ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER “BEST OF 2010″ LIST TO ARGUE ABOUT

One of the fun parts of seeing what other metal writers have chosen as their favorite releases of 2010 is the “oh yeah!” factor when said writer lists an album you forgot about. Now you might argue that any album that’s not immediately memorable isn’t worthy of inclusion on a year-end list, and you’d be correct to some degree. But there are two factors at play here: 1) 12 months is a long time, and so much shit’s come out since January that parts of 2010 feel like ages ago already, 2) we get bombarded with so much new music on a daily basis that sometimes we just do forget. Sorries!

The latest writer to join the Best of 2010 party is guest blogger The Artist Formerly Known As Dan of No Clean Singing. Dan’s got a really interesting (and good, IMO) list, so without ruining it completely for you I’d like to briefly discuss a few of his picks without divulging their ranking (I’ve alphabetized them here):

• Arsis – Starve for the Devil: I completely forgot that Arsis had a new album out this year. Then about two months ago Axl said to me, “Woah, I completely forgot that Arsis had a new album out this year!” to which I replied “Woah, me too!” after which we both completely forgot once again that Arsis released a record in 2010. I guess the album wasn’t a stand-out.
• Iron Maiden – The Final Frontier: It’ll be interesting to see how many year-end lists this album makes; I’m gandering it’ll make a few. It may even make my own… TBD.
• Kvelertak – Kvelertak: Likely the only list other than Axl’s that’ll include this album, especially ranked so high, but I whole-heartedly support Dan’s choice; this record rules.
• The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza – Danza III: The Series of Unfortunate Events: A good album I’d forgotten about! Don’t think it’ll be making my own year-end list, but this band really came through big-time on this one and elevated their stature in the metal scene.
• Veil of Maya – [id]: Dan uses “Sumeriancore” in his first sentence about this album. A++++ would do business with again! A decent album, but I’m not sure it’ll make my own list.

Check out the rest of Dan’s picks — and his rankings — over at No Clean Singing, then come back here and argue about them, natch.

-VN