In alphabetical order:
1. Amon Amarth, Deceiver of the Gods
Not many bands can stay relevant by making the same album over and over again. But as long as the Vikings in Amon Amarth are owning death metal's most energizing riffs and sea shantey choruses, they'll be one of rare those bands.
2. ASG, Blood Drive
The riffs have slowed down, the melodies soar, and yet the sun-baked stoner metal tones that made Win Us Over a keeper radiate through. This year's gateway metal album to beat.
3. The Dillinger Escape Plan, One of Us is the Killer
Like
the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Replacements, DEP's one consistency
was that they were becoming more streamlined and produced with every
album. Until this year--One of Us is the Killer is a heavy dose of ferocity that both reaches back to and expands on their early sonic furies. You know, from when mathcore was a punchline.
4. Intronaut, Habitual Levitations
"Nimble," "catchy" and "addictive" aren't words usually used to describe prog-rock. Unless someone is doing it better than everyone else.
5. Kvelertak, Meir
Nobody wants to feel the pressure of following up a monster debut, but Kvelertak sound like they love it. Your friends who tell you about DIIV saving punk and Liturgy saving metal are missing out.
6. Nails, Abandon All Life
Wow! Where did these guys come from? Did someone make a bet that they could make Pig Destroyer sound like the Foo Fighters in 17 minutes? Collect.
7. Ramming Speed, Doomed To Destroy, Destined To Die
It takes a lot for me to tolerate neo-thrash. Even the best bands, like Municipal Waste and Skeletonwitch, are hard to listen to when there's already the Big Four and Testament. But Ramming Speed fused it with just enough death metal to make me wonder why no one thought of this before, between headbangs.
8. Shining, One One One
I don't know what made a Swedish avant-jazz band decide that they could save industrial metal, but I hope they keep doing it. No wonder NIN is back this year.
9. Soilwork, The Living Infinite
Outside of Natural Born Chaos, I assumed that Soilwork was a perfectly honorable background metal band. I had no interest in picking up a double album from them, until a friend planted it in my dropbox. Who knew that a 2-CD death metal set, much less one from Soilwork, could rock this hard? Their countrymen in In Flames and Arch Enemy haven't put out anything this potent in ages.
10. Queens of the Stone Age, Like Clockwork
In which Josh Homme forfeits his title as rock's coolest
man to out himself as an emotional wreck. The bravest twist yet in one
of modern rock's most indispensable careers.
Showing posts with label kvelertak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kvelertak. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Four Good Omens for 2013
New Intronaut:
So what if The Mars Volta broke up and the new Tool got delayed again? Intronaut is making the catchiest, most addictive prog-metal in the universe, as the intoxicating rhythms of "Milk Leg" demonstrate. You'll read about this one on Pitchfork--say goodbye to one of metal's best kept secrets.
New Kvelertak:
From Motörhead to Discharge, the best-punk metal bands have a way to make the same songs sound fresh album after album. The first single from Kvelertak's newest is exactly the kind of fist-pumping slice of shoutalong thrash that you heard on Kvelertak, but producer Kurt Ballou has me hoping that this one will be even better.
New Megadeth:
Dave Mustaine may be an insufferable lunatic, but I love the way his slide guitar plays over what sounds like a banjo(!?) in this preview clip.
New Nails:
Where did these guys come from? Apparently Kurt Ballou has been producing them also, but the black metalcore riff-fest that they're calling "God's Cold Hands" in the first that I've heard of them. Can't wait to hear the rest on Abandon All Life.
So what if The Mars Volta broke up and the new Tool got delayed again? Intronaut is making the catchiest, most addictive prog-metal in the universe, as the intoxicating rhythms of "Milk Leg" demonstrate. You'll read about this one on Pitchfork--say goodbye to one of metal's best kept secrets.
New Kvelertak:
From Motörhead to Discharge, the best-punk metal bands have a way to make the same songs sound fresh album after album. The first single from Kvelertak's newest is exactly the kind of fist-pumping slice of shoutalong thrash that you heard on Kvelertak, but producer Kurt Ballou has me hoping that this one will be even better.
New Megadeth:
Dave Mustaine may be an insufferable lunatic, but I love the way his slide guitar plays over what sounds like a banjo(!?) in this preview clip.
New Nails:
Where did these guys come from? Apparently Kurt Ballou has been producing them also, but the black metalcore riff-fest that they're calling "God's Cold Hands" in the first that I've heard of them. Can't wait to hear the rest on Abandon All Life.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Converge at Highline Ballroom
Converge, Torche, and Kvelertak, of thee I sing. On arguably the year's best touring lineup, three of the best metal bands of the 21st century proved that melodic doesn't mean saccharine, punk doesn't mean sloppy and that hardcore is worth saving.
Norway's Kvelertak amass more contradictions than a week of Mitt Romney campaign promises--a hardcore sextet with three guitarists, death metal without blast beats, shoutalongs in Norwegian. Fighting off mic difficulties and a ruptured disc, singer Erlend Hjelvik riled up the crowd from center stage while the band stormed through most of their 2010 debut. The d-beat riffage of "Mjød" provoked the evening's first mosh pit, and the thrashing "Blodtørst" and "Ulvetid" could have sat next to "Ace of Spades." Kvelertak probably won't tour again until their next album is out in 2013, and they deserve a headlining tour for it.
Torche intentionally changed the pace, showcasing more of the fleshed-out, major key glories from Harmonicraft and Meanderthal than their piledriving blasts of their singles. Not that the wallop wasn't there--the deadly Bo Diddley of "Letting Go" and Siamese Dreamscape in "Kicking" set the night for a cinder block-heavy stoner-pop show, driven by the supermelodies of guitarists Steve Brooks and Andrew Elstner and the restless drumming of Rick Smith. The lovely "Snakes are Charmed" and "Across the Shields" held up not only next to brutal tracks like "Pirana," but the two bands that Torche played between.
Now in their third decade as a band they've been in since boyhood, Converge shouldn't be surprising anyone. But their new album All We Love We Leave Behind is an accentuated version of their track record to date, as math-ridden and as straightforward as anything they've put together. This week's set was heavy on the new album, with the grinding "Trespasses," mathcore freakout "Aimless Arrow" and sweat-inducing title track eliciting as verbal and physical a reaction as anything from Jane Doe or Axe to Fall.
Technical problems couldn't derail the band, who carried on with segments of "Hot for Teacher" and even "Linus and Lucy" while the Highline staff worked out the sound issues. Singer Jacob Bannon whipped around the microphone like a limb, dodging bandmates, crowd surfers and stage divers with the deftness of a professional dancer. Kurt Ballou, whom, it should be noted, also produced the best albums by Torche and Kvelertak, is as vital a guitarist that punk rock can claim. By the time the crowd was satiated with a rare encore, 1996's "The Saddest Day," it was clear that Converge are one of the only bands ever to appear both DIY and born into greatness.
Norway's Kvelertak amass more contradictions than a week of Mitt Romney campaign promises--a hardcore sextet with three guitarists, death metal without blast beats, shoutalongs in Norwegian. Fighting off mic difficulties and a ruptured disc, singer Erlend Hjelvik riled up the crowd from center stage while the band stormed through most of their 2010 debut. The d-beat riffage of "Mjød" provoked the evening's first mosh pit, and the thrashing "Blodtørst" and "Ulvetid" could have sat next to "Ace of Spades." Kvelertak probably won't tour again until their next album is out in 2013, and they deserve a headlining tour for it.
Torche intentionally changed the pace, showcasing more of the fleshed-out, major key glories from Harmonicraft and Meanderthal than their piledriving blasts of their singles. Not that the wallop wasn't there--the deadly Bo Diddley of "Letting Go" and Siamese Dreamscape in "Kicking" set the night for a cinder block-heavy stoner-pop show, driven by the supermelodies of guitarists Steve Brooks and Andrew Elstner and the restless drumming of Rick Smith. The lovely "Snakes are Charmed" and "Across the Shields" held up not only next to brutal tracks like "Pirana," but the two bands that Torche played between.
Now in their third decade as a band they've been in since boyhood, Converge shouldn't be surprising anyone. But their new album All We Love We Leave Behind is an accentuated version of their track record to date, as math-ridden and as straightforward as anything they've put together. This week's set was heavy on the new album, with the grinding "Trespasses," mathcore freakout "Aimless Arrow" and sweat-inducing title track eliciting as verbal and physical a reaction as anything from Jane Doe or Axe to Fall.
Technical problems couldn't derail the band, who carried on with segments of "Hot for Teacher" and even "Linus and Lucy" while the Highline staff worked out the sound issues. Singer Jacob Bannon whipped around the microphone like a limb, dodging bandmates, crowd surfers and stage divers with the deftness of a professional dancer. Kurt Ballou, whom, it should be noted, also produced the best albums by Torche and Kvelertak, is as vital a guitarist that punk rock can claim. By the time the crowd was satiated with a rare encore, 1996's "The Saddest Day," it was clear that Converge are one of the only bands ever to appear both DIY and born into greatness.
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