SAMMY O’HAGAR’S TOP TWENTY METAL ALBUMS OF 2009

To those of you that haven’t been paying attention (which I imagine is only, like, five or six of you), this is only my second year-end list for Metal Sucks. And while 2008 was a pretty good year for metal, this year made it look like a Nachtmystium record and some other stuff. From great early offerings right out of the gate via Tombs and Blut Aus Nord through the September-through-Thanksgiving deluge of awesome – where a year-end contender (if not straight-up classic) was seemingly being released weekly – 2009 was a banner year for metal, pleasing all ends of the spectrum (great new records from Brutal Truth, Coalesce, Funeral Mist, and Suffocation? What God did we please?). It may have even been the decade’s best, capping off the ten years where metal simultaneously redeemed itself from the sins of nu-metal and reveled in the ever-expanding and ever-fruitful underground that became easy to access and impossible to ignore in the age of the internet (the tape trading of the future, it seems). But perhaps I’m playing up the symbolism of a year ending in “9” too much: this year had so many great records that Axl and Vince’s decision to expand to twenty great albums instead of the standard ten STILL felt too constricting; I could have easily gone to thirty and done no padding whatsoever. This was the kind of year metal journalists/elitist douchebags like me look forward to for writing year-end lists. You’ll find it below.

21. (5-way tie)
Wolves in the Throne Room – Black Cascade (Southern Lord)
Black Math Horseman – Wyllt (Tee Pee)
Napalm Death – Time Waits for No Slave (Century Media)
Every Time I Die – New Junk Aesthetic (Epitaph)
Magrudergrind – Magrudergrind (Willowtip)

20. Disappearer – The Clearing (Magic Bullet)
After last year’s excellent Winter Sessions demo, Disappearer perfected their stew of ’90s alt metal, post-rock, sludge, and doom. Harrowing, raw, and moody but never melodramatic or pretentious, their first full-length further separated them from the ever-expanding pack of Neur-Isis clones, at once workmanlike and introspective. It’s good to see that guys can still convey emotion without getting all corset-sporting goth metal or floppy-haired mall emo on us.

19. Anaal Nathrakh – In the Constellation of the Black Widow (Candlelight)
One of metal’s fiercest got back to the business of being fierce. While not as good as the band’s masterpiece The Codex Necro, it’s certainly as good as any of what they’ve done since, employing Irrumator’s mushroom cloud of blackened grind and VITRIOL‘s demon-dragged-across-the-coals screaming interspersed with epic Emperor-style singing. The album’s centerpiece – a reworked version of their demo-era track “Satanarchist” – is a fine slab of trad black metal, but still has the horrifying plumage of the band‘s uniqueness. “Fuck the world” is the credo of most black metal, but no other band made it sound like more than just edgy, empty rhetoric than Anaal Nathrakh on In the Constellation of the Black Widow.

18. Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars (Candlelight)
And on the other end of the black metal spectrum, ordinarily obtuse post-black metallers Blut Aus Nord released a strikingly gorgeous album of shimmering guitars (except for the occasional David Gilmour-inspired solo), a haze of synths, and restrained raspy shrieking that all worked toward a perfect post-Burzum version of the genre’s emotional potential. At almost an hour long despite how it could have easily been twice as much, Memoria Vetusta II worked to more solidly define the rules of the game in lieu of their normal M.O., which is obliterating them altogether. Blut Aus Nord very well may return to their harsh, challenging material on their next record, but they’ve successfully proven that they can play nice as well as they can fight dirty.

17. Revocation – Existence is Futile (Relapse)
The first half of Existence is Futile leads one to believe it’s over-hyped: though an excellent collection of death/thrash, it doesn’t sound entirely different from Revocation’s also-excellent prior album, Empire of the Obscene. But that second half… oh, that second half. Full of shards of Schuldiner-inspired progressive death metal and even straight-up prog, tight musicianship all around (properly highlighted by production that spotlights the band itself instead of just vocalist/guitarist David Davidson), and wonderfully ridiculous solos, it recasts the first half’s initial misgivings and makes Existence is Futile one of the year’s most solid and fresh records. Even when re-thrash becomes passé, Revocation will still be around and awesome, as they’re an out and out great metal band, no matter what word you decide to throw in front of it.

16. Slayer – World Painted Blood (American/Sony)
Remember when the rock and metal worlds were collectively shitting their pants over Metallica’s rousing return to form, even though it was just a few Justice-sounding twin guitar parts packed alongside the same fat and lazy NASCAR rock of their post-Black Album output? World Painted Blood was actually that pant-shitting return to form, with riffs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Seasons in the Abyss or South of Heaven (“Beauty Through Order”, “Not of This God”) or even Reign in fucking Blood (the whose-dick-is-bigger trade-off leads of the “Snuff” intro, the shock and awe thrash of the magnificent “Psychopathy Red”). King and Hanneman are in top form, as is Dave Lombardo, while Tom Araya sounds somehow even more pissed off now than he did in his 20s. Death Magnetic may sell more copies, but World Painted Blood perfectly balances Slayer’s glory days with their last few albums’ experimentation. No old school metal band may sound more comfortable in their own skin than Slayer, even if it is a little more leathery than it used to be.

15. Coalesce – Ox (Relapse)
Of course, if we’re talking comeback albums, we have to mention the winner of the Traced in Air Award (for bands that have been away for a decade or more but sound like they haven’t missed a goddamn day) this year: metalcore pioneers Coalesce. But while Ox sounds like it could have been released a year or two after 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening, it also sounds like a band that have grown significantly in their absence, soaking up new music and life in general. While the ’00s saw the rise, subsequent flogging, and unflattering death of metalcore, Coalesce came back from the grave unfazed, showing a generation of lost and forlorn bands signed to then dropped by Victory et al. how it’s done. Welcome back, fellas. Stick around this time.

14. Immortal – All Shall Fall (Nuclear Blast)
Though they never had the danger of Mayhem, the crust punk attitude of Darkthrone, the class and experimental streak of Enslaved, or the infamy of Burzum, Immortal always had gargantuan, epic riffs that ran circles around their OG peers. Their streak of goddamn excellent metal albums continued with All Shall Fall, a chilly combination of huge guitars, propulsive drums, and the signature undead croak of Abbath. A bit silly? Of course. Awesome nonetheless? Like all great metal, absolutely.

13. Krallice – Dimensional Bleedthrough (Profound Lore)
Like last year’s self-titled debut, Dimensional Bleedthrough was a bit of a grower, initially even more complex and impenetrable than before. But peeling back the layers of blackened prog revealed a hypnotic tapestry of tremolo picked guitars and gigantic drums bashing behind it all. Don’t let the 10+ minute-length songs fool you: each one unfurls into a panoramic view that earns every minute it takes up. More than just a rehash of Weakling or a bunch of art school Brooklynites imitating their Scandinavian forefathers (even despite the fact that the band are from New York City), Krallice have settled into their own sound, adding to the mosaic of black metal in a completely unique and essential way. It’s no wonder they’ve wound up on 100% of my year end lists so far.

12. Burnt by the Sun – Heart of Darkness (Relapse)
Burnt by the Sun got a raw deal in the age of metalcore: they were always what metalcore was SUPPOSED to be – a worthwhile synthesis of metal and hardcore. And on their (sadly) final album, they simply did what they did best, calling upon plenty of hardcore groove and swagger on top of an endless barrage of barbed riffs. Mike Olender’s pensive barking kept the everything tightly wound but never uptight. Heart of Darkness is BBTS going out on top, and making us realize that, after a six year absence and the end of the Bush-era, we’ve never needed them more than we do now.

11. Suffocation – Blood Oath (Nuclear Blast)
What do you do when you’ve already recorded some of the best death metal albums the genre has produced and a generation of kids at the mall bored with metalcore start dumbing down the template you created and calling it deathcore? You make one of the best albums you’ve put out in years, if not your career. Blood Oath‘s speedy tech-death riffing and criminally infectious grooves and slams were some of the best death metal had to offer, and reminded us of how powerful the band was to begin with. Unquestionably the band’s best sounding album (gone is the muddy production of their early work, as is the sterile-sounding hollowness of 2006’s self titled album), Suffocation ably made the case that they need to be mentioned as much as Cannibal Corpse when talking about top shelf death metal, if not mentioned more.

10. Isis – Wavering Radiant (Ipecac)
Isis’ mixed bag return to quality after 2006’s directionless In the Absence of Truth was both worse and better than its reputation may suggest. Though not Isis’ best album, Wavering Radiant did find them exploring interesting new ground confidently, and, if anything, was a worthwhile listen, if not occasionally revelatory. At once more focused and gruff (“20 Minutes/40 Years,” “Hall of the Dead”) and willing to further augment their ebb-and-flow dynamics (the retro-trippy keyboards of “Ghost Key”, the post-rock soft coda of “Threshold of Transformation”) than before, they proved that they’re still capable of pushing themselves and their audience. It’s no Oceanic, but anyone expecting Oceanic II from Panopticon on forward hasn’t been getting it.

9. Pelican – What We All Come to Need (Southern Lord)
After the perceived misstep of Pelican’s City of Echoes (though this writer enjoyed that album quite a bit), the band returned to gloriously ambiguous and sludgy riffs on What We All Come to Need. Though still employing shorter songs, the Pelican magic is back, saying more without a vocalist than most bands with one manage to. Of course, that’s not counting album closer “Final Breath,” featuring Helms Alee’s Allen Epley singing. Despite the song’s initially off-putting effect, the band and their guest fit together naturally, sounding as in command of their songcraft as they ever have, which is a perfect metaphor for the record as a whole.

8. Portal – Swarth (Profound Lore)
I would like to thank Portal, who (along with Gnaw Their Tongues’ All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity) managed to put out a record that, for the first time since Pig Destroyer’s Prowler in the Yard, made me feel like a worse person after I heard it. It’s not for everyone, and maybe that’s a good thing.

7. The Red Chord – Fed Through the Teeth Machine (Metal Blade)
After 2006’s bo-ring Prey for Eyes, The Red Chord released what could be their most unrelenting album yet with Fed Through the Teeth Machine. Though lacking the nimble majesty of Clients or the one-of-the-best-metal-records-ever magnificence of Fused Together in Revolving Doors, Teeth Machine finds the band once again flaunting their best attributes – a sense of spontaneity despite the music being meticulously constructed, an almost comical technical prowess, the clever ramblings of frontman Guy Kozowyk – with a newfound sense of brutality. Trimming the band down to a four piece has made them frighteningly lean and effective, and proven those who thought the band would be content with coasting after their last album (full disclosure: this writer was one of them) almost offensively wrong.

6. Funeral Mist – Maranatha (Norma Evangelium Diaboli)
Many “raw black metal” bands think they’re most reminiscent of the “true” era due solely to bad production. However, they’re discounting the filth and unrefined horror the best early black metal had to offer beyond its lo-fi sound. And there was no black metal record more filthy this year than Funeral Mist’s Maranatha, a grimy and bizarre fog of dilapidated guitars, tense blastbeats, the hoarse shouting of multi-instrumentalist Arioch (or Mortuus when he’s with Marduk), perversely re-appropriated Bible verses, and the occasional post-rock outro. Many of the BM diehards that have been waiting for a follow-up to Funeral Mist’s Salvation since 2003 cried foul at Maranatha‘s “slicker” production and the fact that it wasn’t a carbon copy of the band’s past. They missed out on one of the more disturbing and brilliant black metal albums put out in a long while.

5. Goatwhore – Carving out the Eyes of God (Metal Blade)
Up until this year, if you’d argued that Goatwhore weren’t much more than a halfway decent footnote to Soilent Green’s career (both have metal’s reigning swamp thing Ben Falgoust as a vocalist), I would have found no fault with that. But with Carving Out the Eyes of God, everything clicked for Goatwhore: meaty production; a brilliant amalgamation of black metal, thrash, and old-school hardcore that never sounded gimmicky or retro-for-the-sake-of-retro; and riffs, riffs, riffs, riffs, and riffs. A profoundly solid album from front to back, Carving Out the Eyes of God made Goatwhore a band worth waiting for instead of a band to endure while its members’ respective other bands took a breather.

4. Tombs – Winter Hours (Relapse)
Tombs, as of this writing, are still not listed in the Encyclopedia Metallum, possibly due to the fact that the band lean just as far into the realm of post-hardcore and math rock as they do into sludge and blackened doom. But this doesn’t take away from the fact that their debut full length, Winter Hours, is an effortless combination of all the sounds in Tombs’ respective heads, from the Helmet-style precision of “Gossamer” to the Fugazi-esque jittering of the opening of “The Divide” to the Neurosis-style thunder of “Seven Stars The Angel Of Death” to the Darkthrone-on-HGH black metal of “Filled With Secrets.” Less concerned with being unable to be classified and more focused on being comfortable in their own skin, Tombs– a relatively new band– have come to fruition remarkably fast, and proven themselves as a band to follow. Though Winter Hours is fucking fantastic, the best part about it is that it hints that the band’s best moments may be a little further down the road.

3. Converge – Axe to Fall (Epitaph)
The band opened the decade with Jane Doe, their best album, and closed it with their best since, the superlative Axe to Fall. How goddamn fitting.

2. Kylesa – Static Tensions (Prosthetic)
In a year of bands coming into their own (see numbers 5, 6, and 8), none were more impressive than Kylesa’s ascension to prominence on Static Tensions. Distilling what was already a great thing down to its essential elements, the album is a mean, scrappy collection of songs that draw themselves out only as far as the need to be. With the brilliant interplay between Laura Pleasants’ trad metal fretwork and Phillip Cope’s crust punk attitude perfectly framed by drumming duo Carl McGinley and Eric Hernandez (and for completism’s sake, Corey Barhorst’s low end certainly isn’t bad either), Kylesa became a metal fan’s wet dream in the era of Hot Topic cross promotion and crass overproduction with a beautifully organic – both in sound and construction – album. Records like Static Tensions don’t come around too often.

1. Baroness – Blue Record (Relapse)
Of course, coming around even LESS often are albums like Baroness’ Blue Record, ones that sound completely steeped in the spirit of the past without fetishizing it for fetish’s sake. What thrash revivalists and hipster metal neophytes like The Sword and Dead Child are missing is the sense of GETTING IT, understanding why the music they emulate was so great to begin with (it’s why bands like Sleep and Down aren’t usually dogged by accusations that they’re just ripping off Black Sabbath, in that they’re making music in the same spirit as Sabbath were). Baroness get it in a sense that few bands do: they owe a lot to ’70s AOR rock, Thin Lizzy (the album is awash in wonderful twin leads), and even Georgian metal godfathers Mastodon, but the band certainly don’t sound in their debt. Baroness are their own functioning unit, making an album of heavy peaks and valleys of psych-folk intro tracks for color. While many will debate if the band are even metal, it speaks more that they’re willing to not be beholden to a genre at the risk of sacrificing great music. There’s an old adage that states, “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” You could pinpoint all of Baroness’ influences listening to the Blue Record, but in the end, it all winds up sounding like them. But is it metal? Who in the goddamn fuck cares?

-SO