High Five

So Metalsucks (here too) and Nonelouder are posting their half-year top tens already, and too bad only one of them had the sense to include the new Meshuggah. Here's the absolute, definitive, no-questions-asked top rekkids of the year so far.

In alphabetical order:

1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Nick Cave’s newest was so good that it inspired me to check out some of the records that made me a fan, like From Her to Eternity and Tender Prey. This one’s even better. The year’s best record so far by a mile.

2. Disfear, Live the Storm
Few bands have blurred the line between punk and metal so expertly. The best elements of At the Gates (who's singer’s here) and Converge (who's guitarist produces) blend into one awesome song that’s good enough to hear nine more times.


3. The Giraffes, Prime Motivator
The most exciting and creative hard rock band to emerge this century throws down enough riffage to give their room-wrecking shows an ideal soundtrack. Surf rock infected with metal, waltz triplets and circus music would be all the rage if anyone else had the chops.


4. Local H, 12 Angry Months
Two long-suffering musicians take a shot at Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks title and land somewhere in the top ten. An unapologetic and unpretentious concept album that proves that there are still grunge-era survivors who haven’t lost their teeth or their hooks.
5. Meshuggah, obZen
Sweden’s heaviest write their most song-driven album since Destroy Erase Improve, remember that there’s no drum machine that can compete with Thomas Haake, and become the early frontrunners for metal album of the year.

Something tells me that the Melvins, Amon Amarth, Gojira, Mastodon and Metallica are going to shake things up before 2009.

Remember a great American: