We made so many year-end lists and still counting them (and thank you), that I (Otrebor) thought that maybe posting my own faves of 2014 list might be nice, too, and a way to give thanks back. My album of the year was clear, and the rest of the top 10 are each about as good as the rest in that tier, so theyre alphabetically ordered to help save time and sanity. Then there are a few honorable mentions. Album of the Year 1. Lantlôs Melting Sun: Some people have told me that this album is ripping off Deftones big time, but I dont know and I dont care. What little I heard of Deftones never spoke to me, but this album does. I liked it at first and liked it even more every single time thereafter. It starts out groovy and heavy and the musical journey becomes more involved and gripping until the very end. Lantlôs decided to go in a very different direction with the melodic vocals and how they decided not to resort to tried-and-true post-black metal staples, and I applaud them. As there isnt a record in 2014 I would rather listen to more than this one, Melting Sun is my favorite album this year. Im very surprised to not see it on many (if any) other lists. The Rest of the Top 10 in Alphabetical Order - Bohren & the Club of Gore Piano Nights: Sultry, soothing lounge music darkness. My fave Bohren albums will always be Sunset Mission and Midnight Radio, and everything theyve done (except the one song with vocals on it) is essential to my collection, but Piano Nights is their best album in years in my opinion, and probably my favorite since Sunset Mission. - Cold Body Radiation A Clear Path: Botanist bandmate D. Neal and I argue which Cold Body Radiation album is the best. He says its the first one; I think Deer Twilight is better. I think we both agreed that album #3, A Clear Path was more of the same from album #2, but its about as good, and about the go-to band as far as post-metal is concerned in the Botanist camp. Its been all too easy for reviewers to draw parallels of VI: Flora to Deafheaven. With all due respect to that bands achievement, you all are cold. Its bands like Cold Body Radiation (and Alcest, and Stars of the Lid) that inspired VI: Flora. - Darkspace III I: An unnamed Botanist bandmate told me that Darkspace is such a Paysage dHiver ripoff. He didnt know it was the same guy. Ok, if I had to pick just one, Paysage dHiver would get my vote, too, but Darkspace has its own flavor. Granted, I may not be able to tell you which Darkspace album is which in a blind hear-test, but more of exactly what I love and at the same strength as ever is welcome. Trancey cold-void-of-space black metal ambient pummeling that no one does better than Darkspace. A pox on the parties that decided to limit III I to only 500 copies. I wont divulge what I shelled out for my copy. - Great Old Ones, The Tekeli-Li: I snorted when the press tried to make a big deal of an H.P. Lovecraft-themed metal band. Silly people, the only thing thats been done more are J.R.R. Tolkien-themed metal bands. However, The Great Old Ones (I wish theyd stop embracing the acronym TGOO) are head and shoulders above just about anything else in metal that has been inspired by Lovecraft, ever, and their homage to At the Mountains of Madness is not only their best album (the 1st album was great, too), but its one of the best black/post-ish albums of 2014. It inspired me to get the ultra nerdy/awesome box set (so happy I did), and may inspire me to re-read the story (I think Lovecrafts most famous stories are his worst.) - Pestilential Shadows Ephemeral: I am so into this bands albums I did an interview on Decibels site with them (see in earlier postings). Pestilential Shadows is one of the best black metal bands to ever come out of Australia. Their music sounds familiar in a black metal context, but give it a song or two to notice that the musical expression this band puts out is consistently unique. Once you get to recognize the kind of passages Pestilential Shadows writes, you may also agree. - Spectral Lore III: Ever since the 1st album and all the way down to the splits and collaborations, listening to Spectral Lore makes me feel like Im being offered a vista into vast troves of untold knowledge. The Greek 1-man project always mixes it up musically on his albums, going places that feel unexplored in the black metal canon, and giving his records refreshingly clear musical chapters. It never fails and I love it, from the compositions to the visual artistic choices. - Vantzou, Christina No. 2: If it has anything to do with Stars of the Lid, its probably going to make my personal best-of for that year. Christina Vantzou is somehow affiliated with Stars of the Lid, and like the half-dozen SotL projects, its basically more of the same thing (classical-music influenced melodic drone done via manipulations of organic recordings of instruments) but since this is about my favorite kind of music ever, more of the same is exactly what the doctor ordered. I think I liked No 1 better, and No. 2 isnt as evocative as the absolute best from this stable, but Im really being a picky bastard. - Winged Victory for the Sullen, A ATOMOS: Another one of the major players in the related-to-Stars-of-the-Lid camp. ATOMOS was one of my most anticipated albums this year. It isnt nearly as good as the self-titled debut, but thats because the debut is one of the loveliest, most expressive albums I have enjoyed. More of the same but not as good is absolutely fine with me when it comes to music of this high caliber: its delicate and thoughtful and so, so painfully lovely. - Woods of Desolation As the Stars: Ok, theres something about the songs that kind of seems half-baked on this one, but that could be because whenever a track ends I wish it could have held me in its triumphant post-black/shoegaze euphoria longer. Musical critique be damned. I want to listen to this album over and over. Since the end of my teens, Its so rare that Id listen to any record and then play it again, but this album is one of those. Whenever I think of As the Stars, I get really stoked. Woods of Desolation has come a long way as far as my fandom goes. It may be wanting a bit in the overall compositional development, but the raw emotion of some of the musical themes and passages trumps all, and maybe simplicity is in fact an understated aspect to its success. Honorable Mentions (alphabetical order): - Alcest Shelter: I will also accuse Alcest of pussing out on this album, and there are important warning signs that worry me, like regretfully having songs sung in English for the first time (this is a sign of not good things to come historically, and Enslaved is the first band that comes to my mind, although I dont know how many people would agree with me). However, I still liked the album, and the last song in particular. However, any more watering down of the inspiration that put this band on the map (and Alcest is unquestionably the band that launched the post-black metal movement in my view) may make me stick to the 4-odd albums of theirs that I cherish. - Anathema Distant Satellites: It seemed Anathema had been building up for years to making Weather Systems, one of the most deeply moving, touching albums I have ever heard, and for sure my favorite album of the year it came out in. So I cant honestly fault Anathema for trying to repeat that success safely without re-inventing the wheel. While Distant Satellites is more of the same, but not as good, and that the balance of male and female vocals makes things tip a little too un-adventurously often to the treacly, there are some outstanding songs and moments here, and the notion that people with melodic voices like these ever made albums of only deathgrowls boggles my mind. - Blut Aus Nord Memoria Vetusta III: Like The Hobbit movie trilogy, Blut Aus Nords trio of 777 albums felt like a story stretched over too many installments, with the last one of each feeling to me like the dump of ideas that shouldnt have been quite good enough to make the cut. However, the now trio of Memoria Vetusta albums has never disappointed, and although I like the first two better (I may be my favorite), a new installment of melody-inclined Blut Aus Nord, especially with art by the fabled Necrolord, is cause for justified celebration. - Mayhem Esoteric Warfare: Mayhems best album since Grand Declaration of War (wow, thats 14 years), no doubt. While it may not have set my world on fire, Esoteric Warfare also sounded like an album made by a band that still has something to say, and is interested in writing music. All the art in the booklet was great to look at as the album progressed. - Nadja Queller: For sure Im not the only Nadja fan that wondered for at least some years where the hell the ship was going, and if we should make for the escape rafts back to the albums that still astound us to this day. Thankfully, albums like Queller still get released by this most prolific of projects. Its not as good as the old classics, the drum machine sounds too normal, but it feels like proper Nadja, and like with other albums on this list, if its more of the same thing that I love, in this case crushing, yet relaxing and meditative doom/drone, its welcome. - Progenie Terrestre Pura U.M.A.: Heres my dark horse this year. I should preface by saying that I (and also Botanist bandmate Balan) are major fans of Zombi 1-man sequenced-sci-fi-synth-and-drums side project Majeure. We also argue which Majeure full-length is the best, Balan thinks its Solar Maximum. I think I prefer Timespan. Whatever, the best aspects of a John Carpenter film soundtrack meeting Tangerine Dream meeting the soundtrack to the first Mass Effect video game, and with a seriously outstanding pocket drummer, makes this our go-to fave for driving music while on tour. Anyway, Progenie Terrestre Pura has a good amount of that lost-in-sci-fi-fantasy Majeure magic, but mixes it into a bombastic, cyber black metal context. The result is like Majeure, plus the best aspects of Dol Ammad, plus the best aspects of something like Aborym. For sure some of the material on U.M.A. is better than other bits (the 1st track in particular is where its at), but since Im a sucker for anything evoking Majeure, Im keen on an album like this, too. I was also really into the art and layout.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 03:06:28 +0000
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