful is this record, I regret my deep desire to go back and listen to it again.

Art is difficult to define. For me, a key factor is purpose. I don’t know what the authorial purpose of Iris is, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have one, and a powerful one at that. If nothing else, this is music that forces me to reflect on life, on my place in the world, on the impact others have had on me, and the small impact I may have on those that surround me.

I realize this is all sort of vague and nebulous. I’ll try to be a little more concrete. Altars of Grief play a blackened style of doom metal. There are blast beats, tremolo picking, harsh vocals, and vicious riffs. Yet, they are also so much more. We have moments of beautiful melody, quiet contemplation, and tenuous peace.

The clean vocals are excellent. At times very reminiscent of the late David Gold, from Woods of Ypres, at others, they are more soaring and melodious. The contrapuntal harsh vocals run the gamut. We have blackened shrieks, hardcore screams, and even some low, bone shaking death growls. The vocals are used to perfect effect, clean when the song calls for it, harsh when necessary. The guitars follow the same pattern. There are extremely heavy and crushing passages, that often move deftly into crystalline moments of tranquility. Keys and organs punctuate the guitars, never one overwhelming the other.

In many ways, Woods of Ypres is an excellent starting reference point for Iris. Yet this never feels derivative. Many of the same hallmarks are present, but Altars of Grief owns these moments so thoroughly that they become theirs.

Iris tells a story. A story of loss, grief, addiction, abandonment, and death. I’ll leave it to the individual to seek out the specifics. It is sufficient to say that this is a dark record. It doesn’t leave one feeling hopeful, but it does end with a certain sense of peace. And with music this powerful, and a subject matter this dark, peace is about the best one could hope for.

I really do find myself struggling somewhat with what to say about Iris. Musically, it is an amazing record, full of heavy blackened moments, slow, plodding doom moments, and plenty of beautiful, quiet passages. Lyrically, well, I’ve touched on that enough. As a father, it is a harrowing album. Emotionally, this albums devastates me. It is such a complete experience, and so stunningly cathartic, that when final strings fade, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve been through the wringer. This is proof positive that music has power and emotional weight. Iris, while not for the faint of heart, is an amazingly powerful, beautiful, and emotional experience, from first note to last.

Gentihaa – Reverse Entropy

Peter Jones Leave a comment

Years ago I fell in love with the first few albums from the band Pain of Salvation. I fell off hard with the release of BE, and honestly, never really got back on board with the band. But I always loved Daniel Gildenlow’s voice. It is powerful, extremely versatile, and one of my favorites. His ability to go from quiet, almost plaintive whispers to full on screams in short order not only impressed, but really got me hooked.

Interestingly, I just hadn’t realized how much I missed that. Enter Gentihaa, with their debut album Reverse Entropy. I discovered this gem thanks to the excellent write up over at Angrymetalguy.com. As a debut album from a Greek band, this was in no way on my radar at all. But the review was unique, entertaining, and sufficiently complementary that it piqued my interest. Even more, I was curious about the fact that Tom Englund, of the formidable Evergrey, had done guest vocals on 2 of the tracks.

Genrefication of music is a troublesome sport. It can be helpful, giving the listener some type of framework to anticipate the music. For example, if you tell me something is “technical death metal”, I have a decent idea of what I’m going to get. Well, AMG described Reverse Entropy as “power metal”. Yet the band describes themselves as “symphonic death/black metal”. Those are fairly differing genres right there my friend, yessiree. And then I started listening to the music. And I’d add in some “progressive metal” elements in there. So we have a real mashup of genres here.

And, well, it makes the music freaking rule!

To be fair, I just don’t see much of the “power metal” here. Sure, it is melodic, with some clean vocals and keyboards. But it entirely eschews any of the cheese and the keyboard theatrics that are so often associated with “power metal”. Rather, the vocals remind me more of the aforementioned Daniel Gildenlow than anything. They have many of the same qualities, particularly the versatility. The smoothly and effortlessly move from low whispers, gentle singing, almost death metal growls, and powerful screams. Add in the counterpoint of Tom Englund on two of the tracks, and you end up with one of the most interesting and engaging vocal records of the year.

But the rest of the band holds their own as well. The guitars have a wonderful, clean crunch to them. The drums are dynamic, with excellent fills and the oft-unheralded ability to move from double bass and blast beats to gentle drumming, as the songs demand.

Lyrically, it is apparently based on some piece of fiction on the internet. That sounds silly, and if they slavishly felt the need to tell this story, it would be beyond silly. Yet, exhibiting an almost uncommon restraint, the lyrics serve to build the overall dark atmosphere of the album, and don’t distract in any way. And dark this album is. It seethes with a sense of dread and menace. It keeps my just a tad on edge the entire time. I love that aspect, as it prevents it from ever falling into that cheese trap, the trap that so often can put me off from either power metal or even many progressive metal acts.

Again, I’d say this is more of a progressive metal album with some overtones of death metal. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, and I actually wished some of the songs were a bit more fleshed out. But it keeps itself engaging throughout the entire running time. Expectations can be both good and bad, as can lack of. In this case, a complete lack of expectations has led to Reverse Entropy to come out of nowhere and become one of my favorite albums of 2019.