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Year End Blah 2008. Pt2

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 December 15 2008 at 03:51:31 AM



Makin’ my list, checking it twice

It’s been a interesting experience living and working half a world away from home. Writing, as I have, for the first time physically cut-off from the promotional end of the industry, labels big and small. The flooding in of beige packets from all corners of the world, the worst mailing list I ever signed up for, now no more. Downsides? Few tangible incentives from those I do enjoy for the time being. (My thanks to Killick and his exquisite, noisome Amplifucker.) But even as another year comes to a close I find myself with few complaints. Working with a skeleton crew of some of the most devoted, inspiring and often-brilliant writers/designers, coordinating ideas over great distances and stretches of time, and seeing them implemented – with responses both gracious and insane – has been an experience I would welcome again and for as long as there remains musicians and songwriters who continue to feed that interest. Time will tell.

Metal remains in the throes of a long and darkening winter, the nights growing longer with few bright spots in between. I can’t help but cringe at seeing other best of, upwards of 50 release lists for the year, the safest placed first, the same undercooked pieces always served up on a silver platter. Better to take the long view, shave it down and begin where the best of last year left off. When even those truly great records are too soon removed from memory, what does being placed 50th get you today? I do not hope for some great breakthrough year in and year out and regard such oft-repeated claims as suspect. An album like Primordial’s To The Nameless Dead (2007), a musically bare, but emotionally sweeping powerhouse, represents a culmination, strong enough to hold this writer over in the absence of a 100 lesser works. Few bands now praised as the latest progressive, or forward-thinking blend will ever last so long as to achieve the same prestige, though several new candidates emerged this year together with solid-to-surprisingly daring efforts by classic Heavy Metal acts Judas Priest and Manilla Road. Despite some notable absences (S.V.E.S.T., DsO), LHP readers will not be shocked while browsing through my favorites:

The Best:
SKEPTICISM, Alloy

The Rest:
ARGHOSLENT, Hornets of the Pogrom
ASVA, What You Don’t Know is Frontier
AVERSE SEFIRA, Advent Parallax
DEAD CONGREGATION, Graves of the Archangels
ESOTERIC, The Maniacal Vale
JUDAS PRIEST, Nostradamus
LUGUBRUM, Albino de Congo
MASTER, Slaves to Society
NECROVATION, Breed Deadness Blood
WOLD, Stratification

There were some disappointments, sure, but the trajectory was more or less known. New releases by Darkthrone, Deicide, Metallica and Enslaved were as predictable as their public reception while Nachtmystium’s complete turning away from Black Metal was, regardless of whether you liked it or not, understandable if one was willing to admit that for six years they were never really good at what they did to begin with. The same cannot be said for NECROVATION and DEAD CONGREGATION, both of which ruled a year virtually absent of new material from Death Metal’s old guard, the latter recapturing that feeling when the sound was still young and no one had yet decided "okay, Black Metal is about 'evil and darkness' and Death Metal is about cannibals,” or something.

Similar honors go to the members of AVERSE SEFIRA, who’ve remained outspoken and intransigent in their roles as ambassadors, practitioners and often insightful observers of Black Metal throughout the year, all points distilled through their ascendant Candlelight debut, Advent Parallax.

Look to old hands MASTER and Dismember for two different approaches entirely, Speckmann’s wide-sweeping anomie targeting lord and servant alike, giving fans of Speed Metal the album Slayer should’ve written two years ago while Stockholm’s indefatigable crew became even more blatant in their ‘Maiden worship with Repugnant’s Thomas Duan stepping in as able substitute for former heart & soul performer Fred Estby. A valiant effort, but more of the same, their mastery of the almighty riff superseded by North American lightning rods ARGHOSLENT.

Finally, and although arriving several months apart, new album’s from SKEPTICISM and WOLD are now in constant rotation to bring the past 12 months to an appropriate conclusion. Alloy, accompanying the coming season, with its awakening of that “silence deeply sleeping,” putting one in mind of Poe and Stevens, commends itself as a rare gift by way of its majesty and stirring grandeur. WOLD, however, do not score the changes so much as assume the very forces of nature,  throwing those familiar scenes of sleigh rides and sounds of jingle-jangling good cheer back into a great and whirling din. No peace on earth, but perfect tunes as these nights grow colder.

[Todd DePalma]

Comments (1)

  • 47 comments
    Helm
    12:06 PM on Dec 21, 2008 // reply »
    Not much for year end lists but I think I'll agree on the Esoteric, Skepticism and Lugubrum. Let's talk about it a year from now. People should make top lists of the last year instead of the new one more, or even top lists of five years ago because if it doesn't stand the test of time who needs it.
 

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