Best of 2018

1) YOB - Our Raw Heart

Another return from years past, but anyone who knows me knows this isn't a surprise. YOB are and will forever be a favorite band of mine. In comparison to previous albums this can be seen as a more minimalist approach. Given what Mike was going through while writing this album, mortality seems to be the primary focus on display.

This is an age when people have been discouraged from thinking about the existential conflict with religion, the funeral industry, the framing of later years as a golden age of travel and freedom from a life of work. There's so much music to choose from that deals with life, love, full days, and fun nights, much less music that deals with death. Our Raw Heart pulls the veil aside and makes you feel all the things you might feel during the decline of one's existence, confusion, anger, sadness, those emotions people spend so much time avoiding. I've always believed a little more exposure to these feelings in a safe place makes people more resilient, more prepared to step outside of their existential comfort zone, less apt to panic and commit violence.

This isn't to say one should spend all their time in existential doom. I have undoubtedly over-corrected and lived most of my life in observance of death and I don't for a second advocate that as a sustainable strategy. But, if you are someone who doesn't spend much time with the idea of non-existence, you could do yourself a favor by giving this a couple spins, reading why Mike wrote it, reflecting on how it makes you feel.

Thanks Mike for doing what you do, for enduring pain and channeling that pain into something beautiful, something unforgettable, something that has defined a part of who I am.

Best of 2018

2) Svartidauði - Revelations of the Red Sword

My love/hate relationship with black metal is an often disappointing thing to navigate. A genre of music this counter-culture is so attractive to someone like me. When first exploring it I devoured everything I could find. A copy of Lords of Chaos is sitting about 10 feet from me right now, a book that changed my perception of how music can define a culture. It can transcend the scope of an album and cause people to take action. Unfortunately, these actions during the infancy of black metal were largely destructive and caused harm. I don't advocate that but music should be that powerful. It should provoke something within us rather than just being in the background while we perform for the people who employ us.

Having said that, people who make "traditional black metal" are now completely wasting my time. Black metal was originally a group of kids who were terrible at playing instruments and terrible at music production who simply wanted to dismantle Christianity. It was symbolic of something profound at the time but didn't carry the thoughtfulness or follow-through required to effect change. Luckily a handful of black metal musicians have understood this and transformed the genre into something more existential and less primitively rebellious. Svartidauði, for example, is an exceptional band writing exceptional music. The primitive hate of traditional black metal pales in comparison to the truly evil music on display here. This is certainly not an album I would suggest to those uninitiated with the history of black metal, but within the scope of the genre it's the bleeding edge of expression I'm always in search of.

Best of 2018

3) Sectioned - Annihilated

You ever wonder what it feels like to have your face scraped across pavement at speed? I haven't really thought about it either, but I have a good idea of what it sounds like now that I've listened to this nightmare of a record. When most would be completely content with the subtle escapism of "going to the movies," I prefer to get my escapism from bands that want to carve me into tiny bits and proceed to feast leaving the ear drums for dessert so I can hear what's going on. Sectioned is non-fucking-stop electro-grind. If I were to write a shameless sound-bite to get to the point I'd say, "If you liked the sadistically violent tendencies of Genghis Tron, you'll LOVE Sectioned." Another prerequisite being a predilection for bleeding from the ear canal.

Best of 2018

4) Owl - Nights of Distortion

Zeitgeister... That's all. I love these German gentlemen and their various projects. I haven't seen Owl on any other Top 10's this year and I'm not terribly surprised. Ever since Valborg's Barbarian I am caught in the vortex that is the Zeitgeister label. I can't help loving their approach to music. It brashly raises a middle finger to convention and comes from somewhere unknown. I mentioned lists and lists ago that I have no idea what their influences are and I still don't. The musicians that keep Zeitgeister money'd are from a different place. And this is what I value most in music, the courage to forget the conventions of this world and create a new existence from nothing but blood, sweat, and bile.

Best of 2018

5) The Black Queen - Infinite Games

You know I fucking hate dancing, right? All these silly people that go dancing, I always think, "What is the fucking purpose there? Is there some release had by dancing that isn't addressed by fucking?" Well, The Black Queen reminded me how much of a fucking idiot I usually am toward the perfectly well-adjusted people around me. Infinite Games speaks to the parts of my inner self I never really understood, the parts that seek physical expression. I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out why this album effects me so deeply and I think I have it sorted. There's a lot of Nine Inch Nails here. I mean just listen to One of Edge of Two and try to not think of Closer, impossible. And that might be it. When I was really getting into NIN I was young, innocent, my body still did things I didn't understand. This brings me back and it does so by reminding of NIN while taking a different approach, an approach less acerbic and "fuck the world." Infinite Games turns out to be a darkly fun thrill and it's my guilty pleasure of the year not because I feel guilty for listening, but for the actions of my body while listening.

Best of 2018

6) Vanishing Kids - Heavy Dreamer

Speaking of women... Here's another female-fronted act that struck me near the end of the year and I'm really glad they did because this album just fucking rocks man. Vanishing Kids have this intoxicating spaced out 70's psych vibe I've been searching for for a long long time. Psychedelic music so often wanders without purpose. I get it man, the drugs make that amp sound stellar. I have been there, but then you gotta wake up and ask yourself if there's a song there. Heavy Dreamer is song after song of really fucking memorable moments. The vox are haunting and carry the show, but taking some time to focus attention toward the lead guitar and percussion, there's just so much talent on hand here. I feel embarrassed for not knowing about this band before now, but now that I do, I'll be a loyal fanboy.

Best of 2018

7) Messa - Feast for Water

I wanted desperately for this to be good. Belfry, Messa's debut was good but it wasn't complete, there was something missing. I could be judging it harshly because I don't understand drone, or at least didn't want to admit this droney substance was what Messa had intended to write. Feast for Water finds Messa moving away from drone. For whatever reason they decided to edge closer to what the other witchy women in metal are doing ::cough:: SubRosa ::cough:: and they happened to have done a better job than that unmentioned band's last effort. Feast for Water feels raw. It feels like a debut that just happened to strike gold on the first outing, but it's not a debut. It's a follow-up from a band who in my often misguided opinion have found themselves. This is the sort of album that I hope in the deepest, most tender spaces in my heart, attracts more women to the scene of metal, cuz good lord we need them.

Best of 2018

8) Horrendous - Idol

Another welcome return from 2015. Horrendous are still chock full of riffs and licks, so many I don't really understand it. There must be some formula they're tapping into to create the sheer amount of material present on each album, but there isn't anything formulaic about this music. It's as if you pointed a big scary gun at a jazz quartet and told them they can't leave the studio until they hand you a polished death metal record. One might be put off by all the jazzy, serpentine chromaticism, but I wouldn't accept that as a point of dismissal because for every track they manage to pull all their chromatic riffs and runs into something charismatic, occasionally a lovely harmonic minor solo, occasionally a roomy interlude to let the chaos of the rest of the composition germinate into something really memorable. And damn would you look at that album art.

Best of 2018

9) Conjurer - Mire

It's so rare to find good beat-down hardcore with a soft side. Either it's just not heavy enough or it doesn't take a moment to realize the sadness behind all the hate. When these guys get violent it's scary to close ones eyes, the most immediate mental image being a fist hammering your face. You can't stay mad at your aggressor for long though because the following track feels like a heartfelt apology. All the elements that make great hardcore are present, the lurching breakdowns, brutal floor tom and kick fills that rumble the bowels, anger and hatred in the words, even the occasional articulate blast beat, but it's the self-reflection that makes this a special album.

Best of 2018

10) Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses

This was a late entry, very late, and I’m so glad it drifted quietly into view in the last moment before closing the books on this year’s 2018 list. Emma Ruth Rundle is the vocalist from Marriages which was featured on my list in 2015. She’s here in largely the same form although there’s a little more patience and maturity in the compositions. She seems to be more comfortable wandering in the verses giving a more personal touch to the lyrical narrative of each song. Emma has that elusive quality I’m always looking for in female vocalists, haunting, intoxicating warmth, understated and pure in delivery. That being said, whatever project she finds herself in, solo or otherwise, she always has a place on my list.

Best of 2018

Introduction

Another difficult year for sure. When looking in the mirror I see a tired version of myself. The causes are mostly self-imposed, a little too much drink, a little too much concern for "the way things are heading." The music brought less comfort this year than years past, but it was still good to construct a list. The chores of listening, researching, investing in, and rejecting various albums acted as a flotation device helping me stay above water during the torrential downpours and crashing waves. In the past when I reached this level of disillusionment and resulting prickly demeanor I simply moved away. That isn't an option at the moment, but it should be within the next year or so.

There's an image I've become obsessed with. It's of me living in a decaying wooden structure buried in the woods far away from people. I have things to make music with. I have a camera to capture brief moments of beauty and entropy. I have the ability to sit beside a tree next to a stream and listen to the running water. Colorado is devoid of the rhythmic patterns of insects mating in the night and the sound of gentle water flowing through forest ravines and I've grown to miss those things terribly. Here's hoping I can return to them before too long.