I Should Listen to Fewer Albums
There are twenty-four albums on the tier list below. Counting non-metal records and releases I missed from January, my total for February album listens amounts to thirty. That is too goddamn many. It’s a lot to cram into one week of listening to new stuff and a lot to cram into my relistening cycle. I’ve listened to these all quite a few more times than last month’s batch, so I feel I have a grasp on this that goes beyond “first impressions.” If I continue to do this, I hope to streamline it more.
Anyway. That’s why this is going up way too late in the month again.
Behold, the List!
Overall
ATTACK OF THE POST-METAL. Not my first choice genre, but there were a lot of releases in it that really piqued my interest. About half are B-tier and above, but those ones are all records I’m really vibing on.
S-Tier
Slonk — Alkerdeel
I don’t really know what to say about this other than it just made my jaw drop. Four massive songs that all go on journeys from the raw to the transcendental. It really is the best post-metal has to offer.
A-Tier
Reborn — Serenity in Murder
I hate that this ranks so high. Mostly because the only way it’s available right now is as a digital download for $30 and little chance that I can see of it hitting streaming services or getting a price drop anytime soon.
And that sucks because that’s really expensive for a digital download. If it was for an LP + download, I’d snap it up in a heartbeat — hell, even if it was just a CD I wouldn’t hesitate — but as it stands, I’m going to have to wait for my damn stimmies to arrive so I don’t feel like I’m making an irresponsible purchase.
Because this album is really really good and I think people should absolutely listen to it. It is a ripper of a melodic death metal album, almost as good as MyGrain’s V from last year and I don’t say that lightly. But it’s also… thirty of my US-government-backed legal tender.
Imperative Imperceptible Impulse — AD NAUSEAM
If AD NAUSEAM and Horrendous ever go on tour together, I will explode from how joyous the news will make me. Which is super sad, because an exploded person can’t purchase tickets.
This is the exact sort of blend of old-school death metal paired with some odd progressive elements that is like methamphetamine to me. This album is also not on streaming services and likely never will be, but thankfully it’s at a much more reasonable asking price than the above one.
Välde — Humanity’s Last Breath
Humanity’s Last Breath do one thing: split my skull apart with that fucking gnarly sledgehammer of a guitar tone.
Frankly, I’m surprised how much mileage they’re able to get out of their stupidly walloping style, but it scratches an itch no other band does. No other djent act has the courage to cause this much blunt force trauma.
Mære — Harakiri for the Sky
On first listen, I was not on this album’s wavelength. And then I hit the halfway point of this massive hour and a half long album and suddenly it Stockholm syndromed me and now I can’t stop vibing to it.
I wouldn’t blame you for being put off by the length, but if you need some good “howl the pain in your soul to the moon” sort of music, then man is this for you. You weirdo.
Interstice — Knoll
Interlude tracks annoy me most of the time. This album pulls off a rare occurrence — it’s structured so well that the interlude was placed just at the time when I needed a little break and it got me really fucking pumped for the last track on this breezy half-hour grind album.
B-Tier
The Cyclic Reckoning — Suffering Hour
I really dig the spacy guitars on this album. They really make up for the loose and meandering songwriting.
Seven Evils Spawned of Seven Heads — Swampbeast
Mmmmmmmmm now there’s some grimy death metal I can sink my teeth into.
Noctambulist I: Elegieën — Noctambulist
Another solid post-metal album on this list. Go figure.
Omega — Epica
I’ve never given Epica a chance before. They always came across as cheesy and overwrought to me. I wasn’t expecting to like this album as much as I did. I do think the symphonic passages can be some of the weaker moments on this, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t grooving to some badass riffs on this one. I may have to give their back catalog another shot.
The Raging River — Cult of Luna
You really can’t go wrong with Cult of Luna.
Working With God — Melvins
Just a fun damn album.
Ordainment of Divinity — Skeleton
This EP was too short. I wanted more of it. I liked the way it made my ears bleed.
C-Tier
Obârșie — Sur Austru
This’ll likely be on streaming services in the next couple months and I’d probably wait until then. This album’s only fine outside of some interesting uses of folk instruments.
Little Turtle’s War — Pan-Amerikan Native Front
I like this album more in concept than I do in execution. Anti-colonial black metal about a Miami chief known for decimating invading white folks… love that shit.
For me personally, only a couple of the tracks really stick with me. I do think this album is worth the listen and worth supporting on Bandcamp as Pan-Amerikan Native Front doesn’t release on streaming and I want this guy to keep making music.
Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth — sunnata
There’s nothing bad about this, but most of it just slides in one ear and out the other for me. It can be a hell of a vibe though.
The Thule Grimoires — The Ruins of Beverast
When this album goes, it really goes. It’s a shame that so much of its runtime is spent being “atmospheric” in a way that doesn’t quite lend itself to a satisfying build.
Access All Worlds — IOTUNN
There are a lot of similarities between this album and the Kultika album from last month, and yet this one doesn’t jive with me as well and I can’t quite figure out why.
That said, with every listen this project is growing on me. Maybe by the end of the year it’ll be bumped up a tier or two.
Sinbad — Coronary
Some traditional heavy metal in the vein of Accept and Def Leppard. As far as debut albums go, it’s fun enough, but they don’t do anything interesting with the style other than sound like competent copycats. I want to see how they develop.
D-Tier
For Those Who Wish to Exist — Architects
I’m trying really hard to get over the metal elitist I used to be in high school. I want to give the metalcore and post-hardcore acts I would have rolled my eyes at once a shot.
Unfortunately, this album doesn’t do anything to ingratiate me to the genre. The guitar-work is half-assed and the singing isn’t bad, but it’s just not engaging. Some of the lyrics and choruses here are embarrassingly bad.
It’s a shame because apparently they went in a new direction by adding more symphonic elements and I liked those parts, but there weren’t enough of them to elevate any of the songs.
Methods of Human Disposal — Gravesend
This is another head-scratcher. I should really like this. This is the sort of grimy, pummeling grindcore I love, right? And yet, I found it uninspired, particularly in the riffage department. I’ve listened to these songs a few times and every time come away perplexed and annoyed. I should have like this. But I didn’t.
And who needs two intro tracks? Only Liturgy gets to have two intro tracks.
Ikigara — Abiotic
Japanese folk instruments can’t cover up the fact that this is an incredibly mediocre and boiler-plate death metal record. The songs aren’t bad, but they are bland and that is a big ol’ sin.
Hermitage — Moonspell
Some people really like this album. I just find it boring.
F-Tier
Songs for the Enamel Queen — Black Sheep Wall
Why did I listen to this whole thing? I think because I hoped it would get better, but I should have known after that awful spoken word section in “New Measures of Failure” that it was never going to get better, not even when they introduced a saxophone for a few minutes later in the record.
I don’t think I’ve loathed an album in a long time. And I do loathe this album, I loathe it very much.
I loathe the way these songs are structured. They’re way too long and never build to a climax. Or when they do, it is deeply underwhelming and not worth the ten minutes of dull sludge guitar that came before. I’m already picky about my sludge metal, but I can forgive some uninspired riffing if the song has a solid grasp of tension and release and culminates into something more than the sum of its parts.
This album is not that. There is no payoff for sitting through these miserable, pretentious, bloated, tedious, suffocate-me-with-a-garbage-bag tracks.
But the real reason I loathe this album is because of the lyrics.
Now, I am a man who is filled with self-loathing. I am known to wallow in art that mirrors such for a week straight if I’m in a particular Mood™. So when I tell you that the self-loathing lyrics in this album are cringy, know that I already have I high self-loathing threshold and I hate using the word “cringy.”
It’s a lot. I was getting some work done while listening to this and I had to pause for a moment and go: “Is he saying that? Is he actually saying that? Christ almighty.”
“I am a dream of the endless
Self-aware in a perpetual cycle that I cannot escape
A fool who prays for that which he is most afraid
Giving my all, only to be told he is never good enough
Give me the strength to pull the trigger
Show me there is a light at the end, regardless of what awaits
A void of emotion or the vast nothingness
I know you will not be there, and I know it will be beautiful”
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
A friend of mine described this album as “kleboldcore” and I wish I’d come up with it myself.
Fuck this album. It makes my F-Tier picks from last month solidly D-Tier.
Speaking of last month…
After getting a few more listens in, I think I’m going to retroactively demote Portrayal of Guilt’s We are Always Alone to C-Tier and bump Yoth Iria’s As the Flame Withers up to B-tier.
That’s that
Now get out of my house.