TNM Albums of the Year: Round 1

The end of the year at TNM is nigh; it's time to cut the ribbon and begin crowning our top 20 albums, as Perran and Elliot start off with all of the great musical colour and invention that has graced our ears in 2023.

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
Welcome bian venue Villecommon gooday to ourAustralian contingent and other languages I don't know
to the first half of the biggestshow of the year, the Albums of
the Year twenty twenty three. Wehear on That's No Matter have been covering
the biggest and best music in theworlds of rock and metal all year.
Many of you, I hope havejoined us over the course of that year,

(00:48):
reveled in those records with us,and now it is time for the
moment to really take stock of allthat and crown our winners. I guess
as we are gearing up for thelast kind of few shows of the year,
we should say thank you to allof you who have listened to That's
Not Out of this year. Everybodywho has shared kind words about us,
has shared this show with others,has you know, left us a positive

(01:11):
review. We got nominated for anaward this week. We're up for a
pod Bible Award against like a Beatlespodcast and Gary Kemp and Rose Matta Fao
and a rating the history of FranzFerdinand like we reviewed No bron under Dark
on the last show That's Hilarious.You can actually go and vote for us
if you like it the link thatwe've shared on our socials, and that
would be just very funny really toactually win somethingy wouldn't. If you want

(01:33):
to take the moment and show yoursupport for us, and that there is
still so much positivity from you guysabout this podcast. It warms my cold
dead heart. Thank you so much, everybody. We hope to entertain you
today with a reminder of what weconsider to be the very cream of the
crop. Myself, Parnheyish and himElliott Paisley are here today. You can
deduce from who isn't here who willbe doing their list next week. It

(01:57):
would be tempting, perhaps to guessthat our list today will be the more
kind of metal, noisy, freakyside of the coin. But I bet
we and they will go to allsorts of places. How's a year been,
mate? Yeah, it's been.It's been good. Like it was
nice doing the list this year becauseI've kind of had the whole twelve months
to bear this list in mind.Where's last year? I was really playing

(02:19):
catch up and I felt outside ofthe sort of really higher Shalon's on the
list, the lower stuff was kindof harder the place I think twenty twenty
three in a lot of people's itseems to be a bit of a I
don't know, maybe not a badyear, but like a slightly underwhelming one.
Most people I've seen have said it'sbeen a week yere I have.
I think I've stopped estimating that,to be honest, because I felt like

(02:42):
for a few years between I don'tknow, twenty eighteen and you know,
let's say last year or the yearbefore, I was continually going, uh,
yeah, the mifth this year doesn'tfeel quite a strong as the last
year, and then I'd get tothe next year and I'd back on my
list from that last year and go, actually, I really liked it all
those so like this feels roughly thesame to me as last year. I
love my album of the year aboutas much. I love my lower end

(03:05):
of my top twenty about as much. I don't necessarily think it's a classic
year that maybe we haven't had fora handful of years at this point,
but I'm not complaining. I've gotloads of stuff. Yeah, and it
feels like no one can really agreeon what the good years even are because
everyone's not everyone. I know thosepeople say like our twenty thirteen, twenty
fourteen bit of a rough patch ortwenty fifteen, and I think all those

(03:25):
years had an insane amount yeah,good material. I kind of I'm starting
to buy into the whole thing oflike, there's no such thing really as
good years and bad years. Theremight be good or bad years for the
really popular bands because only so manyof them, but to be honest,
a lot of it is what youmake it. And putting the list together
now, I was kind of struckby how many great things I was having

(03:46):
to leave off. Yeah, unlessyou've done the mental thing. Even though
we've reviewed like one hundred albums togetherthis year, you're a bit of an
enigma. You've kept your cards ofwhat your number one is close to your
chest. Yeah, And I thinkgoing through the list, there's a few
that kind of surprise even me,because there were there were loads of things

(04:08):
that I was I've been super positiveabout and I do think are still great.
When it was kind of time toput the list together and think,
what are the twenty albums I've actuallyreturned to and I've found most rewarding.
Some things that I've thought are againexcellent, they end up if you're just
at twenty one and twenty two.It kind of feels that you mix in
with the rest of the bunch,and it feels slightly unfair because I could

(04:30):
feasibly put together a top thirty orforty of stuff that I think is all
great. Yeah, and it's allgets lapped by Roger Waters at the last
minute before we begin at the topof the show here, next week's Album
of the Year show will also playhost, as it always does, to
the announcement of your TNM listener Albumof the Year results, and we can't
do that without your help. Ifyou have not seen as such on the
T and M socials, the votingfor that has actually opened earlier this week.

(04:54):
That's not that all. Focus grouphas a thread pin to the top
where we want you to comment yourour top twenty albums of the year,
and we can factor all of thatinto next week's results. We want as
many votes as possible to get thelargest range of albums and the most representative
winners. So go and join thatgroup. If you're not a part of
it, if you do not useFacebook, then you can get it to
us through other means as well.You can shoot us a message on Instagram,

(05:15):
Twitter, the Discord. If you'rein there, however, you've got
to get it for us. Wewant your top twenty albums of the year,
so you can have your say inwhat gets crowned as the audience favorite
album of the year. The votingwill be open until December the fifteenth,
UK time, which means you've evengot the time to go and listen to
anything we blow your mind with talkingabout today. But just don't wait too
long and miss it. Let's getdown to business. I think we usually

(05:39):
have this as a question, butnow we're here, do you have like
a non TNM album of the yearoff the top of your head? Now?
I think if I did this list, if I was just doing my
top twenty, my number one wouldbe the same on either list. Sure,
I just mean anything that, let'ssay, you haven't counted or you
know, wouldn't normally aught we cover. Oh well, I've been getting into

(06:00):
my comfy synth and my dinosynth,so endless list of them which you can
go find. They're all good,So just any of them? Yeah?
Well, the one that leaps outjust as you've said it, and I'm
not sure why is there's a bandcalled The Lemon Twigs who puts out a
Fleetwood Mac kind of soft rock record. I think that was fairly early in
the record. Every everyday harmony,everything harmony, and that is just nice,

(06:25):
so nice. If that sounds niceto you, it will be go
and get nice. Yeah, mineis a pretty new love affair. I've
mentioned this band, Nuovo Testamento,who are a American slash Italian sort of
synth disco band, and their albumlove Lines is just like the most immediately
I have fallen for, like anall out pop band in years. There

(06:45):
is a bit of T and Mcrossover in that there's things in common with
stuff like boy Harsher and Drab Majesty. They've work with Scowl bizarrely, but
it's way more unashamedly bubbily than thosethings, so I can think I get
away with calling it. You knowthis it's just like an all out nineteen
eighty synth pop party, and theyhave an insane amount of bangers. Already
a new favorite for sure. Beforewe get into our list, it's proper
what were you know, as yousay, the things that blended in with

(07:06):
the rest, but the things thatwere circling around your list that didn't quite
make it in the end. Sothe one that I was I was devastated
that I couldn't include it is TortureAct with Primemal Loslaught because I worry that
no one else is going to haveit. I can't read your mind,
but I worry that it's not goingto get the shells. It's one of

(07:27):
my mentions as well, like it'sokay in the exact same position of it
was peripheral, yeah, and likejust fucking great and Dawn Raid really close,
Hex Vessels super close. I thinkif I had more time with that
wayfair of record, it might havefound a way in. And I get
the band that they're very big ofthe sort of pitch forky circles, but
I feel like they don't get alot of love in rock and metal crowds

(07:49):
per se. But King Gizzard putout a thrash metal record this year,
which is was really good, andI don't think they've done it that well
in the past. So they hadone that people went a bit mental for
in twenty nineteen that I never caredfor, but that new one's really good.
Temple of Angels was really close.Black Braid Spirit a drift. I
almost feel that record came out,but going back to it in the lead

(08:09):
up to this, it's just anotherexcellent one. I'm trying to think it
was really close that Creeper is ohwow, Yeah, no, that was
that and Primordial, which are bothnot in the top twenty. I was
swapping them out for position twenty overand over again up until this morning when
I've finally settled. But Calda Capitationhears segar Roast their album's really nice.

(08:33):
Yeah, there was quite a lotof ones where I just when I reviewed
it, I thought that's a shoeing, and then it's come to the end
of the year and they're just hoveringon the outside. But those are all
excellent as well. Like to behonest, I could swap pretty much anding
them in for my number twenty.But I've settled now. There are a
couple of things in there that Iam stunned that we will not be talking
about again from your end going forward, not in exact order. In his

(08:56):
absence, I'm gonna go Alex mode, and I'm gonna mention a few more
than I usually, just to givethem their dues and knock out. I
think a few perhaps that you mightbe, you know, expecting or waiting
around for or whatever the Baroness gonnastart with. First of all, I
don't think they're making their very bestmusic right now, but it is still
getting a mention. The Spirit Adriftagain great heavy metal. I feel like
that one almost has been slightly forgottenabout by some people, perhaps in part

(09:18):
because this album came afterwards The GreenLung, also fantastic heavy metal. I
do expect that one to crop uphighly a few times and a few lists.
It was just a few places outof mine. I feel like after
you know, a few of ushad them so high last year, I
should mention the Blood Command. Youknow, we spoke about this being a
more mental erratic experience than the lastone, but it is a right laugh.

(09:39):
I'm glad you mentioned it because forme, the best thing in like
alternative rock this year by a milewas the Temple of Angels album Endless Pursuit,
and I'm a bit disappointed that noone outside of us too seems to
have really picked up on it,because they have this really cool, unique
sound mixing, you know, thatkind of shoegaze an emo with goth and
post punk. Not while we coveron the podcast, but vermin A Serpent

(10:00):
made one of my favorite like utterlyfilthy, degenerate black metal records like I
need something every now and then.That's that evil and horrid. Highly recommended.
The Panopticon that just dropped like aweek ago. I think is his
best in years. Some of myfavorite assorted death metal records. As you
say, The Torture at record islike a top five death metal record for
me this year. It's it's brilliantlystupid, isn't it? Like as a

(10:22):
song called fucked by Death on it. The Frozen Soul album was a big
one for that as well. TheAutopsy we reviewed a couple of weeks ago,
really great for a more classic band, and I think the one I
guess that would be you know inthat sphere that I feel would be conspicuous
by its absence if I didn't mentionit is the two Mold. But to
considering we didn't have time to spaceto review it with, that's kind of

(10:43):
surprise drop that it went out with. I really think that album is excellent,
like deserving of all the props it'sgetting. I love those boys,
good on them. Personal sweet spotfor me is the ironically more Moldy Records
from you know, a couple ofalbums ago with them and some other things
kind of took the prog crown,although humorously you've got to say it's like
the only thing this year that yourPitchforks and all of the kind of you

(11:03):
know, the wider non rock whatever, your indie whatever publications have picked up
on this year. Like today,I was reading PopMatters Album of the Year
list. There's eighty albums in there. One metal album, two Mold Pitchfork
Top fifty one metal album, twoMold, to the point where you wonder
why they've even put it in therebecause the only company is like like r

(11:24):
E Pop Records and stuff. It'slike two Mold are making our sun beaver
for this year. Fucking bizarre.Some more, you know, getting closer
the Pupil Slicer, you know,very exciting step up in scoperom and that
is another one I do expect todo very well as we go through these
shows and get those last few spots. The Blackbread album, Big deliverance on

(11:45):
potential. I did not expect thatalbum to be that substantial so quickly.
From them, some of the bestguitar Mellows of the Year, the VV
album I Love Him, and gettingthe best set of songs from that man
since twenty ten. It's like balancerestored. There's a lot of songs on
there that I do truly love,and as is so often the case,
there was a point where I washappy with my twenty and then I moved

(12:07):
something around. And it feels tooearly in the show to be talking about
a Cannibalquarts record, but twenty onewas where it ended up. We spoke
about it being like the kind ofa visceration play to violence and imagines kill,
the difference being I actually prefer avisceration to play to kill, not
quite this way. But it's anew Cannibal Quarts record. Obviously it was
in heavy contention the pesky album thatcaused such upset and is at my number

(12:28):
twenty is the very last thing thatwe reviewed in twenty twenty three. Malacarpatan
Vertumnus Caesar. I love when thishappens because I'm not new to malacarpatanck like
they have a real underground reputation atthis point. But sometimes something just comes
along at exactly the right moment foryou, and you know if it's not

(12:48):
clear, and I don't mean thiswith no exceptions, because I would be
the wrong person to be hosting thispodcast if I was just generalize like this,
But the mainstream of where metal isat at the moment, I think
is amongst the week of times inits history. To be honest, like
things that you would describe as metalcoreor like modern day groove metal or deathcore,
I've got essentially none of it inmy list. I don't think it

(13:09):
is at a place where it isencouraging major creativity or crucially genuine heavy metal
danger or just you know, freespiritedness, individualism, band sounding like themselves
and at that time, exactly whatI need is a band of Slovakian folklore
obsessives making a celebration of all thingsweird with a why and strange and esoteric

(13:30):
and creepy through the medium of afirst wave black metal come nineteen seventies Italian
horror soundtrack prog rock record like Itis the furthest kind of metal from something
designed to get on hot new tracksplaylists. It is the only record released
that sounds like this. Imagine thatyou know it is a band wholly guided
and defined by their own unique characterand their own interests, and the only

(13:54):
concern that they have is transporting youinto this strange world of magic and mystery.
And you know, being like antimainstream or that you know, a
really cult extreme band, that's onething. But this isn't just a obscure
form of kind of specific worship oflike one particular band or a style or
whatever. It's it's based in themetal of the nineteen eighties, but it's

(14:15):
so not regressive. Instead, it'sthe band who you know, they kind
of seem to evolve in isolation,like there's no big outside changing tide that
has sent them one way or another, and they're not trying to catch up
with anybody or anything. They juststarted in this kind of obscure Eastern European
black metal place of masters, hammerand root and tormentor. But every time

(14:39):
they've come to write a new record, they've clearly learned something from the experience
of writing the one before, andthey've come out with a new skill set.
And this being like their Andy Laroqueadvanced tier heavy metal record, where
they've got this somehow just beautiful levelof like class and proficiency and melody.
It starts with like a melotron andfolk prog acoustic opening of like Damnation era

(15:03):
Opeth, then starts racing and gallopingthrough the mind's eye like Abigail King Diamond.
This is the record for me thisyear, along with another one that
does that blackened speed metal thing thatI love. But this did it with
flutes and harpsichords. How the fuckdo they make that work? But they
do everything about it is just totallynatural and fluid. Every new sound is
just one that will stimulate your imagination. The solos just so just like inject

(15:28):
excitement at just the right moments.It's people who can properly play, but
they're having fun. You know,it's not a job to them. They're
not gonna dryly talk to you abouttheir pedals and how many strings their guitars
have got and their favorite fucking geometricshapes. They are gonna fly off somewhere
fantastical and they're gonna take you withthem. It is just genuine, escapist
heavy metal brilliance, the likes ofwhich the mainstream sadly seems to have forgotten

(15:52):
about. But if you dig intothe right areas, there is still magic
to be had. That is mynumber twenty Elliott. I mean, I'm
not saying anything now, but weare swinging about as far from that as
you can feasibly imagine. Because thiswas a record that I liked at the
time, in fact, I reallyliked. But in the last couple of
months, sort of quietly, I'vecompletely reappraised it and again knocking out things

(16:18):
like Primordial and that Creep record Ithought was brilliant. But I'm settling on
Foo Fighters with Oh Here We Are, which surprises me more than anyone,
because I had, like I thinka lot of people had basically written off
the Foo Fighters ever doing anything thatI would say even quite liked. Again,
the last three records I think arereally poor and even wasting light.

(16:41):
I think it had been at leasttwelve years since they released a great record
before that, so it's with onekind of with a one album exception,
nearly twenty five years without a FooFighters record. I think is really up
to it. And you know,we were positive about this when it came
out, kind of slowly but surely, in the last few months, I've

(17:02):
kind of realized this is my favoriteFood Fighters record since the color and the
shape. Wow, I personally wastingLight is my favorite Food Fighters album,
so I would not have it overthat, but I do agree that this
is a grower. This was anald that really showed just how you know,
assured of itself and how you know, resonant. It could be the
more those songs kind of stuck in, So I'm glad that it's here.

(17:25):
Yeah, and Wasting Light is youknow, it's an iron clad collection of
brilliant alternative rock songs like those kindof songs. It's one of the best
collections of those ever because in myopinion, there's not that many brilliant collections
of them. But this is akind of emotional weight to it. I
don't think food Fighters have had outsideof maybe the odd song possibly ever And

(17:47):
obviously it's the circumstances that play intoit, but all that would mean nothing
if it wasn't for the song power. And I think Dave Grohl is on
the best form he's been in decades. Like the opening one too of Rescuing
under You is just a plus.Under You in particular, that was when
I went from thinking, oh,this record might be quite good, so
okay, this might be a genuinelygreat one because it's just like simple poignant,

(18:10):
beautiful songwriting that manages to avoid thetrappings that Food Fighters often have fallen
into themselves if sounding a bit tiredor over aught the Tizle track like I
mean, was it like White Limomust be the last time Dave really he
used his voice like that, andhe sounds fantastic in that register, and
he's not doing it to kick outthe jams. Here it's catharsis and effective

(18:33):
catharsis. And again on a FooFighters record thirty years into their quite comfortable
Radio one career, and then somethinglike the Teacher, just one of the
best songs they've ever done, andin a way that I just didn't think
they were capable of, but capableof, like they've done long songs before,
but I don't think they've ever doneone of that caliber. And it's

(18:55):
kind of a shame that the circumstancessurrounding it are so you know, painful
and sad, and it almost tooksomething so sort of drastic to shake things
up. And I'm sure, youknow, maybe the Foo Fighter's record would
have been great if everything went wellfor them. I don't know, but
it's just it's so good to haveDave grol using his powers for good again,

(19:15):
because when he does, he's oneof the best kind of alternative rock
mainstream songwriters working today. And it'skind of mad that in a year where
the Dirty Nil and Queens of theStone Age I didn't even give them shoutouts.
This is my favorite alternative rock recordof the year because the Foo Fighters

(19:37):
came back with their most tasteful,emotionally potent and just satisfying collections of songs
they've ever done. Like, honestly, I stun myself because this has gone
from being a record I thought was, you know, very nice, to
what I think is genuinely kind ofa late career success. Yeah, I
think, you know, not onlyis it just a good Food Fighters record,

(20:00):
but you probably have to say thatit's one of the best records from
like, you know, our legitbig bands that we have any of them
this year. So yeah, fairplay the Foo Fighters. My number nineteen
is a record that we, Iguess coincidentally compared quite a bit to my
last one, Horrendous Ontological Mysterium.It's been really great this year, remembering
how great Horrendous are because death matterhas changed since the last time they were

(20:23):
around. Like I've said a coupleof times, the death metal boom of
the last decade in both popularity andcritical profile where two mold are our fucking
sun Bay there now. My personalassessment of that is the best little era,
or at least the one where Iwas the most excited, was kind
of mid to late twenty tens.And one of the things that is different

(20:47):
now is that there are a lotmore popular bands that we've mentioned. You
know, there's a lot more onthat kind of the meathead crossover end of
the scale. But another thing isa fair amount of those bands who were
around in twenty eighteen have kind ofgot on prog and it's almost become commonplace
how good these underground death metal bandscan be at their instruments and their arrangements

(21:07):
and so on. And this isn'tdo These bands are down right because you
know, you don't have to throwa stone very far to hit something that
sounds like cynic or atheist or humanear a death that's got some threatless bass
bubbling along, that's got some kindof cosmic theme, and loads of bands
are very good. It Horrendous wereone of the bands like five to ten
years ago pushing at this kind ofnew school of underground death metal and what
it was going to be. Andthey've gone away for a minute taking Stock

(21:32):
come back, And what I findso refreshing about this record is how it
finds ways to blow minds all overagain, even when there are way more
of their peers who have followed inTheirs and Blood Incantations footsteps, Because like,
this is the most fun a progressiveleaning death metal record can be in
twenty twenty three, Like it'll strokeits chin, but then it's going to

(21:52):
fucking rock when it does it.Like this record makes me laugh with joy
with its ideas. It makes mesmile and feel like we're encountering genuine aliens
in death metal again. And it'sbecause it's another one where it doesn't feel
like they're playing catch up with anyof their peers or anything. It's just
a band. You know, somany bands go. I remember in the
early nineties when death metal bands startedlistening to jazz and getting really good at

(22:14):
their instruments, wasn't that cool?This is almost like those bands that death
metal of the late eighties or whateverhas almost been put on a little alternate
timeline sort of pocket dimension and allowedto grow differently in its own time,
on its own terms, almost likea kind of retro futurist thing where this
has become the sort of like progspace thrash thing. Like the Iron Maiden
intro into the first proper seven minutetrack on this thing. It is one

(22:37):
of the most exciting little stretches ofmusic on a record this year. There's
a little jazz kind of melody interludetrack that makes me wonder why Doja Cat
went to Pliny and maybe she'll cometo Horrendous next even like you know,
amongst the kind of US bands,they feel like a link to some of
the weird, slightly less presentable thingsgoing on in Europe at the same time,
you know, Tribulation, morbus Onall at the Gates when they were

(23:02):
weird as hell, like that genuinekind of eccentricity. They've got this touch
of neckcro to them, but it'sdeath metal that makes you feel like you're
flying. And I can't stop thinkingabout the fact that this album has a
mosh call on it. But likeall of this stuff about Rush and Iron
Maiden and letting tracks breathe and buildand take their time, and yet the
stage dive riff of the year forme isn't on Like the Drain or anything.

(23:22):
It's on Cult of Chardoa keep aClimbing. They have like cracked the
code on making prog death metal feelvibrant and excitable and the furst thing from
mature and it's a breath of freshair every time I listen to it.
Yeah, it's it's very nice whendeath metal bands are pushing the envelope and
the sort. So it is inthat spirit that I have chosen Autopsy with

(23:45):
Ashes Organs, blood and crypts orAshes Organs blurring crips, Blurred and cryps.
Now, Like, there are probablyelms out there that are more worthy
in air quotes or deserve a spoton a list like this. You know
this better and sick this is it? Like, you know, does it
sum up the state of rock andmetal in twenty twenty three? Not especially,

(24:07):
but not much. This year hasmade me grin like an idiot the
way this Autopsy record has, becausethey're just one of the best death metal
bands ever, Like, I can'tthink of another one that nails the sick
thrill of death metal as perfectly asthey do. Because this album makes me
want to smack myself in the faceas hard as I can, run in
a circle, throw beer everywhere,shout death is the Answer, or Toxic

(24:32):
Death Fuck or throatsaw and the casketis blasted like it's I again just listening
to their music. It's so,it's just so. We went over this
only a few weeks ago, soI'll keep it brief. But the only
death metal band who let their songsget tired. You reade for two minutes
and then they just wheeze for thenext four just the like Toxic Death Fuck

(24:56):
has a cough and a splutter init, like written into the song.
Who else but Autopsy, And theirmusic has that weird ability to make you
feel kind of like a genius andstupid just by listening to it, because
they can write genuinely perplexing jazzy deathmetal and put together songs that, like
I say, speed up and slowdown and change tact in like genuinely surprising

(25:19):
ways. But they also make youfeel like you've got an IQ of eighteen
just by listening to them. Again. We spoke about it recently, but
I just have the best time listeningto Autopsy, and you know, there's
it might be one of those wherein a few years I'm not going back
to this Autopsy record as much.But here we are in December of twenty
twenty three, and few records inthat year have made me just grin as

(25:45):
much as this one. So ithad to end up somewhere, and just
above that poignant Foo Fighters record somehowfeels apt. Yes eighteen is something that
we did not review on the podcast, but I have listened to it through
the year. It is a bandcalled Smolder and Violent Creed of Vengeance.
This is like Frank Frazetta Corps,right, Like, if you recognize that

(26:08):
name, you know exactly what Imean by that. We are talking epic
heavy metal, and that is astyle of music that you know, maybe
like death metal whatever. We've spokenabout it a lot more in the last
several years than the years before thatbecause it's one of the substyles that it's
been having a real kind of boomperiod, at least in the underground of
heavy metal, if not the mainstreamagain, almost to the point of oversaturation

(26:30):
now with the amount of bands whohave tried their hand at it. But
Smolder, I think, are youknow they're right next in line behind Eternal
Champion and visigoth As like the verybest of them. They put out a
debut album in twenty nineteen that Iloved it immediately, had a bunch of
songs on it with choruses that Igenuinely didn't stop thinking for months, and
that one existed in a kind ofmore like epic doom territory. This second

(26:51):
album, they've inverted the balance alittle bit, and they've turned up with
this attack in them that is genuinelyaffronting if you were used to the more
kind of slowly dragging their broadsword orthe ground behind them with the weight of
it. This record fucking rips.And you know, we've spoken about bands
like Spirit a Drift and Chemist kindof undergoing some similar transformations from kind of
more doom metal into more like justtrad heavy metal. Smolder is still the

(27:14):
most unashamedly high fantasy of all ofthose, Like they are just hacking away
at you with twice the speed.Now, the new Spirit Drift album is
like a good time. This isMichael Moorcock Sale on the caees of Fate
and it's fucking amazing. The titletrack opens it with a riff that I
am putting my fucking fist in theair for every time, in the way
that like Trivian can do those kindof dual lead fantastical heavy metal leads that

(27:37):
are just like right swords out everyoneand you go undeniably, that's a fucking
winner. That's the kind of justheavy metal riffing that cuts through the air
of like any speaker or festival stageand it just makes you puff out your
chest that inch further. It's thekind of heavy metal record that feels like
you are stepping aboard some wooden vesseland voyaging out to exotic new places.

(27:59):
And the singer really fits into thelineage of this type of thing, and
that she has a fucking weird voice, like we spoke about like Mark Shelton
from Vanilla Road on the Patreon recentlyin the eighties when Keirathon Gold came out
and that guy opens his mouth still. Now, that's a freaky marmite thing
that takes a lot of getting usedto. And Sarah from Smolder finds this

(28:19):
way of making these like almost hypnotic, droning vocal lions at times that stick
with me while shrieking and wailing inthis like unrefined manner that isn't pretty,
but it sounds like she is,you know, sticky with the blood of
her enemies. As the song spellForger, which is this new thing for
them of like a three minute thunderbastardheavy metal rager, that's one of the

(28:40):
catchest choruses I've heard this year.At the same time as being unhinged and
hitting like all these weird notes allover the place that shouldn't work, but
the maniac conviction with which she goesthe power of Sacery is like in that
moment, she is just exploding,you know, unliberted power. And that's
the thing with this music, LikeI can't believe how mighty this album sounds

(29:02):
like if if the opening surge ofPath of Witchery doesn't make you feel anything,
even if you then get further inand go, oh, I don't
know if this start of deliveries forme. I don't know if heavy metlads
for you, if that particular momentdoesn't. But it is a kind of
metal that has an air of obscurityand an outsider, weirdo mentality to it,
and we're in a bit of atime for a changing guard for it,

(29:22):
perhaps because it's been you know,it's more popular than it's been since
the eighties. There are more dedicatedniche festivals for this kind of thing.
But you know, Kiir Fung Goal, they're just about probably their last album.
They're on their way out soon.Manilla Road are long gone at this
point, and it takes a certainwavelength to truly understand what those bands were
about and to not water it down, to shave off those more eccentric edges

(29:45):
bands like Smolder, you know,live and Breathe It, and resultingly they
are making some of the finest highfantasy, epic metal albums on the market.
God, I've not heard that.That sounds really good? Yeah right,
well noted number eight two. Iyou didn't have space for it.
I again, it's just one ofthose last minute of things where the last

(30:06):
week has moved on. But Ithat this Green Lung Man, this Heathen
Land, it is fucking great.Here are some things that I like.
Okay, so British folk horror,old school heavy metal from the seventies,
Moogs Chorus' Boodley Dooly riffs, andso therefore I like this Green Lung record.

(30:30):
I mean, this is the soundof a band who have had loads
potential for a long time and theyrealize it all at once, because I
kind of suspected Greenlung would make agreat record or one that I'd thought was
truly worthy of the hype, butthe album in my head wasn't as good
as this. This is exceptional heavymetal, and you mentioned it in the
review, but this reminds me ofthose old seventies records where because bands had

(30:55):
the limit of what can go onan album and then really salams more often
and stuff, they had to bereally deliberate about what did and didn't make
the cut. Because the thing you'resaying about modern metal, I feel like
a lot of I felt there's athing where a lot of bands in the
age of streaming put on songs thatare kind of redundant, where you go,
there's three songs in here that sortof do the same thing. I

(31:15):
know this is a bit rich,and I've just talked about that Autopsy record,
but like where a band that kindof have one sound will put out
an out with fifteen songs that allkind of do the same thing, and
you kind of go, there wasa time when metal didn't really have it
seems to have any rules, Likeeven the big bands will just do whatever
they wanted, and you look atsomething like Paranoid or maybe outside of metal

(31:37):
but like led Zeppelin four or DeepPurple and Rock, or a bit later
like Moving Pictures, and it's like, no two songs do the same thing,
so you need all of them.And this record is that, and
I forgot what a great trick itis because each song has a distinct a
distinct identity, whether it's the ForestChurch with this triumphant Sabbath, bloody Sabbath

(32:00):
riff, that bouncy gallop on Mountainthrown with among the best descending organ notes
of all time Maxine Witch Queen,like the Halloween Bicheranthem, Song of the
Stones, going All Comas, andPentangle one for Sorrow just being basically cathedral
cathedral worship. Like again, youcould go, oh, it's you know,

(32:23):
it's retro, it's kitch or whatever, but every song is completely distinct
from its neighbors, and it makesfor a really interesting and enjoyable body of
work. And it's clearly a recordmade by people who love and understand what
it is they're doing. Like youknow, I love all the classic heavy
metal stuff coming back, and youcan tell when the bands kind of know

(32:45):
their stuff, if you know whatI mean, Like when it's a labour
of love and it's not some kindof eyrolly ironic thing. You can tell
and there's nothing cheap or tacky orannoyingly cliche on this heathen Land despite it
being so deliberately like evocative of aparticular sound of place. I refuse to
believe that this band are from Londonand they formed in twenty seventeen, like

(33:07):
this band of from nineteen sixty eight. This is their debut album released in
nineteen seventy one, and they're fromlike Peniston or something like. There's just
there's there's no way, because it'sso perfectly evokes the thing that it's clearly
going for and with the song powerto back it up. So I mean
eight tracks of expert heavy metal andthe hammer horror intro. I'm just rolled

(33:30):
me over and took on my belly. Yes, my number seventeen. This
is the thing that I am mostsurprise is not in your list because when
we reviewed this I had reservations andyou were I think championing it a little
more, maybe as a recent highpoint from them. I still don't agree

(33:53):
with that, but here it isCattery Capitation, Terror Site and I did
this. This has been a strangeexperience for me this year in that for
the last decade I have been CattyAppetation's number one cheerleader, like monolathin Humanity
came out and it is still oneof the best things I've ever heard.
The Anthroposy and Extinction woke more peopleup yet again kind of how special they

(34:14):
are, and I was like,yes, this is the best thing ever
album of the year. Fast forwardto Death Atlas and me being on T
and M, and I think Idrove Bees a bit mad with being like,
how ridiculously pro Catty Capetation. Iwas saying, they have all of
the catchiest choruses, even when Travisis just fleming them all up and he's
like, what do you mean?Terror Site? People generally seem to like
this album more than me, andI think it's made them even bigger again,

(34:37):
like more than I can ever remember. In my time of shouting about
Catholic Capitation, We've had loads ofpeople on the socials being like, oh
my god, I've never listened tothis band before, but this album is
like my favorite thing. This year. Are they all this good? And
like genuinely like I'm elated, likekeep it coming. And I don't mean
this to be dismissive. People canget you know, they get into extreme
music at their own pace. ButI can't deny that part of me is
like I've been saying, you know, but how many death metal bands get

(35:00):
to their biggest on album ten andwhere for me like this is one of
my favorite ever bands, slightly comingoff the back of their best run of
material and this is the least Ihave ever liked to Chattercapitation upon its release
in the time that I have beena fan spoilers, this is still my
favorite death metal album of this year, and I guess it probably is the

(35:22):
most popular death metal album of theyear, like even you know, to
bite the pitchfork or whatever. Butthey've kind of graduated into a sort of
legend status, I think, andparcel with that is a consolidation of elements
and influences musically and thematically. Thisis, you know that the rapid speed
evolution arc of their last three albumshaving wrapped up and then going okay,

(35:44):
what more? And in mood thatis the you know, the charred Dawn
after the Dusk gets the band whobasically arrived at the death of the world
at the end of their last album, and then a pandemic arrived. But
we're still here without seemingly learning anything. We keep finding shitty ways to evolve
and make the world worse. Andthat insect monstrosity rising up out of the

(36:08):
burned up husks as this conveyed toevocatively on that first track. You know,
this is well oiled machine over rabidNutters that you heard in the early
twenty tens that excited me so much. But fundamentally, there are just so
many moments on a Catty Caputation albumthat are kind of pop like. In
production, they've gotten shinier and shinier, where you know, they do go

(36:30):
on tour with some of those cleandeath core things that I was talking about
earlier, but Cataty Camputation they feelmore like mus sugar or something where even
when they are that, you go, how like this blistering inhuman thing and
no one is making those things thiscatchy, not even just the strange cleans.
But there's this bit in Ethotic Doomwith the Gezer all might peer through

(36:50):
that ACTNSS, which just pops intomy head all the time, you know,
like we eat our young, thisanthem for fucking infant cannibalism as a
species, you know, eats itsown tail, and the tragedy that they
continue to get in that, youknow, creating the sound of a swarm
of voices as they do on somethinglike Scourge of the Offspring and using that
for pathos, you know, offeeling like you are born into a world

(37:13):
and it's already fucking ruined before yougot there. And because there is a
secret goth heart to Catholic the Apputation, amid all this, they just start
crooning on the end track on likeorchestration, you know, about being just
a body alive but rotting. Youknow, it is my least favorite of
the last five Catholic Amputation albums.There is the very odd lyrical moment or

(37:34):
line on this I don't entirely getbehind, but amidst many many more that
I do love, And you know, I was unsure to start with,
I guess when you're so attached toa band's work, But I've just settled
into really fucking enjoying the record.It's cutter Decaputation. They are one of
the most special individual, unique pioneeringin an age when it is the most

(37:57):
difficult to pioneer, and something likedeath metal bands that we've ever seen.
Yeah, I'm kind of annoyed Icouldn't get them in there. And I
think, weirdly, even if I'msaying twenty twenty three, this wasn't necessarily
a banner year. I think itwas for death metal, and I think
it was a bit of a competitivefield for Calder Capitation this year. I
think maybe even last year, whichI would say is sort of comparably strong

(38:20):
like cal De Capitation, probably abetter chance, just because there are certain
death metal records that I've come outof this year that well, I'll speak
about later, but for now,again, you didn't have space for them.
Seventeen it is world Domination by BloodCommand. Cool. My hunch at
the time is correct. This isthe best Blood Command record I've I've gone
back to the others, especially PraysArmagedinism. I've heard that for the first

(38:43):
time this year. It was sillyfor me to wait as long as I
did. That record is fucking great. But when I saw another Blood Command
record was coming out so soon,especially after their you know, long pattern
of waits. I wondered if theywould do enough to mark it out as
something stinked, because more often thannot, when bands release a quick follow
up, it kind of gets abit swallowed up by the predecessor or ends

(39:06):
up feeling like something less essential collectionof B sides, YadA, YadA.
But this is just the sound forband who seems to have thrown the reins
off themselves completely, like truly happyand self assured, and are completely unfazed
by expectations and living up to them. This is an album that I think
you only make if the only thingconcerns you is having a good time,

(39:27):
because this is a fucking good time, Like twenty minutes, twenty songs,
thirty six minutes, and the wholething is just like a day glow neon
mosh bit of the Locust and Cascadaor Lady Gaga and the Blood Brothers,
and like it scratches both itches Ididn't even know as possible were like those

(39:50):
massively catchy pop choruses that are justnestled in songs like Forever Soldiers of Ether,
the Plague on Both Our Houses,like the Insane Rabbit, hardcore tunes
of It's Not Us it's them Valleyof Hinham, Stay Awake, YadA YadA,
and then like wild deviations into likegabber on Welcome to the Next God.

(40:10):
Every time I always forget it's there. I'm kind of exhausted anyway,
and then that comes in and it'slike, please, I'm starting to get
a bit of ear fatigue. Andthen when that starts to settle in they
come and, you know, strokeyour face and read you a lullaby,
because that closing trinity of the titletrack Losing Faith in Tetragram like three beautiful,

(40:30):
well written, understated pop songs thatyou'd never expect from the band that
just what three minutes ago was standingon your face, Like it's just nice
hearing music that's so non cynical,like Blood Command were more commercially minded and
wants to strike while the iron washot. They try to follow up Praise
Arm again with a collection of sortof streamlined, maybe slightly half baked pop

(40:53):
rock, you know, shouty songsthat they could probably write in their sleep,
but they followed it up with theirmost exciting and daring record to date,
like it's stupid, it's shrill,it's mental, it's just free spirited
rock music and it just puts mein a good mood, and like,

(41:15):
at some point you have to turnoff the kind of critical receptors and you
just go, I'm smiling. It'sgone on the list. Yeah, it
continues to be a great time forBlooding Cantation, Blood Command, Timmy Blood's
in It sixteen is another instance ofOh, I'm so glad this band came
back or something this good. HexVessel polar Veil Matt McNerney is low key

(41:42):
under the radar, one of modernrock music's great misfit explorers whose like artistic
body of work is always shifting andchanging. Hex Vessel if you know him
for his other stuff, whether thatbe you know, Great Pleasures, whether
that be his history in you know, black metal bands. In the two
thousand, it had the appearance ofa sort of like sing a song right

(42:04):
aside project where he puts his feelingsabout how much he loves trees and wears
nice scarves. And yet it hasbeen completely iconoclastic for what that would mean,
changing and morphing and does weird thingswhere just the output of Hex's Vessel
alone now has more range than mostartists we talk about who focus on just
one project. It is not normalfor a kind of psychedelic folk project that

(42:28):
Sam walked in on supporting Converged BloodMoon and thought, this is a bit
twee to suddenly churn out a blackmetal record. Imagine if City and Colors
next album was Power Violence, Andyet Hex's vessel has made it seem oh
yeah, like of course he'd doneit. I'm not alienated or surprised at
all because they're operating in the spacesbetween the lines, you know, they're
explore, exploring the spiritual connections betweensonic worlds and how all of these things

(42:52):
intersect on an emotional level rather thana dictionary definition one. And this is
their winter record, so adopts thesesounds again, something it's members have very
long histories with, so there's noyou know, tourism about it. And
it is the most like, youknow, just dead leafless trees in a
lightless landscape. But I've heard ofblack metal record be in years, and

(43:15):
there is amazing sensation in it ofits building blocks being so kind of elementary
and fundamental that it sounds like somethingI've known all my life, Like there
is a particular tone and resonance inthis album that almost like physically transports me
back in time to when I wasthirteen finding this kind of music, Like

(43:35):
before I could explore all of themad nooks and crannies a black metal had
to offer. I had to equatmyself with what is the pure sensation of
you know, second wave black metaland what it is and that otherworldly feeling
that you get listening to berg Tator Transylvanian Hunger. But this has mixed
up in that configuration. You know, it's all clean vocal and suddenly there's
a connection between that kind of musicand you know, the dark folk of

(43:59):
Chelsea Wolf or what have you.And like I said, this explores between
those lines and draws those connections.This this record, you know, it
feels to me like the first timeI heard Bursen, but instead of a
mad racist shrieking, you've got theselike gorgeous spectral you know, folk melodies.
It's like hearing something totally new overagain. And it's it's really clever
with its guests as well. They'llonly be like, you know, a

(44:20):
backing vocal or a particular guitar syloon a song or something, but it's
picked some of the best, mostinteresting people in underground metal, who in
those small moments will make their impact, and particularly that the feeling of kind
of someone walking over your grave thatthis gets in its darkest moments, like
the way the chorus of listening tothe River works or a cabin in Montana,

(44:43):
which a friend of mine was like, those lyrics sound there. They're
about the unibomber. Maybe they thesebe friends with macarb. But it uses
these elements to be so chilling.And you know, it's December now,
it's the season to be, youknow, wrapped up to stop yourself shivering.
Read some m R. James ghoststories and that's what this record sounds
like. You know, the weekthis came out, I was up one

(45:06):
night at like two or three am. I was reading some ginger Eto books
and I put this record on aboutlike two or three times in a row
as the soundtrack, and it's sucha simple moment, like you know that
that's not a very interesting story,but that night sort of sticks in my
mind as a musical memory from thelast few months because in that moment,
those feeling of all those things together, how that all fed into each other.
It just had a kind of resonance, and that is the power of

(45:29):
this record. It's an album forcold nights forevermore. Well, it's a
bit of serendipity in a weird waybecause my sixteen is similar in some ways.
I've gone for hell Ripper with Warlocks, Grim and withered Ags. I
wasn't on the show the week wereviewed this. I can't what I was
doing, but yeah, it wasthis and another record that I'll be talking

(45:52):
about later where I was particularly guttedto not coming in. I have my
two cents because I liked the lasthell Ripper record. This kind of blackened
speed metal is always going to getsome kind of positive reaction out of me,
but I wasn't really prepared for themto improve so drastically. I don't
know if I'm the only one who'skind of been in the dark about this,

(46:13):
but this record is far and awaythe best hel Ripper record. It
just hits the spot, Like fromthe off, you feel like a headless
horseman galloping up hill to a stormyBothy or something. It's just like,
it's so much fun to be inits company. And the last record I
think had the sound sewn up,but I feel this time around the songwriting,
it's kind of caught up and lappedit like it's way more ambitious than

(46:37):
I was prepared for it to be, Like I was not expecting this one
man speed metal band to come outwith melodies as good as Iron Maiden in
their pomp, Like I wasn't expectingthat, but I'll gladly take it.
Like the riffs it are so dexterousand the lead parts are like really counterintuitive
and surprising, like in a waythat it just goes beyond the basic demands

(46:59):
I have for a record of thistype, a record of this kind.
But I'm really glad the Boat's beenpushed out because it makes what could be
a fairly you know, retro soundingalbum, and in some ways is a
retro sounding album, feel fresh onthe ears, and you know, to
take something vaguely similar, I loveMidnight, but if we take that as
a sort of contemporary gold standard forthis sort of thing, this record is

(47:22):
just a lot more like unpredictable andsort of impressive in its playing. And
that's not necessarily better, but it'skind of fresh because a lot of the
joy that comes from listening to musiclike this, like speed mele, first
Wave black mel is the sort ofprimitive element, you know, a tritone
riff over a drummer who has almostlearned how to play the overkill beat.
Like that is? That is good. There's something charming and a bit wild

(47:45):
about that sound. And yet hellRipper Again. Maybe I'm I'm just late
to the party, but they've kindof an unlikely candidate, have been able
to harness that same feeling and thencompliments it with like gin inly ambitious and
surprising songwriting. Like again, ittakes it from feeling merely like a kind

(48:07):
of tribute and an homage to thatear to sounding like something original, fresh
and timely. And I won't saytoo much more about because I have a
suspicion it might come up again.But yeah, this record is just like
excellent, excellent, Like again,I wish I was on when it came
out to sing its praises, butI'll make up for it here. It's
just fucking Chef's kiss. Yeah.I'm glad to hear that, because,

(48:30):
as you say, you weren't onthat on that show. And I'm curious
what the other one that you mentionedfrom around then was number fifteen for me?
Is maggot Heart and Hunger because there'sdefinitely a bit of a theme.
I'm a bit of a broken recordwith it right now. I keep coming
back to with bands whose personalities arejust so holy themselves and man like that.

(48:52):
There are more insightful things I couldstart off saying about this, but
this might just be the coolest recordof twenty twenty three. Like it if
you're it's weird to be saying thisabout like potentially the smallest band on my
whole list. But the overwhelming thingthat I feel coming off of Maggotthart when
I listen to them is just starpower, Like how can you not when
that solo in this Shadow is playing, And Yeah, they're playing a kind

(49:15):
of like metallic post punk that whenyou see the words written down in that
order, you go, that's notanything revolutionary. But honest to God,
they don't sound like they're copping anyoneelse's homework. Not once do I go,
this just belongs in the nineteen eighties. This has borrowed its riffs from
you know, Jordi Walker. It'sit's one of the only things in that
sort of style where you're not doingspot the reference point. Instead, it's

(49:36):
like a stream of consciousness, likethe songs are almost being written in front
of you as you listen to it. The goal to open a record like
they do on Scandinavian Hunger, justfucking like clattering apart and then reconstituting itself.
It's like you've opened the back doorof like a ced establishment and you're
watching the rats just fucking scatter outwards. But you are like putty in their

(49:57):
hands. And when they hit thatscatter Navy and Hunger, you are just
going down like the fucking rabbit holeof this album that the shapes are distorting
around you and you're gonna fucking likeit. The music feels so intuitive to
them and from the heart and thefingertips, where there's no adherence to,
you know, a theory of howthey've got to do it, or this

(50:19):
song has to follow a specific structure. A guitarist who is one of the
few genuine people in all of musicright now who as soon as they pick
up a guitar you know it isthem immediately, Like how rare is that
right now? But this is oneof the A plus examples anywhere right now,
And for them to take that alreadyrare thing and evolve it the way
it has because I love, LoveLove Mercy Machine, which came out before

(50:44):
this, but how they've made thatsound weirder and more kind of like rotten
and unhinged while still writing a bunchof hits out of it. That dance
groove kicking off in little black dressand those trumpets booting the fuck off.
It's how I imagine scarfans must feelif they weren't so under the necessarily happy,
like just punk rock, let's fuckingdance. The hooks are so effortless

(51:07):
and unruly, like you're being corneredin an alley by the kids skipping school
to go smoke. You want tomug you like this is a record definitely
made by the people in school whoeveryone was scared to talk to because they
were cool than everyone else. Right, they are just like spitting all of
this at you with this no fucksgiven a band, and even the piano
type tracks, which are like anew development, have this insane spiky tension

(51:29):
to them, like this is genuinealternative music, Like this is what that
actually means, something that is thiswithout filter and counter to what the mainstream
is feeding you. They played theBlack Heart last month and I couldn't be
there because it was their only UKshow and I'm two hundred miles away,
and I was heartbroken about it.I know it was not sold out,
and yet they are like the idealof a rock band where if you walked

(51:51):
into any small space where they areplaying, you go, what the fuck
is that? These guys are fuckingsuperstars? Yeah again, very close.
I kind of annoyed him, evenmentioned him in my honorable mention because that
record is fantastic, and at fifteen, you've got a small band with star
power. I've got stars with smallband energy. I've gone for Empire State

(52:15):
Bastard, which I was so suspiciousof this band when the idea started being
banned long before it even had aname, because I'm not really a Biffy
Cliro fan. I've never clicked withOcean Size as much as I liked,
and these kind of like we'll goin extreme projects so often feel like really
tacky. And you know, whenDave Lombarda got roped in, you started

(52:39):
going, okay, you know,I suppose I trust him, but who
knows. And then the record comesout and it just it shot me all
the way up because it's superb.I didn't really buy the claim it was
going to be a grindcore record anyway, and I guess I was right about
that. It's not really a grindrecord, but it's a noisy of on

(53:00):
garden metal record that sits in thisperfect cross section between Melvin's Pig Destroyer,
The Nighty Night and Discharge. Andlike, for me, for all the
talk of Biffy being an inventive band, I've personally never really heard it,
but there's genuine invention all over thisrecord, like Tired Eye being a song

(53:22):
that is only drums and vocals likethat would be strange enough, and then
also the vocal choices are so likehair brained and insane. The song just
called MOI sounds like Boris Slinton Primusall at once, and yet like none
of them. It sounds like they'rejust like constantly slipping off on trying to
get up off the floor. TheLooming is a near seven minute sludge grind

(53:44):
nightmare that's got this chip tune thingthat just drops in halfway through, and
my sort of like my left brain, the logic one is going, that's
really annoying. But then the rightside is like Ah's fucking that's like the
best ring tone in the world onthis like sludging grind tune, and it's
also above all that, just loadsof fun to listen to because songs like

(54:06):
Blusher, Harvest, Palms of HandsStutter, It's just chock full of like
exciting, vicious, nasty extreme metallike ten songs that snarling kick as hard
as pretty much anyone working full timein the scene at the moment. And
for me, like the downside ofa lot of these kind of extreme side
projects is they end up feeling abit like a folly, and sometimes that

(54:28):
rubs off on the music. Theycan feel slightly dispensable, but I feel
like Empire State Bastard they kind ofgo the other way with it, where
it's like they don't need to dothis, so just do whatever you want,
and that's kind of I think thatreally is an infectious quality for a
record like this to have. Soif this is a one and done thing,
like I'll just save this, Iwould love to hear a lot more

(54:49):
from this project. I think,just disband Biffy and do this account sence
what won't thank you, But Imight. No, I wouldn't go that
far, but someone who you know, fucking Glastonbury BBC TV coverage band going
a bit fucking mental, Go yeah, fair play. My number fourteen is

(55:12):
Dirdheims Guard and Black Medium Current.It's funny having this record are just a
couple spots away from the Hex Specialrecord because when that album was coming out,
I joined. There's a little featureof like band camp listening party where
at premiers and you can see peoplelike chatting with the artist and someone said
something like, ah, this thisalbum's gonna be my favorite of the year
along with the Dudheims Guard, andMatt who used to sing for them,

(55:36):
said, it's a big ask releasinga record that say the ear is Dodheims
Guard, because that's how this bandare viewed in those circles, right.
It's these records come along like thewhite Whales of progressive, forward thinking black
metal. It's like, you know, James Cameron taking a decade between movies,
but then he comes back and he'sinvented like ten new technologies for making
a film. Like I've now beena DoD Heeims Guard fan long enough that

(55:58):
I have listened to two of theirrecords. Upon release, I swear that
is a bigger, fat than formost bands. I they release a record
about once every US President. Andwhat becomes clear to me out of that
particular experience of time is how thisband, in comparison to like most other
musical outfits out there, almost haveto like break everything down and start again
every time they do one, andthat makes it increasingly crazy. Every single

(56:21):
time they keep coming back with somethingelse new again, and this felt like
a big one, like it feltlike a particularly new and special thing for
them, and very quickly again thepeople in the circles listening to something like
Dard times Guard, this record startedgetting treated as just like this absurdly massive
achievement that you can't help but marvelat. And for me, it's the
way it actually takes its time onthings like the process of building something up

(56:45):
and then deconstructing it so the nexttime that you can assemble the pieces into
something different. That must have beenparticularly weird for them. After the umber
Omega record, which is just ridiculouslydense and like ridiculously hard work to pull
apart, It's like, how doyou make a d high Guard record naughtier
than this? And it's almost likethat record was like a crumpled up map

(57:05):
and here they've just straightened that out. It's less like a nightmare labyrinth and
more like an odyssey that is goingto take you know, the moment to
consider things like this is by likeso far the calmest does Heims Guard record
like this has songs that actually sitwith riffs and let them sing out for
all their worth for extended period oftime. And what they do with that

(57:28):
is they get to these hugely likeemotive, dramatic, moving pieces on a
scale that they'd never gone for before. You know. A comparison point that
I thought of earlier is in nineteenninety nine, they released their record that
completely fucked up the building blocks ofwhat you'd think black metal was right six
six to six International. That sameyear, the Dealander Escape Plan did something
similar with Calculating Infinity. And thisrecord, all this time later, is

(57:52):
like that dissociation point where it hasgrace and not just complexity but depth.
The amount of ground that has beencovered in all of those years leads to
this greater level of refinement and itmeans that they've you know, they've done
the crazy radical let's smush everything togetherjust because we can. Thing a long
time ago Instead, now they areretaining the best of everything that's worked,

(58:15):
the psychedelic electronics, the strange,dissonant riffing, full nineteen eighties yacht rock,
prog, keyboard and guitar licks inone particular moment. But it's the
record that makes you know, otherwide reaching pull a million genres together albums
this year just look a little bitcute, because like, this band is
so over and past the giving youwhiplash phase. Instead it's doing some of

(58:39):
the hardest things imaginable, but ina way that's like almost meditative in how
immersive it is. And it's nolonger trying to draw attention to the hey,
look how bound we pushing we are. It's you know, by their
kid throwing twenty differents of flavors ofice cream at a wall, and this
has created this like beautiful meal withthis exquisitely balanced taste pallor and the song

(58:59):
into stellaexus on here is one ofthe best things I've heard all year for
its use of like hard electronic beatsand strange melody in black metal. But
it's the way that that unfolds overthe course of its runtime, not just
throwing at you all at once andthen moves into like the space jazz swing
of it does not follow, whichalso completely inhabits its own sonic world.

(59:22):
But it's like that's the only emotionallogical thing that could have happened at that
point, you know, to pullthese journeys off emotionally in a way that
consistently makes sense and feels like itis following through on each question that it's
posing. It is phenomenal artistry andskill, and it is done with just
you know, the quiet, assureddignity and the elegant touch of an underground

(59:45):
band who have been pushing such boundaries, you know, outside of the eye
of the mainstream, just as theirlife's mission. Yeah, I mean,
I'll keep quiet. But my numberfourteen is Ahab with the Coral Toombs,
because like, I love Ahab,I have for many years, and it
was only this year you revealed tome that their last couple of records are

(01:00:07):
in your wors laughably bad to somepeople, which a couple of very these
windows. Yeah, I was beautifullyimmune to that knowledge. But anyway,
this was this record was growing onme when we reviewed it, and I'm
really not sure I gave it afair shake because I think at the time
I said it was maybe my leastfavorite Ahab record, or not quite living

(01:00:30):
up to the previous couple, AndI think this album's fucking wonderful now.
Like I said, I've loved themfor a long time, and I kind
of adjusted to the fact that wemight not see another Ahab record. They're
one of those bands where it waslike, if they just quietly disappeared,
I wouldn't have been all that surprised, And I was kind of also adjusted
to the fact that if they didcome back, maybe they'd be more proggy

(01:00:51):
and melodic and that kind of funeraldoom thing would slowly eek out, and
that would have been fine. Youknow. I love those flavors in their
sound, like the Giant it's myfavorite, and that's got a fair bit
of that stuff on it. ButI do kind of still on that all
encompassing, smothering weight that only Ahabfully deliver on. And what they came
back with is their bleakest, mostoppressive and stark record in over a decade.

(01:01:17):
This thing is callous and I meannot to sound like an old sea
dog, but I do have anaffinity for the sea, like almost anything
she is like almost anything that evokesthat feeling I'm kind of head over heels
for and a have. I've donethat with every record, and I wouldn't

(01:01:38):
say this is their heaviest record,which I think I said at the time,
and pretty immediately I was like,that's a bit dark considering the first
two. But I don't know ifthey've ever done quite as good a job
of capturing that sort of you're inthe trench, like the impossibly dark,
high pressure part of the ocean,Like it's the sound of being trapped at
the bottom of the sea, likesomething like the sea is a desert or

(01:02:01):
colossus of the liquid graves. Imean, just as a title like even
Jason Statham's lungs could not hold outunder the weight of this thing. Put
that on the CD because like,like like you just feel like you're trapped
under an impossible weight and an unknowabledistance from the surface, and the album
makes you wait for any semblance oflights and then just crushes you again.

(01:02:24):
It's so unforgiving and cruel, likeMobilist and Mobile. It spends two minutes
building tension and then the relief isthe most dull thud of a riff you've
ever heard, like do you wantus to like you? Like again?
In that unrelenting darkness, there iskind of a beauty, like it's some
when you see those bioluminescent creatures,or like a tornado of hammerhead sharks,

(01:02:47):
or like fleets of squid. It'sscary, but there's something majestic and like
other worldly about like it might aswell be space and Ahab are able to
capture that better than anyone else.They are and have been like a doom
band for the ages for a longtime. And first I thought it might
be their weakest record. It mightbe the bronze middle behind the Giant and

(01:03:10):
corner of the Wretched Seas. It'sjust it's something else. Yes, Number
thirteen for me is a band whohave sort of you know, been floating
around I guess a couple times.Perhaps it's Queens of the Stone Age in
Times New Roman, and you know, with them being announced as a download
headliner next year and lots of peoplebeing like what to that? And you

(01:03:31):
know, I think their last tworecords is on the last one have been
received positively at large, but perhapswithout real fanfare. Would it be weird
of me to call Queens of StoneAge one of like the underrated bands at
their kind of level at the topof the tree, like this is one
of maybe about three legit big bandsthat I have in my list, and

(01:03:52):
like God, the continued rewards thatthis record has given me is just so
far beyond most bands I love whobeen important to me, who are massive
but aren't viewed as being in theirclassic ears, Like you know, the
new Metallica record. I haven't listenedto it in its entirety since around the
time we reviewed it, Like beforethis record has even come out. I
know it is twice as long,but like I've just had so much more

(01:04:13):
incentive to keep coming back and spinningsomething like this, which has been on
you know for six months now.And for me, there is an elite
category of rock bands who particularly feellike, no matter what era they started
up in, they are just sortof in this pantheon of just genuinely classic
rock bands in the wider sense intheir ability to kind of invest you in

(01:04:34):
their aura and their emotional narrative.We've obviously just finished our Alison Chains special
and talking all about those albums andhow those records like Black Is Way to
Blue, and Rainy of Fog justfell so so real and kind of just
continued genuine explorations of the people inAlison Chains and their experiences, and they're

(01:04:54):
not phoned in and they are youknow, records are made when they actually
have something to express. Queens ofthe Stone Age are on that same level.
For me, this is one ofthe best units in modern rock.
I know there are people who piningfor the you know, more Queens as
loose collective days and that it's notthe same without Nicola Vai or Mark Lanigan,
but I think they're missing the factthat Queens Now has had you know,

(01:05:15):
the same line up for over adecade. They're the most locked in
band that they've ever been, andthe effortless grooves all over this record are
so hypnotic to me because they neverfeel like stock templates. I can't agree
more what I think it was onthe Greenlong album. You were talking about
how you know, classic rock albumsoften have songs that that's the only one
that does that, and there's notjust a stock oh there it is.

(01:05:39):
Records are made up of things that, you know, fill in a wider
palette, and Queens of the StoneAge approach. I think of all the
bands again on their you know,like reading in Leeds headliner, fucking download
headline at the stage level, likehow do you end up with the staccato
sort of like polyrhythm groove in timein place. You know, they feel

(01:06:00):
like things that have been hashed outin the practice room by a group of
musicians who have an innate chemistry andan understanding of one another. John Theodore,
Mikey Shoes, Troy van Lewin.The command of rhythm and feel in
this is elite level for me.And again it's comparable to what has been
said about Biffy Kleier over the yearsand the way they have turned out like
odd ball ideas into kind of bigfestival rock songs. Queens do that,

(01:06:23):
and it's not just the maths,it's the texture and the color. It's
like psychedelic sounds and like every newsong hitting your ear in a different way.
The freakishly hyperactive rock and roll onwhat the people say, which the
last minute or so, George justmakes me want to fucking like throw my
back out. The blues Convict chainsmarching in Unison on straight jacket fitting that

(01:06:45):
builds too, like that stunning,you know, choral refrain, and then
with all of that, the vulnerabilitybehind the sort of rock star superhuman persona
that someone like Josh Homy might bepainted with in kind of the public eye.
You know, you can have differentopinions about the guy in his last
few years, but undeniably I thinkthis is a really raw and honest piece
of expression on the loss and deathand the self doubt. You know,

(01:07:10):
the guy's not superhuman, and recordslike this are really palpable reminders, like
even the you know, the therobot rock Queens of the Stone Age thing
from two thousand feels like it's rustedhere, like there are there are strings
on it that are recorded so beautifullyand lavishly like it's Abbey Road, but
the guitars and the drums sort oflike creaking wail, like buckling machinery like
emotion. Sickness is the big melodicallypleasant Grammy nominated song. The guitar riff

(01:07:34):
sounds a malf fucking malfunctioning shredder onit. Just that there's an ugliness and
a pain in even Paper Machet,which is the most like simple suns out
stoner rock song they've done in ages. The song cuts and it bleeds and
it hurts in a really a restingway. And the amount of times that
song has just been in my headthrough this year and I've just started going

(01:07:56):
They're out to Get You are thereand there was a still weird vocal lines
on it. And you know,with this record, with you know,
the bone face artwork and everything,it's the third part of that trilogy of
records that started with Light Clockwork adecade ago. There's you know, there
is a sonic through line between them, and those records have been continuous events

(01:08:17):
through me for me, like youknow, throughout my whole adult life.
Really, you know, the firstone came out when I was sixteen.
They've been important to me, andI think it is one of the best
sustained eras of creativity and artistic relevancefor a band like them in the modern
era. I might have to goback to that because I haven't gone back
to it since we reviewed it,and I wasn't super taken with at the

(01:08:40):
time. So yeah, more forme anyway, thirteen. This is one
of the discoveries I made for myselfthis year. As a treat. I
checked out a band called finn andtheir record Dusk. Now, this isn't
necessarily the highest ranking of a bandI've discovered this year, but this is
the one that probably the highest rankingof a band that I sought out and

(01:09:03):
came across myself. Thin are athree piece math grind band from New York
and they make some of the someof the most disconcerting, disquieting, and
anxious extreme music I've heard in Idon't even know how long, because what
they do is that kind of jagged, trembling grind, sort of in the

(01:09:26):
vein of a you know, discordanceaxis or some of the really shrill locus
stuff. And there's kind of there'scatchy riffs and addictive drum patterns in there,
but the whole sound of the thingjust feels like once your ears to
sting, Like some of the riffsin it are strange by math standards,
and to me, the real highlightof this record is in the vocals.

(01:09:49):
I feel like I've said this acouple of times since coming on to you
and m but there is a feelingof I sort of miss that kind of
thing where when extreme vocals started tobe developed, and as before there was
like here's how to do it safelywithout hursing your throats, And now a
lot of stuff kind of sounds thesame, whereas when it was just people

(01:10:10):
going for it, putting themselves inharm's way. To be fair, you
did get some more just the standoutkind of what the fuck performances and the
vocalist Ashley has these like pained,blood curdling yelps. I've not heard anything
like them. Like again, youlisten to a lot of extreme mel and

(01:10:31):
it takes something. It takes alot for something to surprise you and make
you go like what the fuck theway I did when I heard this,
Like if you want to check outa song, there's a song called a
fond when I think about it,which is maybe the best example, Like
she sounds like she's entering a panicattack. She kind of speeds up and
slows down like gasps for air betweenyelps. It's it puts you on edge

(01:10:56):
in a way like nothing else I'veheard this year. And the whole lyric
narrative of the record just really interestingand clever, like they sit in this
weird, uncanny spot between nostalgia andtrauma. So there's a song in there
called den which is about it's ostensiblyabout getting high for the first time,
and there's a couple of details inthe song that you might not even pick

(01:11:17):
out when reading the lyrics, because, like again, in the hands of
almost any other band, that wouldbe kind of like groovy, hippianthem joining
yourselves at the doors or whatever.But it's a song about a child being
drugged by their mothers seemingly well Iguess, sort of definitively abusive partner,

(01:11:38):
and the writer whose perspective it's fromdoesn't really know how to feel about that,
just like a fascinating and strange perspective. And then there'll be another song
like Foliage, which is just aboutwatching your child pick an acorn out of
the ground, And that's it ona grindcore record, and the whole thing
puts you in this kind of uncanny, unknowing zone where you can't really emotionally

(01:12:00):
prepare to participate in it because somethinglike Lingering Note even or Oathbreaker it lays
you out flats. But at leastwhen you put those records on, you
kind of know what to expect onceyou've heard them. Every time I hear
this record, I come away feelingweird because I don't know how I'm supposed
to feel at the end, andI think that's fucking amazing. I think
Thinn are great, and I wishthis album got more sort of attention when

(01:12:27):
it came out, because it's oneof the most interesting, like little bands
I've come across in years. Yeah, there's been a few records this year
or in that kind of you know, super noisy, grindy short form just
fucking weird, you know that havegot very minor kind of underground buzz.
Like this record is like fifteen minuteslong. Yeah, you know, so

(01:12:47):
go and listen to it on thatbasis alone. My Number twelve is a
record that, like, even thoughI wang on about this band all the
time, like they were my mostplayed band on Spotify this year, and
it was not just because this recordcame out. I would not have expected
this record to appear this highly ifyou would ask me in the lead up
to it. This depeche Mode andand Memento Mauri because you know, on

(01:13:09):
a run here of I guess sortof renewed emotional vulnerability and mortality from some
of the icons of our world.Depeche Mode like continuing to exist at all
has been one of the big winsof this year for me, Like where
you know, there was a flipof the coin there after the passing of
Maddi Fletcher as to whether this bandwould just sort of very abruptly end in
that moment of loss there or whetherthey would you know, move forward and

(01:13:32):
manage to make something that acts asa valuable tribute and statement, you know,
thinking about Alison Chains again. Butyou know, we ended up in
the right timeline, I think inthis particular case, because like this record
is so much more though than justyou know, a band more than forty
years in who everyone like everyone wouldjust sort of wave away anything they do
right out, like legend status andgood will. If Depechema were to make

(01:13:54):
a shit album, no one wouldcare, you know, and one of
those bands they could make a halfdecent album theyve got oh yea, it's
good and it gets through just onnarrative. This record is fantastic, And
every now and then there's like asurge of interest in depeche Mode, Like
in two thousand and five there wasplaying the Angel, which had their biggest
twenty first century hit in Precious Andthis isn't mainstream in the same way as
that it's not suddenly made loads ofteenagers like hear of them for the first

(01:14:16):
time because it's on the airways.But the critical interest around Depeche Mode this
time where everybody who has been followingtheir material, every major publication who reviewed
it has recognized it as their best, like honestly since the classic run,
you know, since Realistically Ultra innineteen ninety seven, twenty six years ago,
and they've not made bad records.They've got great material in that time.

(01:14:38):
But the album package of this andhow imbued with gravitas it is like
it's the Kings of horny black PVCsynthpop, making this like immersive, starkly,
deeply reflective long form work that remindsme of records like You Want It
Darker by Leonard Cohen or like Latterday Scott Walker, a bit of Black

(01:15:00):
Star like this. This record isall subtle throbs of unease and shadow menacing
still like more menacing in age,even in parts My favorite Stranger and all
that, like lurking, subdued butvery present danger on how much you know
how much Garne conveys the kind ofbeing forgiving through gritted teeth worn down by

(01:15:25):
frustration on People Are Good, which, like I've said before, is almost
like the kind of jaded in conversationwith themselves successor to People Are People.
My Cosmos is Mine has got tobe one of the album opens of the
year just in terms of like howit brings you into the world and headspace
of an album like It's so arrestingthe Martin Gore ballads like Sold with Me
is the best one this century.That song feels like it is built for

(01:15:47):
a thousand aging depeche Mode fans tohave played at their funerals eventually, like
it's it's morbid, but that's thevibe of this record. It's a morbidly
human record. And then amid allthat simmering atmosphere, they can make like
as immaculately assembled a pop songs asGhosts Again, which is just like such

(01:16:08):
a universally resonant piece of songwriting.It feels like one of those songs that
every human being should like. Butit's just so obviously lump in your throat
stuff. The amount of highlight songsin this track list, it's fucking crazy.
When you really think about it,you go like you know, what's
this like the I don't know,I mean like twelve or something, fifteenth,
somewhere in that range depche Mode albums, Don't Say You Love Me,
wagging tongue, whatever the fuck isgoing on Caroline's Monkey Like You're having David

(01:16:31):
Lynch narrated depeche Mode song to youlike And you know, I've watched,
you know, plenty of depache Modesets over the years from tours where kind
of the you know, the newalbum material is fine, it's good,
but it doesn't necessarily keep the interestlevel of the show at that same level.
And there are songs on this thatwhen I get to see them again
in January, I want them tointroduce new ones of these into the set.

(01:16:51):
You know, I want to seethem do never let me go with
that fucking incredible pitch black bass grooveand ripping guitar. If I think it's
a record that illustrates how much morelike our band than just simply a nineteen
eighties pop band they are. BecauseI saw a bit of Duran Duran on
Graham Norton the other week right,and they were promoting their new Halloween themed

(01:17:15):
album as like the first band toever have that idea and they're covering Billie
Eilish as Bury a friend on it, and over here depeche Mode are doing
this dark, introspective, slow boiling, threatening, patience rewarding record. I
what a pleasure to get this depecheMode record, a band who in recent

(01:17:36):
years, the last five or soyears, have become truly one of my
favorite bands of all time. Butas much as I think they have been
very consistent over the years, thatis largely based on a classic run to
go get an albumor I go fuckme. Just at the moment I have
fallen in love with depeche Mode.They have the stars of aligned to make
their greatest work in a quarter ofa century, absolutely fucking brilliant. Yeah

(01:17:58):
again, it's another record I've notI've honestly not gone back to that Ghosts
again. Song is ten out often and a number twelve. Again this
record, this is a record thatdefinitely could be higher in just a few
months. And you've really spoken aboutit and said basically everything that I want
to say. But it's Malow carpetanwith Fatumnus Caesar. I'm so glad that

(01:18:19):
this is in here. This albumis just the fucking business like first wave
black metal, prog, folk,speed met, all of them just done
sublimely and combining them in ways thatare completely, like you say, distinct
to them. There's no substitute forMalo carpetan. It's a sound that you

(01:18:41):
can only get from them. Andagain, every time I put it on,
I am just within in record time, I am like immersed in their
world. I am in the hauntedcastle with the pots and the stone walls
and the spiraling corridors. The useof folk is completely enchanting. The sort
of prog devil may care attitude makesit makes the whole thing feel like a

(01:19:03):
kind of shaggy dog ghost story whereyou don't know what's going to happen next,
But just when you settle into theirworld, you can be ejected at
terminal velocity from the Roman era tonineteen eighty five and you're in your cutoff
denim jacket listening to the scorpions,And yet I'm not jarred whatsoever. I

(01:19:24):
just I'm still trying to work outhow that's possible. Any record that can
do that is basically a shoe infor your top twenty of the year.
If you're a sensible person, andlike I say, it's very likely that
if you ask me what my listis in even just two or three months,
this can easily crack the top tenbecause I'm still listening to it over
and over again. I've completely fallenfor this record, and right now this

(01:19:48):
is just about as high as Icould feasibly reach it. But it's just
like, it's one of my favorite, like new again things I've discovered this
year. It's one of my favoritethings I've come to know in recent times.
It's just fucking incredible. Have yougone back to their other records?
Yeah? I have. Honestly,I haven't had time because I've just been

(01:20:09):
investing in this one now. Imean it's very fair, you know,
going for this one. You knowthey don't. That's one of the great
things about mac Carptwan is they haven'tdone this record before, right, Yeah,
But if you go back to theirother records you will find other different
pleasures. They're just fucking brilliant band. Number eleven is the fact that this
is the first time this band haveappeared in one of these T and M

(01:20:30):
End of Year lists. For meis I always feel like I've, like
Mandela affected some of you in probablyassuming they were there before. I think
it's more evidence of me getting thosepast lists wrong than them making a particular
breakthrough in quality. It's it's inmy head now that when Lamp of Murmur
released something, it is going tobe one of the things that I will
just continually listen to and vibe withthe most that year. So turn and

(01:20:54):
Bloodstorm was a swerve, but it'sjust that all the same, and it's
it's in the scheme of things.It's a new lover affair, right Like
the debut full length came out atthe end of twenty twenty, I like
really got into it a few monthslater, and now we're on album three
and he's already changed styles from whathe's doing on the last two. But
the manner in which this guy hasasserted himself so immediately as like the head

(01:21:18):
honcho in this kind of like grassrootsblack metal is is unbelievable. And I
don't think this was the conscious reasoningon this on his part. I think
it's so much more internally guided.But Saturnian Bloodstorm, as it turns out,
is a really savvy move to notbe pigeonholed in the same sphere as
many of his imitators. You know, there are more dudes holding candelabras and

(01:21:39):
corpse paint put in their wampiric blackmetal demos onto band camp right now than
there are hardcore kids playing death metal, and I am totally a sucker for
that kind of style when done atthe elite level, as the early Lampa
Murmur records are the fucking bullseye forand I do hope at some point he
has a bit more goth to offeras well, but no one has left
so uncaringly from trans Slorvenia to blashit the way that he has on this

(01:22:02):
and even still managed to maintain asingular kind of songwriting identity throughout that It
is a different, you know,kind of homage in a way, like
it's obviously the most classic era Immortalthing in the world, including the new
Imortal album, but at the sametime it is a wildly bold leap,
like both out of the sound thatpeople expect from him and into something that

(01:22:26):
just no one seems to be ableto be doing like this, Like the
production just so perfectly nails the exactmoment in time he's going for, you
know, like late nineties early twothousands, the pocket in between black metal
being really low fie and dangerous andeverybody getting the resources for like twenty first
century recording, so you haven't reallyheard riffs like this being this fucking machine

(01:22:46):
gun catchy since like damned in black, like it's so barbed and somehow like
it's massive and spiky at the sametime it's it's music so lovingly made for
a particular kind of black metal nerd, and the dude just has a midas
touch for rifts. It is insanebecause plenty of those raw black metal guys

(01:23:08):
you know where he's come from,they're there for vibes and aesthetics. This
is chops, This is craft andattention to detail. Steal the dominator.
It is illegal to not immediately throwsome fucking horns for that. And you
know, being in a tiny roomlike boom in leads and feeling the foot
on the mont of power of afuck a heavy metal riff like that is

(01:23:28):
one of my favorite live moments ofthis year. The fist in the air
title track, Like sometimes the pickingand the chug on these rifts can be
primal and physical, the way Metallicarifts are like particularly it's the way he's
made music this cold and evil feelempowering, like you are scaling fucking mountains
with these rifts. It understands notjust black metal, but the heavy metal

(01:23:51):
spirit within that. You know,it's it's cheesy, but it's true.
You are hearing someone put on asuit of armor by playing these rifts and
how having these melodies pulse through themand feeling larger than life and feeling stronger.
I mean, there was a hilariousinterview with the main guy from Misthinning
when their last album came out thatI think about and I reference all the

(01:24:12):
time where he seems to have hadlike a religious awakening with man O War
in the time between that and theirprevious album, and he keeps in every
answer bringing up man O War andtalking about it being like a new code
of his life. That he asked, what man O War would do?
You know, he's just like mefor real, But like this is that,
you know, it's the power ofthunderous, galloping heavy metal with a
spiked gauntlet in the air, withthat extra grimness on top. You know.

(01:24:36):
Lamp of Murmur got it from amortal who got it from Bathory,
who got it from man O Warwho got it from Judas Priest and Dio.
The spirit is the same. There'sa shirt for this album I think
is amazing that has him on itwielding a sword wearing an Immortal Damned in
black T shirt on the T shirt. It's twenty twenty three and it's like
We've got at the Heart of Wintertwo. It's brilliant. Mean, I

(01:24:58):
mean, yeah, that Immortal recordcame out. This ship is really good.
But you just want to go now, that's that's how you do it.
That's the one because it is likea league ahead. I think.
Yeah. Again, one of thosethat I should have mentioned in my honor
were mentions because I get I thinkit was one of those where I really
liked at the time, but itdefinitely grew on me over over time after
that and my number eleven I havegone for Gridlink with yeah, one of

(01:25:23):
those that kind of fell through thecracks, and Gridlink might never be regarded
as one of the all time greatgrind bands, but there's something that I
think only they and maybe their predecessorin Discordance Axis were were capable of,
and they make grind called beautiful,like not necessarily beautiful like Sofia and Stevens

(01:25:44):
or something, but their music feelsthat you're like burning up on re entry.
It's just so intense and white hot, but there's still space for like
grace in the riffs and even whenthey're screeching in your ears, they managed
to have moments of again genuine beauty, Like it was the thing that I
missed most in their absence, andthis arm delivers it more than any record

(01:26:09):
they've ever done. Yeah, Imean a bit of contact every it doesn't
know grid Link. This band literallyalmost ten years ago now released a record
called Longhena that at the time wastheir sort of farewell record, and it
came out and it was like themost critically acclaimed grindcore record it around that
point in time. And this istheir first one back, so there was
a lot of expectation around this.Yeah, and nine years later you get

(01:26:30):
eleven songs and twenty minutes. Butit's them doing the thing that no one
else does. Like if Iron Maidenopened their next record with a riff as
good as silk Ash Cascade, wewould just we'd be doing backflips for three
months. And it's in a twominute grindcore song Ocean Vertigo, if that
was on the next Death Heaven record, we'd be talking about it as like

(01:26:51):
a musical highlight of the year.And it's less than ninety seconds of the
record. Pitch Black Resolve like makesme want to weep. It's so broken
and sad, but you almost don'tnotice because it's going two hundred miles an
hour. Again, as much asthem doing the the beautiful thing is great,
they also are able to capture thekind of the paranoia of high speed

(01:27:15):
better than almost any other band.Like you listen to something like The Forgers,
Ses Sade or Octave Serpent and youfeel like you're going on a motorbike
at three hundred miles an hour andyou just think, if I sneeze or
if anything surprises me, I ama hot mist. I am just I'm
going to be jammed. There'll benone of me left. And it's that
kind of thrill and panic that powersyou along. And it's just it's sad

(01:27:36):
because they'll probably go away again andmaybe rear their head in another decade,
and that's kind of cruel because noone does what they do, I think,
or to certainly not to this standard. And I've just I've savored this
record like my first meal in weeks, because again, they just do the
thing that they do better than anyoneelse could hope to. And so again

(01:28:00):
it's I'm kind of tripping over myselfusing the same words over and over again,
but it's just you've got twenty minutes, spare go and listen to this.
It's just grindcore that's genuinely nice tolisten to. Yeah, I didn't
spend as much time with that oneas I did long here. I think
you're a bigger, sort of likeweirder grind head than I am. But
certainly they do a thing that noone has quite managed to evoke in their

(01:28:23):
absence, I guess, or atleast nail the same way. So I'm
definitely worthy in that sense into thetop ten then and mine following up,
Lampa Murmur is another one man blackmetal master, embracing grander and wolf fantastical
and triumphant ideas, which, inthis case, I agree with you,
is particularly wild as an idea becauseit's hell Ripper and warlocks, grim and

(01:28:46):
withered hags and the thing that hellRipper do and I've done for several years
now. I love I am allfor the you know speed renaissance it seems
to have occurred in recent years,Like I love a nac burst of black
and thrash abandon. It's one ofthe most energetic, fun kinds of music
there is in its basist form,and hell Ripper has been really bloody good

(01:29:10):
at it, Like the Affair ofthe Poisons from a few years ago is
fucking wicked. It's twenty nine minutesof catchy shit shouting about blood orgies of
the she Devils and vampire's grades andall that good stuff. But isn't it
amazing when a band who seemed tobe adept at a particular niche thing throw
you a curveball like this and justthink so far beyond the box that you

(01:29:31):
thought they would just be forever happyto exist in, and it makes it
seem so natural as well, Likethis record makes it seem weird that the
idea of making this kind of blackspeed metal epic and theatrical and mythic would
seem weird. But this, thisis like the kind of you know ride
the Lightning Master of Puppets of contemporaryblack thrash, Like it takes a genre

(01:29:54):
of music that seems like it wasbest suited for, you know, short
sharp shocks and people to bang themheads to and stage dive two music that
you know, often at it's bestreveled in being gloriously bone headed, and
it goes, what if we cankind of retain that but also do something
more with it? And the ambitionof that I genuinely think is one of

(01:30:15):
the highest aiming moments in metal thisyear. Honestly, there's one riff in
the middle of Mister Storeworm that soundslike Ghost Reveries Opeth. This is the
boundary we normally get compared to MidnightLike, this is like fucking imax,
high concept, epic black speed metal. It's still wild that this exists,
and it still sounds like some ofthe most excitable music in the world.

(01:30:35):
The way that James writes riffs isparticularly manic, like he is channeling nineteen
eighty five era Dave Mustain's coked upspeed metal hands all over that threatboard and
using that as a vehicle to getto those places of real drama. The
songs don't stop either. It doesn'tjust stop to you know, be a
chin stroker. Suddenly, songs likethe Knuckle of E do everything up once,

(01:30:56):
and it makes the fucking whirling dervishenny of energy of it seem more
mental because there are so many riffsper song that you start to wonder,
like, how has this even remainedcoherent flying through all these that speed?
But it has. You've been alongthe whole way. They are insanely tightly
constructed. And if you want anexample of how you can write a seven
minute heavy metal song, the titletrack is one that you can fucking study

(01:31:19):
right. The might on that mainriff is like, you know, mid
tempo James Hetfield in his Pomp.There are melodies in it that are as
good as the somber Lane and themoment that that bagpipe's line takes over from
that huge chanted chorus and it's notlike some laugh out loud whoa, I
bet you didn't see this crazy thingcome in, or like a folk metal,

(01:31:39):
you know, drinking song or anything, but a moment of like mouth
gorping, awe and grace that hehas arrived at in that song where you
realize that the only thing that youcould have really done to see all the
deal on that song sending out anotherlevel higher one last time, is to
let a huge folk melody like thatring out. It's moment of the sublime

(01:32:00):
in this record, and heavy metalis the best form of contemporary popular music
at multi section, long form songwritingthat takes you on a mental journey and
feels like it's conjuring up that kindof storm at your back that like,
you know, if you again,if you poll any Rolling Star or whatever,
the greatest metal songs of all time. That's why those moments from Iron

(01:32:21):
Maiden and Metallica where they cracked thatare like, you know, the most
iconic, heralded moments in our musicalhistory. That's what made records like The
Blackening and Shogun in the two thousandssuch like massively lauded kind of moments of
albums that kind of recaptured that spirit. And this is that from a place
you would not have seen coming.And it's still got a three minute song

(01:32:41):
called Goat Vomit Nightmare on it,and that still manages to cram in this
like stunner of a multi park guitarharmony in the back as well, and
it's got that ace of Spades basslinein fucking the hissing marshes, you know,
the same way as the Lampa Murmuralbum, like the Mala Carpatan album,
it's such a clear labor of lovefor the art form, you know,
the phil tray of influences the moredelicate aspects of song construction while not

(01:33:03):
sacrificing the madness because that's what broughtthem to it in the first place.
And the album has been quite criticallyplaced in you know, in the in
the underground is because I think oncesomeone gets that balance like this, it's
an undeniable achievement, you know,for people who averted in that kind of
music are going to take notice whensomeone lays it out like that and you
go, fucking hell, like onan artisanal level, world class have you

(01:33:27):
mail? It's it's so good.Yeah. Like again one of those where
even even just talking about and outhearing you listening to you talk about it,
I go that should be higher thatthat, Like Howard is it only
saving you? It's great and Iwill be pulling for it in the audience
vote as well, so we'll fingerscrossed. And again another one where I
think this could be higher. Butit's my assertance to talk about Dodam's Guard

(01:33:50):
with black medium cores number ten.This is yeah, yes, yes,
just through the top ten. They'rejust better than most bands. Like their
take on black mel is so distinct, and it changes from record to record.
They've always been kind of deeply mental, like you never know what weird
vocal tricks they're going to deploy,what mental instrumentation they're going to explore.

(01:34:14):
It's always a lucky dip. Butyou like everything you get. So it's
just tremendous. And this record,for me, i'd say it's characteristic is
it's the most they've contrasted sort ofthe beauty of their music with its ugliness.
Yeah, because this isn't the strangestor the most extreme Dodhams gone a
record. The first one I heardwas that last one in twenty fifteen,

(01:34:36):
and I did not get it atall. Me too, because at the
first time they believed anything in yearsand you go what the fuck, which
anyway, was like, oh,they're sort of classic black mail band.
I like black Mail. I'm nota fucking wimp, and then you put
on just go I am a wimp. I have always been. I'm a
fraud and a shyster. But thisrecord is in large part gorgeous, Like

(01:35:03):
the first ten minutes, sorry,the first half of the opening ten minutes
of et Smelter is like shimmering cosmicblack metal that wolves in the throne room
or dark space we proud of.But then the Kotnik turns into a furious
German headmaster from the eighteenth century andhe just like croaks and bellows over this

(01:35:24):
like drunken stumbling rift. It's sostrange, and again, a less gung
ho band would go, he kindof had a good thing going there.
Do we really need to sort ofgrunt over the second half? But the
two things juxtapose each other brilliantly,and the whole whirl bit of here we
go Tanker spir ends smerter, That'swhat I mean. That's like enslaved in

(01:35:49):
their pomp. But then that songopens like Grand Declaration of War era Mayhem
on thirty three rpm. It doesnot follow opens like eighty zero king Crimson,
and then it's daft punk for Ithink three seconds, then Ramstein for
a minute, and then explodes intothe best arc for a song that that
band never wrote, just fucking wildand interstellar exus. Like you say,

(01:36:12):
one of the best songs of theyear. I don't even know what that
is. I don't know whether it'sto Burn a Church or Big Fish,
Little Fish, Cardboard Box. It'slike the Drive soundtracks set in Dante's Inferno.
And that's not even my favorite songon the record, because abyss Perihelian
Transit might be my favorite Dollams Godsong ever. Like eleven minutes long,
and it feels like an album inand of itself. It's like it's impossibly,

(01:36:34):
impossibly dense with ideas, like fortyfive seconds can't go by without a
new idea being introduced. And again, like you say, everything feels cohesive
and contributes. There's there's no partof you that goes this song could have
done without it, because the songwouldn't exist if it didn't do these mental
things. It's like the only wayit could express itself or something. You

(01:36:55):
know. I'll put this on andit just feels purifying. I feel like
I'm flying through space. I've neverhad a big mac or selecting or drunk
too much or anything. It's justlike sort of cosmically perfect. And then
when it ends, I'm you know, I'm sad in my pajamas, eating
Coca pops, dribbling. It's it'sjust one of the most transportative metal records

(01:37:17):
of the year, and I neverthought they'd surpassed the kind of wrongheaded perfection
of sixty six to six International.I think this is an easy silver medal,
and again in a couple of yearsit might be the number one just
exquisite. I have it's silver medalas well. I set my goal is
a different one. They're just youknow, it's a tremendous piece of work.

(01:37:42):
Okay. Number nine is the firstreal year where this band had made
a dent on my end of yearthis because they've been, you know,
such a consistent, respected band forso long, but a new record or
theirs hasn't clicked with me like thisjust immediately on release, and I think
that's both a bit of me andthe fact that they have particularly got it

(01:38:02):
right this time. It's Catatonia andSky Void of Stars, because I feel
like we've been almost a little bitup and down with Cata Tournia on the
podcast recently, But ultimately I'm lookingat twenty twenty three as a real win
year for Catatonia, where they quietlymade one of the best records of their
career. Because bands like this havethese moments right where like they never really

(01:38:23):
put a foot wrong, but they'lljust hit a selection of songs without any
real warning or an overall upwards trajectoryor anything. They just end up rivaling
the best things they've ever done.The way Paradise lost it on Obsidian a
few years ago. This is onewhere we reviewed it and I thought,
this is really good. I likethis one a lot, and it was
one of the very third things tocome out all year. And then six
months into the ear I realized Iwas still listening to it and there was

(01:38:45):
like very little come out at thatpoint that I actually preferred to it.
You know, Catatonia's rainy day melodicsongs are just so perfect for where I
am with my listening right now.You know, it's that time of year
again, we're heading deep into Gothicwinter, and this is one of the
instances where their songs really lived upto the overall sound, Like this is
such a lush record that has thisvelvet sheen and texture, but the set

(01:39:11):
of songs is particularly top draw thistime, with the most immediate grooves and
like proper riffs and choruses. Ithink they've had about fifteen plus years,
you know, like the take yourbreath away quality of material like birds and
that just rush of guitar melody thatit has, or you know, Austerity
that opens the record, and themoment that first chorus hits of you say
that whoa wis areways on your mind. It's just like the spell of the

(01:39:36):
whole record is cast at that momentand it never dispels for me. The
sequencing on this, you know,the way colossal shade and this menacing burly
rift kind of stalks you out ofthe ashes of that previous track. It's
it's such a classy, immaculately performedrecord. There's nothing majorly flashy about it.
It's just so sophisticated and carries itselfwith an exquisite melancho majesty. You

(01:40:00):
know, prog metal for goths orgoth for progheads. You know, it's
just it's a lovely, cumfy,freshly pressed dovey of an album for me
this year, you know, Gloomthat feels this elegant and as shured and
just has that kind of craftsman's markof quality. It's like a lovely,
delicious, rich chocolate cake like this. There's even a bit where they do

(01:40:21):
this sort of like electro synthpop songwith open line and it's stunning and gorgeous
and it's just like a sumptuous bitof kind of dark pop songwriting on this
like skipping disco beat that has somuch momentum and you just get lost in
it. You know, Jonas's voiceis so yearning and expressive, and this
has some of his best ever momentsI think on it, where there's his

(01:40:43):
track in Permanence that is like thekind of catatonia air grab power ballad,
like his melody is just make myheart sow on this one, top to
bottom. You know, my onlyproblem with it is they had the terrible
instinct of which song to cut,and maybe my favorite song isn't on the
standard vinyl edition. So you knowthat they've had too many brilliant put together
songs this time, and there aretoo many songs called like author Atrium,

(01:41:05):
Austerity, Absconder and I forget whichones which, but I know all those
songs are brilliant. It's a magnificentalbum. Like for me, it goes
next to the Great Cold Distance aslike the one that is the now the
go to recommend for anyone who hasn'theard Catatonia before wants to know what they're
about. It's probably more wide reachingand definitive of other different things that they

(01:41:27):
do than that record even is.You know, it's that chorus in Atrium
next to the kind of prog doomin No Beacon to Illuminate Our Fall,
which is not a good festival setopener, but is a really immersive thing,
next to that riff in Absconder,which is like modern cata Tonia at
their most monstrous. Like this goesheavy in a way that a lot of
their recent material hasn't done in quitea long time. Easily top three or

(01:41:50):
four in their discography in my view, and those would all be from different
eras. You know, it's likeone a decade. It's just a piece
of understated brilliance. Yeah, we'restaying in Gothland because my number nine is
Grave Pleasures with Plague Boys, whicha band I've liked for a long time,

(01:42:12):
but one of the bands I thinkI've gotten most into this year have
been Grave Pleasures and Best Milk.Like we did that album Club on Climax
and it was like there was aten out of ten goth rock album under
my nose for about a decade andI never did anything about it, Like
I've basically spent half the year mypalming myself in the head going stupid,
stupid, stupid, because it's like, I don't know how this passed me
by, and then going back toMother Blood and realizing that, I mean

(01:42:36):
I already knew it, but rerealizingwhat a brilliant record that is. It
was kind of perfect timing for GravePleasures to release the follow up, and
you know, they held up theirend of the deal because this album is
joyous. Like maybe some people werealienated by Grave Pleasures go in this new
wave and postpunk like further than they'vedone it before, but they're so good

(01:42:58):
at it, like the the amountof Morrissey on Disintegration Girl, which again
as a song title, it's like, oh, who are you influenced by?
I wonder like but that she's theend of the world in the form
of a girl. It's like,it's scandalous and I love it like Heart
like a slaughter House, one ofthe most unlikely earworms to emerge in recent
times, like super Sparse, butit just pops like so vividly, the

(01:43:21):
too hot to ever cool down Heartlike a Slaughterhouse. It sits in the
perfect middle between footloose and sallow.There's something so kind of seedy. It's
just like there's something kind of likeseedy and gross about it. And yet
like, yes, I've seen thatmovie between foot and Salow. Ironically it's

(01:43:44):
called climax. Ah, So thereyou go, carry on as you were,
and like when the shooting's done islike The Cure at their absolute best.
High on Annihilation. I mean asjust as a song title that's ten
out of ten. It's like aBowie crossed with kind of Early Dead Can
Dance Lead Balloons is the best songthat the Smiths never wrote, the title

(01:44:06):
track, like, it's kind ofit just aesthetically, it's like this is
kind of Panzo Foulest meets Joy Divisionand I'm body popping in Punishment Park.
Like just they have this completely distinctvibe that's one hundred percent. There's it's
so much fun to listen to.They write exceptionally well written songs, and

(01:44:29):
they change their sound like with album'salbum, Like no two albums sound the
same, and this one is justset up for me because agains stuff like
talking heads The Cure. Smith Also, if you mentioned I love all that,
and a few records have made mefeel just reliably as good as Playboys
did, Like this is like theManson Family Barbecue record that I wanted Grave

(01:44:50):
Pleasures to make, like some poppy, psychedelic, one of a kind record
that no one else could deliver.Like just this has been a real year
for me re learning to understanding whatspecial band they are, and they're just
It's not my favorite necessarily, butit's got some of their best songs and

(01:45:13):
that can only be so low yes, speaking of post punk. Actually,
my next three albums are so evenlymatched, like these are the ones that
I was rejigging the order around,like up to the last minute. Eight
today is paramol. This is whyParamore albums becomeing like real events is like
one of the best developments to happento a mainstream rock band in you know,

(01:45:36):
modern times. I think, youknow, this year with something like
this, they completed their transition thatstarted about a decade ago of not just
like our pop punk band into lessheavy music based critical darlings or whatever,
but in a more spiritual ethos sensekind of they're just so above that when
we were young, nostalgia idea likethey're the band where if you are still

(01:45:58):
describing yourself as an elder emo forliking them, you're doing them a disservice.
And the artistic trajectory that takes youto a place like this is why,
like this album is closer to indieand you know, enemy fair than
what we would normally be covering here. But the artistic mindset of it and
how it forms like one part ofthat wider tapestry of where Paramore have gone
just makes them. You know,so a guy who has spent most of

(01:46:20):
this list haanging on about fantastical heavymetal escapism can look up to something like
Paramore and they've taken a bunch ofreference points of things that like, I
barely even listen to or like thesethings in their original forms, and by
bending these styles to their whim,by imprinting their personalities and their feeling on
it, they've made like the besttwo thousands indie dance punk album I've ever

(01:46:43):
heard like pop band era Paramore Ithink is their best overall. And it's
not just a case of Oh,I think they're really good at bubbly pop
songs. They should always have beendoing that. It's that somehow this has
even more of the sense of likegenuine in the room chemistry, where it
has the most analogue sound that youcould ask for a band on their level,
like you are hearing a massive tensof thousands of tickets a night playing

(01:47:05):
with Taylor Swift in Stadium's band ina way where there is no wall of
obfuscation between you and the people playing, And it is the best album made
by a band like that this year. I think as a result, this
is a pop album in the waythat nineteen seventies rock bands wrote pop albums,
like pop music pre electronica and everythingwas you know, guitar, bass

(01:47:28):
and drums set up bands. It'sBlondie and Fleetwood Mac and the Talking Heads,
the Police, you know, andParamore feel like the greatest link to
that tradition that contemporary rock music has. And you know, just like that,
the kind of frustrations and dysfunctions ofthe artists making this music bleeds all
over it, and they own thosethings, and through their art they manage

(01:47:50):
to wrangle those things and those feelingsto their will. The command of like
apathy on this and how to thenswing that into a release, say com
Sar and running out of time,These songs that are built on this kind
of feeling of a inertia and onwi and having your life slip out of
your hands, and then they wrestlethat feeling into these insane, energetic bursts

(01:48:11):
of catharsis like, say, Coomsarcould just be like a wet leg song
or something. You know, Iknow they just did a version of it,
but it's that kind of a bittoo cool for school, but it
turns fraught and desperate, you know, the palpable rage and angst and the
frustration of kind of overexposure and overstimulationon the news. They even take something
like the title track, which isall, you know, ridiculous funk guitar,

(01:48:32):
and it sounds like a song meantfor everybody to come out on stage
and have a dance shaky moracas atthe end of like a really lame Glastonbrie
or Jules Holland broadcast or something.And it not only makes that brilliance,
but they take that to a pointof sort of transcendence on that bridge,
which it infuses that with a kindof dream pop and this incredible level of
kind of ascension. The album swingsbetween kind of lost in a reverie and

(01:48:58):
curled fist balls of intensity so commandinglyto the point where they're often one and
the same. You know that thesofter side of this album, that kind
of dream pop element is some ofthe most crushingly beautiful stuff the Paramel's ever
written. But the rawness of thatdelivery in like Big Man, Little Dignity
and thirty six minutes crammed with hooksin every little detail. Shit always running
out of time, and you know, I'll take the opportunity to highlight Taylor

(01:49:21):
York this time. Who when itcomes to embellishing songs like this, not
with big, hulking guitar riffs,not with solos, but these just incredible
little pockets of melody and weird,awkward, jagged catchiness is as good as
it gets. Like he sounds likehe's playing notes at random or tuning up
sometimes, and somehow it's exactly theright thing to do at this point in

(01:49:43):
the song, A guitar genius ina band primarily made up of three fucking
master character performers on the arena toourat the start of this year, they
were opening with You First, whichis an album track, but they trust
that it can do the job andpeople are going to know it and love
it. My favorite song on thishas changed so many times, like figure
eight, I cannot believe how goodthat song is, and that tangible desperation

(01:50:03):
and that burst of you know,fire in it. Crave reduces me to
a puddle the second that guitar riffhits, and then another bigger one when
Haley hits the chorus. They naileverything they try it, like, here
is an album from a band whoclearly like Idols, and it's not turned
shit, it's actually breathtaking. Well, this is the first time we've synced

(01:50:24):
up because my number eight is Paramourwith this Oh really okay, Yeah,
Like you were worrying me for asecond there. You were fiddling in a
way that maybe I was like,I know, as his recording stopped or
something, let me finish. Turnsout you were just waited to get in
brilliant and everything you were. Mybrain was just like going off on things
I wanted to say. It's justlike they're a band that I've always liked

(01:50:45):
and admired, but I never hada record that I loved all the way
through. And it's so nice thisyear to have a record where I think
the whole thing is sublime. AndParamore have never made the same record twice
and for the first time, Ithink it's a real shame because they've made
the leap into they say dance,new wave, post punk, art rock,
whatever, and they've absolutely mastered iton first go. Like again you

(01:51:09):
saying, oh, they're above thewhen we were young crowd. It's like
throwing in the talking heads with theCommodorees or Go West or something. It's
like, you know, Rednecks orsomething. It's just it's so far and
above. This is one of themost catchy records I've heard in maybe the
last decade. Like the title trackso unconventional in this chorus, like not

(01:51:31):
just for them, but generally.And yet it's been stuck in my head
all year round, running out oftime. Like the way that opens.
It sounds like the closing credits onSpongeBob. I'd be trying to think what
that is, you're right, butthen that melds into a mix of you
know, Lord and David Byrne andthat funky as all hell guitar if coming
in in the chorus. It's justit's ridiculous. And you say your favorite

(01:51:56):
song was changed, mine hasn't sayComsa is one of the most. Honestly,
if I sing that one more time, my girlfriend is going to leave
me. Like most insistent, annoyingearworms ever. Like it's like he was
made in a lab to get inyour head. And it's something like big
mad Little Dignity not only wonderfully catchy, but the sound of the song is

(01:52:17):
just addictive. It's just sumptuous inyour brain figure eight, like that.
Once you get me going, Idon't know how to stop. I don't
know how to stop pop songwriting.I mean, you're writing saying it's sort
of pop music from the seventies,but it's kind of unlike anything else.
Like if this came out in theseventies, it would seem so off kilter
and strange and that whole apathy thingthat you're mentioning when ninety nine point nine

(01:52:44):
percent of bands do it. Ifind it's so off putting, like that
whole slacker thing of rolling your eyes. Ah whatever, I don't care.
You know, everything's boring, likeso are you. But this record is
so like fun and like spunky withit. It's kind of barbed, but
not a kind of bitter and jadedway. It's just got this kind of
free spirited energy to it that popsoff. And you know, I'm talking

(01:53:10):
about how unconventional bold the album is, but it's really understated, Like there's
no massive walls of sound. Youcan always pick out anything that's going on.
Yeah. For me, it's likekind of like it's the sort of
naturalistic twin to the heightened color ofAfter Laughter, which I really loved as
well. Yeah, because After Laughter, you know, it doesn't disguise its
choruses or catchy bits at all.It puts them all like fronts and center.

(01:53:32):
It's like, this is the bit, and this is kind of light
on the really you know, neonsign this is the catchy chorus bit.
But it's such a comfortable register andthe songs are so catchy and well written
that they kind of feel gargantuan byproxy. And again the Idol's nod.

(01:53:53):
I am so bored of bands goingpost punk, like so many bands do
it, and it feels like alazy trick where it's like if we distort
the bait and play less drums,it's pretty hardcore and it's like, no
more often than not, it justkind of sounds like nothing and paramore remind
me of what makes that genre greatwhen done to a high standard, Like
this is the first album I've heardin years that gives me the same feeling

(01:54:15):
I get when I listen to likeRemain in Light, and I think it's
kind of inarguable even in a yearwith Metallic or whatever, it's the rock
kind of album events or Events albumof the year, and that it's so
good is just refreshing and brilliant.Yes, my number seven. One thing

(01:54:36):
I consider myself quite lucky with musicallyis how my favorite bands age, because
there are so many, you know, things to have problems with in how
music as a culture kind of existsat a moment you know, the value
has placed on it by society,those kind of trends and where things are
headed. But the one thing I'mlucky for is the place I have found

(01:54:59):
my particular taste ing at and thebands that mean the most to me.
More often than not, I haven'thad to arrive at that sort of cut
off point of like only caring aboutthat patch in time when they were the
best, you know, and ithappened to a decent degree to like,
you know, the generation of metalbands from the eighties where you know classic
era Megadeth and twenty twenty three Megadeth. They are different things, but my
favorite ever band. They aren't GreenDay or the Manic Street Preachers or like

(01:55:21):
Motley Crue, like whatever. It'sit's Trypticon and the kind of world of
bands who as the great bands ofthe underground. They somehow seem to have
not been touched by that. Ahyou're fifty and you're a millionaire now,
curse and not living that existence.I know plenty of people do of you
know, when it comes to followingthe work of the bands who mean the
most to me, it's something thatI do value greatly, and it means

(01:55:42):
that something like How It Ends byPrimordial is a record where they are consciously
moving to the latter stages. Likeit's not a band pretending to get back
in touch with who they were whenthey were eighteen and not quite being able
to recreate that, but it's aband bearing the weight of history and asking
what will be left after them,almost you know, walking through the kind

(01:56:02):
of smoking ruins of the last fewdecades, seeing as they are so bloody
pessimistic, but you know it's alower, pensive, rumbling record. I
said much the same about the lastone when it came out, and this
sort of goes even further down thatkind of trajectory again. Analogue audibly hashed
out together four guys who increasingly everyalbum cycle are growing beards that look like

(01:56:24):
they are living in a cave somewhere, but they come out every five years
to hammer something out and arrive atthis place where Primordial sound. Like we
said a couple times about some ofthe other bands, it's not a stock
Oh, this is what we do. This is what a prom Ordial song
is. Eight interchangeable tracks of singalong Celtic black metal. That's what you
want, right Like, it's morelike a kind of strange tentacle debomination that

(01:56:45):
has kinks in it, has dentsin it, and it takes on these
sort of misshapen forms before your eyes. I mean all this in a positive
sense, by the way, becauseit feels so honest. You know,
they are speaking of their own musicallanguage that they've worked out over death and
decades. That mix of Celtic folk, mournful doom metal forwny black metal,
fist pumping epic metal, But Idon't have to pretend, oh, this

(01:57:10):
is exactly like it was in theirprime in order to like it and say
that it's good. It has otherthings going for it that they've lean into
over the years, and it's arecord that feels like it's been dragged through
the dust and it's covered in ashand bone, like everything about it is
done with that kind of jaded,gritted teeth I was talking about earlier on
bits of the depeche Mode record,and it's rousing. Heavy metal is kind

(01:57:31):
of so rousing because it feels soincreasingly weighed down by existence, like we
shall not serve, as like aCeltic nightmare. All against All is a
fucking groaning, throat singing monstrosity,primordial song. The record's over an hour
long, and it's not really ina rush to go anywhere, And it
was really weird having to weigh thisup and put it next to the Paramol

(01:57:54):
record, because something like that,every minute of that record is essential and
brilliant. It is optimized this record. It molds things over and I don't
necessarily think that every single minute ofthis is electrifying in the same way.
But the exploration on this and therewards that I get from it as a
listener are just a whole other thing. It's, you know, the kind

(01:58:15):
of passing through a dying world ofyou know, Fellowship of the Ring or
something like a song like Pilgrimage ofthe World's End, and that ability to
so perfectly kind of conjure up theworld and the emotional place of that song
content, you know, a kindof a refugee displaced from their home,
having to go out and face uncertainsees with no assurance that anything will be

(01:58:39):
waiting for them on the other side, and crucially when it breaks in those
moments of actually, now, fuckthis. Nothing makes me feel the way
Primord you'll do on songs like thattitle track that how did you feel when
they called your name and you stoodin line for the last time? Or
those insane guitar lines in vit HeHas a Thousand Father's Defeat is an orphan

(01:59:01):
like no one is more anthemic orrousing where you just want to burst into
tears and explode into action and thereisn't a band doing the Oh this is
just like Primordial when they were young. You know they've got the pay still
whatever, Like there isn't a lampof murmur to their immortal you know,
they aren't an aging thrashband where yougo, this is pretty good, but
you know it wear's power trip.It doesn't feel like there really needs to
be because they're gloomy, miserable fucksand they are making music that tracks them,

(01:59:26):
you know, sliding off into oblivion. I want to go listen to
that title track now, like pauseit, go and do that then come
back. We'll wait. So minNum was seven again, You've spoken about
it, but it's horrendous with ontologicalmysterium. This is another one I was
hoping would make your list. I'mglad it's high. Oh yeah, Like

(01:59:48):
listen as much as I love likedizzying, deliberately obtuse, extreme mel it's
one of those things where you've ridlyto be in a mood for it.
Like there's an album coming up thatis probably one of my least listen to
albums on the list, but it'sonly because it's made for it makes such
specific demands of the listener. Likethere's even albums that I'd say I love
and consider classics in that style thatI don't play all the time. But

(02:00:11):
this Horrendous album. It's like abig bag of peanut M and m's.
You could there would be a greattour of Horrendous and an Imperial Triumphant,
and whichever way that round that wouldgo, it would be like Your Angle
and Your Devil. You know,one of those things you're just fucking exhausted
and the next is equally creative,but you're having a blast. It's just
this record is so much fun.Like like you, I've liked Horrendous for

(02:00:34):
a long time. They've never beenthis fun before the moment I am playing
a flying v on a comet enteringa wormhole, and I mean track two,
I don't know how you say that. One of my favorite songs of
the year. Like to evoke acliche in seven minutes, it basically does

(02:00:55):
everything I want a metal band todo. Neon Leviathan is like God's Head
doing a jazz odyssey. Pre PreterriicianHim is only four minutes long, and
it feels like climbing some erupting volcanoin a distant galaxy. Cult of sh
I'm gonna give up on these songtitles in a second. That is like
one of the best uses of spokenword that I have an extreme metal band

(02:01:19):
who outside of Ash and Spire inrecent years, as well as one of
the best Gorguts riffs that band everwrote, and the title track a song
called Ontological Mysterium. I should berolling my eyes like forever and it's like
a bar fight in the Mosley cantinain my doing my listening, for writing

(02:01:40):
all my notes for these albums.That's the riff that just sort of in
the last couple of days got lodgedin my head whenever I whenever I hear
that, I see the like thecreatures in the moss Isley Cantina, but
they're behind a sort of cage sobottles can't hit them. It's like it's
just that vibe and the solos onthis record. Like a few years ago,
it became really fashionable to say solo'sa ship beat downs all the way

(02:02:05):
and I'm sorry not like this,when then like I fucking beat that was
better, Like these cheeky rask recordsbeat down literally best best to both ye
and these guys when they play,they dance on the threats like it's like
Gene Kelly and it's on this arcanebizarro death metal record. It's just glorious.

(02:02:30):
Like, like I say, I'vealways liked them, but I was
halfway through listening to the listening tothis record for the first time, and
I was like, this is thebest one. This is easily the best
one. Like I have so muchfun with this record every time it's on
and it scratches both itches where youknow, like you say, you can
stroke your beard and you kind ofgo, yeah, yes, clever,

(02:02:50):
or you can just power slide,jump on the bed, you know,
tell your mom to shut up,like whatever you want to do. This
Horrendous album does it. And it'slike I say, it's been a banner
year for death metal for me,Like pretty much all the bands that I
was looking to deliver delivered, butHorrendous might be the sort of the dark

(02:03:12):
horse of the whole thing. Theamount they surprised me with this one is
just like it makes me so happy. Yeah, the progressive death metal album
for Flamed shirts everywhere. It wasDecibel's Album of the Year, so it
wasn't two under the radar. HorrendousOntological Mysterium My number six is, you
know, a pretty decent transition fromthat point, just in terms of this
is a band who feel like thisyear they have added their name to that

(02:03:36):
list of the kind of most individualistic, exemplary underground bands of their generation.
You're Horrendous's Bloody Cantations, inter Rama'sRantipazuzu Tribulation, Wayfair and American Gothic.
This album is still fairly fresh.The last thing I did with my list
is I took this from nearer thebottom just because I had, you know,

(02:03:58):
I just guessed below things that I'vebeen raving about for longer, and
I yanked it way further up,and then I yanked it up some more
because it has been you know,it's been so cool in the last or
six weeks or so seeing everybody intermetal losing their shit about how good this
Wayfarer album is. It's so goodto see that payoff for a band when
the hard work that's been put intoa record is so obvious just from hearing

(02:04:19):
it. I feel like one ofthe markers into like of like transition into
dad status is when you watch aWestern and it's not just a naive gunfight
between cowboys and Native Americans with coolguy, badass outdoor characters, but you
start seeing them was like, oh, this is actually a damning, incisive

(02:04:39):
portrait of the American condition and thebloodshed upon which a nation is built when
you watch Once upon a Time inthe West and the building of the railway
in that film is as much aboutthe kind of sun setting on that entire
world that no longer exists, andthus the kind of genre of movie it's
operating in as it is a directthing that happens to those characters. Wayfarer

(02:05:00):
have made that in an album,and it is like catnip for me,
like I love you know, thememes where this was coming out, it's
like, oh, you know,giddy up, I'm the black metal cowboy.
But the world that this builds andthe statement that it uses that to
convey puts it in, you know, just a really long lineage of like
we said on the reveal, kindof American art where it's one of the
albums this year where that very vaguedescriptor of cinematic feels most appropriate, because

(02:05:26):
it feels like the soundtrack to theend of an era. You know,
the texture on this, you canfeel the fucking dust and the heat and
the blood and the oil. Itis the most vivid transportation that atmospheric,
heavy music can achieve, and thediscipline and the artistry and thought that's gone
into realizing what's in their heads withit and how they are going to make

(02:05:49):
that Gothic Americana black metal fit andfeel. There's no gimmick, you know,
there's no part where you're freaking outbecause a black metal banjo has really
taken the lead. It's an intense, brooding, suffocating experience. And over
the course of a few records theyhave developed their own kind of sort of
riff language. Now the way youknow, I was just talking about primordial

(02:06:11):
and how when a primordial riff plays, you go only you do that the
way that Wayfair have been using,you know, steel guitar and kind of
incorporates and that very distinct kind ofplaying and that kind of twang and that
sort of feeling of rust on itwriting black metal riffs. There are rifts
on this that hitt in ways whereI've never quite heard a riff hit that
way before. Then in the wayyou know you heard weakling or walls and

(02:06:34):
the Throne and riffs and thought,wow, that's a new thing. The
first two tracks on Us alone havea million of those rifts between them and
the Gothic country. Stuff in thetrack list barely even feels like deviations anymore,
and stuff like you know, reapromthe oil fields and high planes eulogy.
It's like being, you know,haunted by those voices of a previous

(02:06:55):
world kind of warning us about whereours is going. And it is that
feeling of the death of a world, this old world of the West and
the frontier, and the passing ofthat into history giving way to our own
through you know, the industrialization andthe corporate interest, kind of tightening a
vice grip around that world that onceexisted, and you know, making it

(02:07:17):
into our own and embedding itself inthese areas, and now the world will
never be the same again. Youare in the dust in this record,
and the oil rigs freshly erected aretowering over you as this horrible fucking omen
that our fate is sealed. Andyou know, in the thousand tombs of
Western Promise, the dream did notdie. It had never lived within the
lands of opportunity, a thousand tombsof weight, a toast of the oh

(02:07:40):
captains of industry. It was alwaysyou. You always held our fate.
There are so many lyrics in thisthat like not me for six. This
whole thing kind of mourning a futurethat never happened. It's like you've dug
your own grave by the time youget to the end of this record.
And Black Metal Act's best is passionate, passionate music right, Like, it's
not just about being cult or evil. Is fiery, fiercely individualistic, feel

(02:08:03):
the fucking conviction rippling out of thespeaker at you. Music at its best,
and this band fucking mean everything thatthey have to express. This is
just like high fucking end music,whether that be metal, folk, goth,
just like dark, moving, evocativestuff that again, increasingly for me,
has kind of haunted me long afterI finished listening to it. I

(02:08:26):
mean, from one kind of Cowboyto the Space Cowboys. One number six
is to Mold with the Enduring Spirits. It's a fucking big old record,
that inn't it. The world hassort of decreed it to be. Yeah,
And on one hand, it's reallysurprising because it's like too mold what
they're called toomb Mold. But thenyou listen to it and it's not surprising

(02:08:52):
at all because, I mean,for me, death mel is generally at
its best when it's like really filthy, havinous and bleak. You know,
I've mentioned Autopsy earlier, early Carcass, Entombed, whoever, Like that's what
I tend to reach for. Likethat Torture About record that nearly made the
list. Tumult have always been abit more ambitious than that sort of thing,

(02:09:13):
but they've always scratched that itch aswell. But on this record,
they just sound like a tall glassof cold mango juice in space. Yeah,
it just feels cleansing. It's likeit's that same feeling as like when
you're really dehydrated and you have acold glass of water and you can feel
tingling in all your sort of appendagesand you just think like I'm healing myself.

(02:09:39):
This is one of the most pleasant, just nice sounding death metal records
I've ever heard, and not inthe way that around ten years ago is
really trendy for death metal to besort of hyper fidelity, and that for
me never gelled all that well.This is just like diving into a pool
of cold water, like those openingflourishes of the perf Memory. It's just

(02:10:01):
extreme metal Nirvana. It's so crispand dizzy and dizzy and like the grooves
and the verses like they would makeGajira scoff, but then something like will
of Whispers, which might be theirbest song o. It's my favorite on
that record. The clean lines andstuff in that ah, it sounds like
Santana, like convincing, it soundslike Santana before going full blood Mountaineer a

(02:10:24):
Mastodon, and the second half hasatmospheres that wolves in the Throne Room will
be proud of. And then thenear twelve minute enduring spirits of calamity like
genuinely an odyssey, like to usethat word, like five minutes of restless
death metal, full of jazz chordsand clean passages into one of the best

(02:10:45):
solos of the year. It's beautifulspace rock and a savage savage and genuinely
like disorienting climax. It's just beyondmost bands. But this isn't some sort
of gritless nerd. It's got thicknecked heavy metal, angelic fabrications. It's
got that kind of that tempo cannibalCorpse do so well, that dagger digga

(02:11:09):
daggadgga Daggadgodath and then towards the end, Yeah, a diningbag riff. So
two mold in this tall glass ofmango juice death metal record. They've not
lost the visceral thrill that death metaldelivers better than any other sub genre.
They just play it with such sortof grace and class that you almost forget
that's what you're listening to. Ican only imagine that's why the you say,

(02:11:33):
the moment, maybe snobby outside ofour remit outlets have gone for this
because it's a death metal record thatI would genuinely recommend to practically anyone who
can stomach any kind of extreme metal, because it's technical and all over the
place. But the songs are,you know, illegible and fairly short digestible.
They're not so technical and just labyrinthiethat they're impossible to grasp. I

(02:11:56):
think I've come to the conclusion thismight be the best Too record, and
by extension, it might be myfavorite death metal record since Hidden History of
the Human Race. It's really somethingI think, Wow, yeah, I
mean fair enough. I think,you know, it's like the last the
previous couple of two more records arethat sort of feeling of like you're in
some kind of strained sort of lovecrafty and labyrinth fine, alien fucking you

(02:12:18):
know landscape and this record, it'slike on that planet you found a nice
calm cave with a waterfall and you'remeditating, you know, and there's things
are still outside, but you founda moment of piece there. And you
know, for me that I seemto be a minority, and it's not
my favorite two mol record by anymeans, but it as a progression,
it really is something, and clearlyit's resonated with an awful lot of people

(02:12:41):
who maybe wouldn't have liked two Milebefore. So I do essentially echo everything
you have said. We are nowgetting into the top five and my number
five is something that you've spoken about. You know what's awesome. Nautical Funeral
Doom is awesome. What a collectablecombination of words that is. And there's

(02:13:03):
only one album and you'll get thatfrom this year. It's Ahab the Coral
Tombs, who I think are oneof the true sort of peerless bands of
contemporary metal. Like the way they'vestarted off in one place, they've taken
on an interest in a subject matterthat they have truly wrapped their sound around
and that has in turn affected whatthey sound like. And then from there
they've continued to grow into something else. It again like the Wayfaraoh one,

(02:13:26):
which I do really think is spectacular, but it's one of the most cohesively
realized sounds where when I am inthe world that they have created, nothing
is going to pull me out.And it's because of the amount of care
and detail that's gone into it,you know, like you, I'm glad
that we have similar origin stories onthis particular band. Like I've been an
Ahab obsessive for over a decade,A lot in my life has changed since

(02:13:48):
twenty fifteen when they last released analbum, and I don't know how long
exactly at that time they spent specificallytoiling away on this, But it's that
kind of tool thing of like,now having got this, I feel like
I know, whatever weight they mayend up being for a work from them,
the work will, you know,warrant the time put into it.
The journey will be monumental. Thealbum will be a self contained universe speckled

(02:14:13):
with all of the color or lackthereof when appropriate relevant for the story that
they're telling their sound in the purestfilm, I am also a fucking salty
sea dog, and that they it'sso right for that kind of maritime terror
of the deep. You know,it's it's proper doom in that sense.
You know, these slow rolling riffsconveying that kind of gradual journey into or

(02:14:39):
across something vast, going beyond thehorizon, and the unknowable horror that will
always tail such such such action.That the actual terror and unease that is
present in their music, even whenit's calm, feels particularly present this time
because the pacing of this record,it's like it smacks you and then continue

(02:15:00):
manually sucks further and further down intoa vortex. Like there are literally moments
on the album where you can feelit like an underwater craft kind of descending
deeper. They've put that care intothe album, the sensation of it going
down and down, the riffs getslower and more kind of difficult to grasp,
the edges of just kind of increasinglydrowning in the abyss of the record,

(02:15:22):
you know, with the second mosthigh profile submarine story of this year.
The first track on this is youknow, one of my most listened
to songs of the year, andit is terrifying, like genuinely fast and
brutal for the first two minutes andthe remaining six is some of the most
serene, picturesque, stirring passages I'veheard this year where I feel the way

(02:15:43):
again, like you're the way oftalking about this clean passages on the two
Mold record. I feel cleansed inthat moment, except that's the beginning of
the record, and from there you'regoing to take a turn and the emptiness
of the sea begins to take hold. The sense of desolation in this,
you know, it does for theocean floor, sand did for deserts.
You know, it's kind of oppressiveand disconcerting, but also somehow you want

(02:16:05):
to live inside it. And it'sthat kind of high end sensitive touch and
nuance. You know what they dowith the spaces, what the bass guitar
is going to do, that makesit so you know they are you know,
they have been that kind of funeraldoom band turned into a sort of
prog band where the foundations of theirriffing is doom. The gutter or vocals

(02:16:26):
are like some fucking Eldrich monster.They are so unfathomably deep, and you
know, towards the end of therecord they are these sort of screams and
yells that are like the crew goingdown with the ship in real time as
you listen to it, that thereare really emotional parts that are like aquatic
warning, and those moments of kindof breaking the waves are just phenomenal.
But the way they are creating theserecords as the sort of fluid speaking directly
to your mind's eye voyages ahab.You know, again, amongst these doom

(02:16:50):
bands, they've gone completely on theirown odyssey, and I do think they're
also in that category of mastered onGajira tool in that sense, making records
on that sort of level that dothat thing as much as they are mournful,
congreation or evoken, and I feelthey should be recognized in the way
that someone like Paul Barr have been, or you know, Belwich have been
more recently. I don't know ifit's just that they are too specific in

(02:17:11):
their interests or they are sort ofoutside of the main hub of critical conversation
in getting those right outlets to writeabout them. But this album is extraordinary,
and you know, when it finishes, I feel like I've woken up
from a nautical nightmare. You know, should have been the year we got
to see him, of course,but I'll wait. Maybe they've proven that
such weights are worth it. Andwhat's weight on that record? Fuck me?

(02:17:35):
Number five this is I don't know, this might be a device of
what. I'm not sure. Mynumber five is Liturgy with six nine.
Yeah, this record is are fuckingI don't know if I've finished listening to
this album. But fair enough,I don't mean that to shit on Litteralgy.
They They're just a lot, aren'tthey. They are a lot,
and they're a weird bad because youwould call them a metal band, but

(02:17:58):
they basically gets exclusively outside of metalcircles, like the way we were saying,
Oh, it's weird that two Moldhave been adopted by Pitchfork and the
like. Pitchfork are so much morelikely to cover liturgy than metal injection or
you know whoever else. And theyare kind of quietly or not so quietly,
one of the most divisive bands inextreme music, and the fact people

(02:18:22):
hate them doesn't surprise me. Theyare incredibly pretentious, like they're annoying little
gi They have made music that Ilike, but they are annoying, Like
I like to think I have afairly okay grip on sort of philosophy and
stuff like it was one of thethings I studied at UNI. I don't

(02:18:43):
have a fucking clue what haylat Hendrixis on about at any point. Like
I've tried to watch her YouTube channelwhere she explains the themes, and I
just turned into a newborn. Myhead just rolls back and forth, like
I can't hold it up. Oneof their records has a diagram of how
to understand it. That's the sortof band they are, So if that
is off, I think that's whyI've always sort of admired them from afar

(02:19:05):
than actually emotionally connecting with their music. Yeah, and it's hard to even
say, like, you know,if you like this, you'll like Liturgy
because there are a few bands thatexist out on an island as much as
them, like wholly unique, alienatingand taking from things like classical music,
avant garde and sometimes opera. Andif you don't like Liturgy, this is

(02:19:26):
the worst album of all time becauseit's two this eighty two minutes and it
indulges every last one of their mostrepulsive traits. It might just be their
best record as well, because yesthey are pretentious, but when Liturgy want
to go hard, no one doesit. Like them. That's not to
say they're not that they're the heaviestband in the world. But like when

(02:19:50):
Generation kicks off, it's a soundI've never heard anyone else make. It's
like a muffled, furious black mottlesong that takes some Japanese ambient music and
noise rock, and yet it's totallyeuphoric. It's like being pulled across dimensions.
Then something like sailor calin I'm notsure which one is. It kind
of hisses like a crashing train.And then are some of the best math

(02:20:11):
rock riffs I've heard in as longas I can remember. And then there's
a marching riff, but I swearto God, if a modern math put
that on a record, Bloodstock wouldwe'd all be pumping our fists. And
then that's before something like Before IKnew the Truth, which weaves in it
sort of glitches and corrupt tape soundsand just builds to a crescendo that's so

(02:20:33):
piercing. It's all most painful.But then interwoven they're capable of like beautiful
Left of Sense to music, Angelof Sovereignty as an interlude sounds like you're
entering the Kingdom of Heaven and thensomething later like Red Crown is a year
too recorder recital. How shit doesthat sound? And yet every time it
comes on, I'm like, ah, yes, the record a bit wonderful.

(02:20:56):
And it's because part of the funis being thrown around, because they're
genuinely capable of distressing music as well. Angel of Sovereignty that's punctured by this
shell Acke style bass and drum hook, and that forms the basis for a
song that sits somewhere between Cradle ofFilth and an old musical box Antigerny two.
And how annoying that song style isnot lost on me. Is like

(02:21:22):
at the drive in playing Sunbather andyet infinitely more wild than that. Sounds
like it's forteen minutes of having poppingcandy poured on your exposed brain. At
this point, Liturgy, they seemto have established a kind of pattern of
releasing something kind of okay and thensomething genuinely remarkable and renihilation. The artwork
and the last one origin of thealimonies are all good, but aesthetica hack

(02:21:46):
or HQQ that's one with a diagramand this are all incredible and I do
wonder if in the future will lookback on them the way we look back
on something like Crass or Throbbing Gristleor Swans or maybe more recently Linguiding nota
because I think they are one ofthe most fascinating bands operating right now,
and you know they're not for everyone, but if you are on the train,

(02:22:11):
I think this might be their crowningachievement. It's just like it's one
of those kind of monolith records fromthis year. I think, yes,
it's the most liturgy liturgy, yes, that you could ask for. It's
definitely true that no one is doingit like liturgy. My number four is
where we're really beginning to get intosort of really big dog territory, and

(02:22:33):
it was going to be here somewherewhere this was going to land. Was
one of the great questions for methis year. It's Code Orange the above
because it's going to be tough beingCode Orange, right, like not to
go all woe is me for aband who are in the scheme of things,
are actually bigger and get more presscoverers and most like almost all the
other bands on this list for me, and you know, to chill for
them which people have accused us of, you know, when we reviewed this

(02:22:54):
album, as if I am incapableof hearing this album with my ears and
with my own personal conclusion from there, as if we're trying to be besy
mates with Jamie Morgan, a manI have spoken to precisely once about six
years ago. But from the outside, it feels like Code Orange just have
to grind that bit harder than anyoneelse to get where they are, Like

(02:23:15):
this is the year that a CodeOrange release did not actually dominate conversational proceedings
like we did all of this contacton the review and the many many reasons
and angles you can come at thatwith and why Code Orange might be,
you know, alienating people or notachieving the numbers that we all hoped they
would or whatever. But ultimately,what I hear when I hear the above

(02:23:37):
is a band who have alienated boththe underground and the mainstream. Go and
fuck it. This is who weare. They were always a band who
wanted to disrupt the system, youknow, disrupt the rules of what it
meant to be a heavy band whogot big, and as far as I
concerned, they did a sizable portionof that. Again, the only bands
bigger than this in my list arethe actual arena bands, right, Like,

(02:23:58):
this is what I want my mainstreamadjacent rock bands to be up to.
Stuff that this fun and mischievous andrewarding. But this record is like
the result of all of those contradictions, you know, the hardcore band who
sold out to wrestle metal and gottoo big, the ultra difficult experimental band
who fucked their chance and the limelightby being too weird. Whatever narrative you

(02:24:20):
want to apply on to Code Orange, this record goes, fuck it.
We can be all those things andmore. We can be the Genghis Tron
of mud Veins. Sure you knowlike this, This doesn't it doesn't bow
to or appease anybody. If youwant them to do more of the old
rock radio stuff, sure they've technicallydone. It doesn't make any bit fucking
easy, And it's a record thatgoes that bit bigger whilst finding simultaneously artistic

(02:24:46):
graphication and comfortability and self acceptance inwhat they do, regardless of the approval
that they may get from you know, either the scene that rejected them or
you know, the the mainstream tastemakers that they've not you know, been
ordained by the whole record. Ridethat line between the above and the below,
and you know, it harkens backto a time when rock music was

(02:25:07):
able to be in the limelight,but it dwells in the kind of rotten
soul soil beneath it. You know, each record has gotten more intense and
more digit and chaotic up to thispoint, and then they do this pivot
where that digital has been folded backinto the organic. Snapshot is going to
start with a giddy techno beat offof Death Grips to Money Store, and
it's going to end with Riba fuckingMaya's going God Mode atop a bed of

(02:25:31):
the most high death orchestration they've everutilized. It's a record of the most
stunning, throw your head back andfucking belt choruses. I just can't understand
people not wanting from their big heavybands like Oh, are we so desensitized
by a culture of hardcore and deathcore obsession with heaviness and mosh parts and

(02:25:52):
bleat that we've forgotten what a floorfiller sounds like. Split the soul and
circle through what even singles? ForGod's sake, Yet it takes you about
eight minutes on the record to getto a banger, because it grounds you
in the fineries of the delivery mechanismand the record first and foremost. You
know, they flip between genres andreference points while always sounding like themselves and

(02:26:15):
like some bands who have you know, received renewed levels of popularity recently adopting
the identity of whoever they happen tobe collaborating with. They've made a record
of hyperanthemic bangers without having to homogenizethem and do one. This is what
an arena metal song sounds like forten tracks at a time. Instead,
it's like the closer Thing Codelagie andmade to a fucking musical where it's going

(02:26:35):
to like develop fragments and elements betweensongs, you know, mirror and those
harps flowing into a drone opting outof the hive, and it's going to
arrive at those last two tracks likea genuine curtain call, and that the
two vocalists in Twine there are kindto share the load to make the most
bizarrely like warming, self empowering doubtsmelting away in the sunshine, ending that

(02:26:58):
this nightmare band there's ever produced,and that acceptance is a far away place,
but I keep beating it in ifI'm still breathing, becomes like a
powerful inspiring mantra that doesn't like leaveme on a genuine high when I finished
this record, and there's you know, there's a definite theme going on in
the attitude of my picks of justsort of turning up a nose at whatever
people would had them do to fitin Still to come even you know,

(02:27:24):
big time. But Code Orange arelike the ultimate fuck you, this is
us personality band. Whatever you don'tlike about Code Orange, they probably did
some of it here and it's asconfident as they's ever sounded. Yes,
it is quite good, and numbersI'll save some my number four. I
would say this is probably nown that'sgrown on me more than I would say

(02:27:48):
more than any others, because whenI first heard this, I was pretty
disappointed, and it's landed in thetop five among records that I loved.
From the Earth and Home is Wherewith the Whaler? Oh right, Okay,
Yeah, Like I was so stokedwhen this record was coming out,
and I've really wasn't sure at first, and that's stung because I thought and

(02:28:11):
still think I became Birds is oneof the best releases of the twenty twenties
thus far, and following up withsomething that I thought was good, you
know, sort of okay and fine. I was a little bit crushed by
that, But over the year it'sjust grown on me more than anything else,
because at first I thought they'd kindof fallen into some of the pitfalls

(02:28:33):
that this style, which i've kindof I'm not gonna say aything like i've
grown out of, but I've grownaway from in recent years. I thought
they'd fallen in some of the pitfallsof it and lost a lot of what
made them special. And it wasonly on repeat listens that I kind of
realized, No, they're still oneof the most daring and unique set of

(02:28:54):
songwriters this scene has coughed up ina long time, and with a sound
that's truly theirs in a sub genrethat I think is really growing stale.
On one hand, it's a morelinear record than its predecessor, but on
the other hand, it's got someof the most wild swings, like Yes,
Yes A thousand Times Yes, whichis the most popular song on the
record, is a three part suiteinside four minutes that goes from kind of

(02:29:18):
disco emo to a squealing punk songto a slow core ballad, all in
that tiny stretch, and something likeWhaling for Sport is like the Red House
Painters at their most emotionally incontinent.It's not the most extreme shewn on the
record by a long way, butit's got this kind of disconcerting desperation that

(02:29:41):
is just not in the kind ofmusical vocabulary of almost, i'd say,
any of their peers. And yetit has got some of their catcher stuff
to date, Like I don't evenknow what it means, but that skin
meadow, skin meadow, skin meadow, skinned meadow hook that has been stuck
in my head even when I wasn'tall that keen on the record, or
Chris Farley as a song barely asong, but the sing, the way

(02:30:03):
they shriek we make a beautiful pileof leaves makes me laugh every time because
it's said with such venom and fury. I don't know what they're talking about.
It's never lost its potency. Ithink of that lyric all the time
because it and its delivery is sounorthodox. And then my favorite thing about

(02:30:24):
them to begin with was also theiremotionally resonant quality, which I think a
lot of these bands live and dieon. And it's been a long time
since I've found a band that I'vewarned to in the same way. But
this record is just let you sayabout what you're saying that the Code Orange
record. I come out on ahigh because Daytona five hundred, which is
the most yeeha song they've ever done. It feels that you're lighting fireworks in

(02:30:48):
a trailer park. It's just beautifullysimple for a record that's got that song
that's like, what is it nineto eleven every day or something? Well,
yeah, like yeah, that songis almost uncomfortable to listen to because
it shrieks and pulls its own faceso much you just kind of feel awkward
standing there. But it's completely rewardedbecause it's followed up by the simple beauty
of a song like nine to twelve, the only lyrics being in dawn September

(02:31:13):
twelfth, two thousand and one,everyone went back to work. I mean,
that's the sort of thing that Hemingwaywould be writing now if he was
around. And so many of thesebands get praise for writing like naked and
vulnerable and brave lyrics or whatever.And I'm not saying that a lot of
the bands I hear from this scenenow don't believe the things they say.

(02:31:35):
But so much of it is justhomogeneous and sounds the same, and it
feels like a lot of them havethis confessional quality, but it's not actually
confessing anything that might lead you tonot like the band or might make you
feel remotely awkward. When I listento Home is where I don't necessarily know
if they want me to like them, or if they want me to think

(02:31:56):
that they're brave or whatever. They'rejust coming out and saying what on their
mind. It's the Pinkerton thing whereit's like you're not always going to like
what they're saying or feel completely assuredby who it is that they are.
I truly don't know, but youkind of feel like you've bonded somehow in
this kind of parasocial listening experience.And to be honest, if they carry

(02:32:18):
on at this level, I thinkthey might prove to be the best band
of their kind of their generation.Like at present, i'd say they're at
least the best bands since modern baseball, And if they carry on with this
streak, I think they'll lap thembecause again for a record I wasn't all
that sure about at first. Ithink this is a hell of an achievement
now, and it's nice to havesomething in a scene that, for me,

(02:32:39):
you can almost just cut it adriftand push it out to see.
To be honest, but it's stufflike this that makes you go no,
there's a reason why. When thisis done right, it's among the best
stuff that rock music has to offer. Yeah, and it continues the nautical
theme. Top three one year,these bands won't be next to each other.

(02:33:00):
I have switched around the order.This time it's Creeper Sanguibal because this
is just absurd, isn't it.This is like Lady garga meat dress off
its tips, Like that's There's amovie from the eighties called Lera, the
White Worms movie. It really soundsfamiliar, but I've not seen it.
So it involves Peter Capoldi wearing akilt and playing bagpipes, using a mongoose

(02:33:24):
and snake charming. This like snakevampire woman who sleeps in a wicker basket
and she wears a giant strap onand in mad visions like impales nuns on
kind of phallus shaped cruiser fixes.This is that level of barmy just like
no old barred. Nothing will beleft unchecked, none of this will be
considered too silly. They are justhaving the time of their lives. And

(02:33:46):
it's like if they'd come out withthis first of all, they'd been laughing
at the room by so many people, and they'd be sort of shoe boxed
away as this forever. But becauseof how we got here, the deviations
that Creeper has taken, like thisis somehow there that we were hoped,
like crossing our fingers hoping that theywould one day mate, you know,
like how good is it to havea band who fearlessly treat each album cycle

(02:34:09):
as an event like this? Butthis particular time it you know, again
the stars lined up. It's thething that everybody'd been cheering at them.
Yeah, do it, do yourbat out of hell. You know,
it's a goal we've been hoping forCreeper since pretty near the start, and
it goes further than I think anyof us imagined, like once upon a
time I Choose to Live or theBridge of down below were these moments of

(02:34:31):
kind of dramatic excess from creeper.Now we've got further than forever. Now
we've got a riff punctuated by whipcracksand will singing She's getting laid but not
to rest, She's undead and undressed. We've got ferremine solos and it lands
legitimately every single moment of it byjust perfectly riding that line of theater,

(02:34:52):
you know, never ever breaking thecharacter the illusion, playing everything up to
the max, but embodying every singleminute of it and put it together a
set of songs. Is this justfucking outrageously joyous, Like it's the most
just effortless listening experience that you wantto come back to again and again and
again. And it covers so muchground and it excites the senses this much,

(02:35:15):
you know, like sex Eth andeven Avoid contains some of the most
luscious, vintage, kind of luxurioussongs of the last few years. But
the full Broadway moments have dragged downto Earl Earl are like something else entirely,
and it's still despite this, conveysactually more menaced than ever in their

(02:35:35):
music by committing so hard to thebit, you know, with the danzigisms
and the stalk and religious stomp ofBlack Heaven and the fact that Creeper are
basically a heavy metal band on thisalbum just makes my heart sing. You
know that they could just decide onthe spot. Yeah, we like this
as well, and we're going tocome out with like the best nineteen eighties
arena metal riffs next to Summer Landsand unto others. Now, you know,

(02:36:00):
let's go Teenay Sacrifice Cry to Heavensolo's like a fucking like Rivers of
Champagne with some red food coloring,and obviously like Jake Foggerty smashing on the
crash like he's Tommy Lee at timesin those huge like just slamming beats,
and like, you know, Ihad it on earlier. I always forget.
The final riff of Further Than Foreverjust gallops like a maiden song,
just to that last bit of theend of the song, the halftime crunch

(02:36:22):
bit in Lovers Led Astray like theythey actually get it more than a lot
of bands who do this or aliving. And they premiered their first single
with a shit vampire Halloween makeup eightiesworkout video, and we all went with
it, and we all just likelapped it up because it's fun because it
feels good and by the time ofmore than death, a song that every

(02:36:45):
fucking songwriter in the world wishes theycould write. If that is a trick
that they can't do, I've completelybrought into the narrative. There the heart
and the emotion is still there.You know, they they don't live anywhere
now, you know they're they're misfits. They are the The best they can
do to come up with a sortof scene is just surround themselves with other
odd ball, disparate bands, AndI love that for them, it's where

(02:37:09):
they are always destined to be andit's self manifesting what they want to see
in the world. Right Like Gandhiwould be proud, like the absolute disregard
of this for having to be tastefulor restrained or you know, too cool
for all of this naughtness. Youknow, player ironically, as so many
bands would and do to be supersmooth and faux intimate and generic enough to

(02:37:30):
be relatable in your feelings and creeper. You know, they feel an absence
of bands this willing to dream big, to ask the audience to step into
a world of flamboyance and exaggeration.So they do it with themselves, and
even with all that, it's themost I've seen a record unite people this
year. Like all of the bigreleases this year have seemed so divisive,
and this record, through audaciousness andstrength of song, cut through most people's

(02:37:56):
defensive You know, there are afair few people not getting on with this
one. Of course they're not finiteparties, but you know, to their
credit if that is you like,even those folks seem to mostly be like
new The excess is of where thisone goes not really for me, but
I hope they'll go somewhere. I'mmore down for next time because you respect
the kind of band that Creeper haveshown themselves to be and what they've continually
you know, changed and done.Because we are accustomed now to Creeper taking

(02:38:20):
you somewhere. You know, thismight not be to your immediate liking,
It might not scratch the same exactitch that the material did the last time
out, but they've got a damngood fucking reason for going there, and
this was like, you know,if Creeper weren't going to make this record,
then who would? And we're betteroff for having sanguavore so thank fucking
God for Creeper. Yeah, thisis the record I kind of got on

(02:38:43):
the Creeper train. And I hopewe see fewer bands or sorry, I'd
like to see more bands give upon the whole idea of having a massive
arc in every career where every albumhas to be a step from the net
last one. I want to seemore bands just go, we did that,
now we're doing this, and wemight do it again, or we

(02:39:03):
might not, because going from sexto de Earth the infinite Void, it
would be a very gradual loop backto this if they were an album by
album and yeah, they've released whatis easily for me their best, so
again, so close to being inthis list. But my number three this
might be the last real surprise becauseit's a band that I'm not sure we've

(02:39:24):
mentioned before, but it's something thatover the last few months, I've just
fallen head over heels for Poison Ruinwith Harvest oh right, yeah, this
band. I haven't entirely got intothis band yet, but I'm feeling I
feel like I'm waiting for it tohappen, you know, because so many
people I know who I trust,I like this band of the shit.
Yeah, that really surprises me,because I was gonna feel I feel like

(02:39:46):
it'll happen, you know. Yeah, It's just like it's easy to think
you've heard pretty much everything and thatall the good possible combinations have been done,
and then something comes along and justyour head all the way around.
Because the elevator pitch for this isbasically, some guys from Pittsburgh are making

(02:40:07):
a sixty nine style seventies punk record, but it's mixed with medieval dungeon synth.
It's like medieval crust. Yeah,And just from that description alone,
you'll know if this is for you, Like if you look at the album
cover, you'll know it's for you. If a band putting the umlaut on
the I and A annoys you perhapsstop there, and for me it doesn't.

(02:40:31):
I mean, it is slightly embarrassingthat I think the best punk record
I've heard in years still has aguy in chain mail on the cover.
But I a lot of pugs agreethough, Like there are people that are
like, oh my god, thankGod for this band. I haven't heard
something like this done this well inhowever long. This is just this is
my favorite brand new discovery of theyear, and it's not even all that

(02:40:52):
close, because I love when youcan hear a record for the first time
and it really feels like you're discoveringsomething. Either not a totally small band,
I think this was really released onRelapse or maybe just released on Relapse
in a few thousand monthly listeners,but just the sound of the record,
it feels like you've picked it outof a bin. The production is so
like hissy and trebly, it soundslike it was recorded on a panasonic boombox.

(02:41:13):
There's times where I think I hearsome warbling bit of synth, but
it might just be the tapewharping.I don't really know, and that might
not sound all that appealing, butthe effect that it has is incredible.
If, like I say, itfeels that you've plucked the tape around them
out of a recording, because you'veseen poison ruin with that symbol of the
peace logo made it a lot likea medieval weapon, and you go like

(02:41:35):
this is gonna be sad. Itis fucking rad. But you take it
home and you find the best batchof songs ever, and that's something that
you can't you can't capture with anyrecording. Budget. There's no fidelity that
captures that feeling, and the combinationsounds mental, but it works well because
it's a punk record. But it'snot for you know thatcher ripe Britain or

(02:41:58):
saying up yours to Ronald Reagan.It's for gunpowder plots and peasant revolts,
and not in a like attacky steampunkshit way. It feels like tangible and
real. And the vocals, youknow, they sound like six pints of
larger grabbing the mic in a sweatyclub, but they bar lyrics that when

(02:42:18):
you read them, don't sound outof place. On a Blind Guardian record.
There's a song called Tone of Illusion, and if I've got it right,
it is just about aren't fireworks ace? Because it has lyrics like magicians
disguise their market as an altar.Fireworks are sold as sacred right, their
shimmering effemere taken in my ellipsical ofpromises, tickling your pride. They'll tease
you in the dark that is soclose to cloud factory it's not even funny,

(02:42:43):
but in the hands of this guy, it's the coolest, most mystic
thing like in the world. Andhis ear for a cool phrase. I
mean, it's up there with NeilFallon, like the title track, the
hook of that being there's a froston the field, attacks on the yield,
and a hand in your pocket,with the day's gone darker, loss
in your heart and a pit inyour stomach. Would you turn against the

(02:43:03):
grain? If Alan from Fremaudio wrotethat that might be the best lyric he'd
pend on that record, do youknow what I mean? Like? They
sound cool, but they've also gotthat real tangible yearning to them that makes
the whole thing feel so much morebelievable and not remotely hacky or cheap as
Dungeon Sync Punks should be. Andthe musical canvas again, it sounds like

(02:43:28):
it's from a bin, but itprovides this like stark, dry backdrop,
which a lot. Again, Idon't know if it's a direct influence or
maybe it's a confounding thing, butin the nineties, when you hear something
like a blazing the northern sky andthe fact it kind of sounds a bit
shit creates this aura around it.It's just it feels like some band of

(02:43:52):
Weirdos's demo, and that lays sucha great foundation for the lyrics. And
again if you like Dead Can Dancesort the weirder dark throwing material or more
recently bands like Rope Sect. Thisplays with similar textures but puts it in
the thirteen hundreds, like so bizarre. I just adore this record, and

(02:44:13):
every time I listen to it,I like it more and more. And
they're from Pittsburgh, Fucking somehow,I don't understand that. Get them on
Code World. Yeah. I lovehearing something and going like, oh,
well that's new, and it's evenbetter when that's in support of like expertly
written songs. This isn't their debut, so I wouldn't be able to give

(02:44:35):
them best new band like when wedo the Award Show or anything. But
this is a special band and I, like I said, I do want
a T shirt with that peace symbolon it. Yeah, I'm gonna give
that record another listen. Okay,my number two stranger, there are some
connections to what you were just talkingabout, but I think a very different

(02:44:56):
tone taken on. I had asimilar kind of album this slot last year,
and both times it kind of blindsidedme, an album that I was
not expecting to hit me in thegut the way it did. Different This
time, because this time it wascame from a band who I was a
fan of, Like I already boughtthis band's debut record like six years ago
this time last year, I wasactually talking about it in relation to this

(02:45:18):
Slot's album last year as one ofthe first real classics of the kind of
so called RABM scene that I feltwas being sort of followed up on with
you know that record last year.But even so, they found a way
to hit me on an even moreraw level. My number two album of
twenty twenty three is Dawn Raid,and it's to know the light. Dawn

(02:45:39):
Raid wrote protest music like pure andsimple. They did it through the medium
of black metal, and black metalhas a rich ability to be able to
do that. You know, We'vespoken a lot of times about the sort
of out of time able to haveexisted in any ear of feeling that certain
kinds of black metal have, andthat is something that has a great deal
in common with you know, folkmusic in and that's what makes something like

(02:46:00):
the Hex Special record so natural andhow it weaves those things. And black
metal is music that deals with history, it deals with rebellion, it deals
with culture, and folk music's youknow, status as this, you know,
music of the people. That's whyit's called that, right, and
it's place on the frontline of somany movements and ideological conflicts throughout history,
and so gluing you know, thatsort of spirit onto black metal, which

(02:46:24):
in itself is so right for itis just a really natural progression. Dawn
Raid never made the most complex orlike technically ambitious black metal in the world.
You know, compare this to theAsh and Spire record last year,
and this is really simple, right. But they did understand that black metal
as rallying, unifying, eternally relevantas long as there has been a ruling

(02:46:46):
class protest music thing better than Ithink any band, and this record ticked
every box I think of how tomake that music with that intent resonate with
people, because you know, theobstacle that Black Melt faces is that it's
sonically repellent music that places its messagebehind blast beats and screaming. But as
much as they could within the blackmetal framework, they made this record anthemic.

(02:47:11):
They made it music that galvanizes youinto action. The Battle of Sudden
Flame is next to everything that's straightfrom the path have ever written. Now
you know where Dawn Raider gone now, but a beast that even his master
hates. Only a coward fights forthe state is a mantra in my head
forever, the definitive anti NSBN anthemin Wildfire that cuts straight to the cowardliness

(02:47:35):
and the shadeliness of it and goes, hey, we can proudly publicly say
everything that we're about. It's likethe greatest black metal distrack you've ever heard.
And those moments where it all breaksdown and sent us on like one
big chant. You know, ifthey'll never let us in the gates of
Heaven, then it's time to liberatehell. It's just this impassioned cry for
unity. Unity. They can't holdback all of us. It does brim

(02:48:00):
with the excitement and creativity of whatthey were going to do with the musical
building blocks that they had. Youknow, Dawn Red were three people,
a drummer, a guitarist, anda singer who also plays electric violin.
That's not a tremendous amount to workwith, but this album had this sense
of they've gone back to the drawingboard and rebuilt it, and the maximum
amount that they could get with thatsetup is in this record. It has

(02:48:20):
passages that sonically through that folk traditionseemed to tie, you know, the
mood of that present back into peoplethat have existed throughout history. Like there's
music on this that you could showto someone from five hundred years ago and
they'd understand it. And I can'treally explain why this album is so high
without getting into some of kind ofmy own kind of fears and anxieties.

(02:48:45):
But there are things that I reallyhave trouble with that this record just kind
of really touched a nerve on forme. And it's specifically with this album.
It's the feeling that everything that ismajorly wrong with the world and seems
to be getting worse feels like somethingthat you, as an individual can't do
anything about, whether that be youknow, wealth, inequality, particularly climate

(02:49:07):
change, where you can turn yourplugs off and have a vegan meal,
but in that time an area tenthousand times the size of your house in
the Amazon has been cut down tofeed cattle. The headline inertia that we
have of Oh, someone in powerhas done something fucking mental and cruel again.
See you next week. Oh they'redoing war crimes again. Jolly good,
And then that moment happens on Freedomin Retrogade, which is this bare,

(02:49:30):
simple folk song. Though I havethis creeping feeling that the dark is
closing in, I still will fightfor freedom for every living thing. If
you still sing, then I'll stillsing. And it chokes me up because
it catches you in that moment ofshit is fucking bleak and it's so easy
to give up, and this recordrecognizes that and is designed to as this

(02:49:52):
last plea to shake you out ofit and keep you fighting. And it's
not a superhuman record. It's normalevery day people. It sounds like a
record that you could probably learn toplay. And every time that this year
I have found, you know,found my way to the end, and
the final melody on this album ofthe Sun still shines, and it would
be a waste to not only losetomorrow but also lose today. It has

(02:50:16):
increasingly just winded me. And youknow, like when this record came out
in the sort of the general runningalbum of the year list that I do,
I put it in at like sixor seven of what had come out
at that point. Three quarters ofa year later, I have at number
two. It sucks that dawnway brokeup, but what a note to go
about on because it's like they've leftan encouragement for you. It is.

(02:50:37):
It's a steadying of the hand,it's a lifting of the spirits through this
recorded piece of music. It's there. I can't express how valuable I found
that. Yeah, that's a veryworthy choice, and it somehow makes what
I'm going to feel a bit sortof insignificant somehow. Consumer one number two

(02:51:00):
is Code Orange with the above right, So Code Orange went into yes.
Yeah. So they basically they wentinto this record with essentially an impossible task
because I couldn't see them bettering underneathat the thing that that is. I

(02:51:24):
didn't want them to go backwards towardsstraight hardcore, which I think they're the
best at at the moment. AndI also didn't want them to kind of
quote unquote sell out and do morelike sort of out for blood stuff because
I like that song, but Iwouldn't want a record of them. What
I wanted was for them to releasetheir biggest record and also their most eclectic

(02:51:45):
and diverse and also their most emotionallyvaried, but also something that bruises and
throws you around as much as anythingthey've ever done. No Biggie, and
yet somehow I was in the knowledgethat was in possible, and they've kind
of done it because the above isan incredible piece of work, instantly enjoyable,

(02:52:07):
but so layered, strange and fullof paradoxes. Like maybe on their
most linear record, they managed topack in more surprises than I could have
possibly expected, because Code Orange Recordshave previously come steaming out of the traps
with the best, biggest songs,and this one opens with two songs that,
like I say, I can barelycall songs. The first eight minutes

(02:52:30):
of the record isn't really bangers ofany stretch. They build and build and
build and never really release, butit's not frustrating alienating. It just draws
me in. And then when thebass crunch comes in on Take Shape,
it's like morphine, Like yeah,there's like a run after that with Exceptional

(02:52:54):
maybe Mirror, which is just likean achievement all of its own. It
just bangers in every form and modethat Code Orange can muster. You get
like pit ignition tunes, like adrone opting out of the hive and grooming
my replacement, and that's flanks.Stuff like the one two of Alt metal
perfection. That is I Fly andSplinter the soul snapshot, drawing on how

(02:53:18):
you say death grips, but likeThe Prodigy and Lincoln Park in its melodies
circle through going full smashing Pumpkins,it's just like it's obscene. They do
a fantastic song in every mode thatyou could feasibly expect Code Orange to do,
and even in some that you feasiblycouldn't. But for me, the
thing that makes this album like worthyof the run is the close of butter

(02:53:45):
Dream into the above. Yeah.Man, it's just not something other bands
are capable of, like the euphorianrelief of butter Dream, like Jamian Reeb
singing together like it's like Hay Judeor something, just like big smile all
around. And then when that likeyou say that except this is a far
away place comes in into on theabove, you just you feel like you're

(02:54:09):
standing there watching the sun come upon the beach in where their promo photos
are taken. And it's the bandthat six years ago, we're doing this
is real now, motherfucker, Like, how are they doing this now?
And for a band that some peopleI've seen kind of dismissed dismisses almost like
nostalgia fodder, where esthetically there's alot of like PS two game stuff and

(02:54:31):
the Matrix and YadA YadA. They'vemanaged to make an album that doesn't remind
me of anything or anything in particularsthis artificial paradise and like of an uplifting
and overcast metal hardcore record that makesyou feel both euphorically happy and in some
moments totally misanthropic. I don't evenknow what it is they're drawing on.

(02:54:52):
It's like Vanilla Sky if it wasa hardcore record but also a group Yeah,
yeah, yeah, exactly the yeah, exactly that, and you know
the age of Going Code Orange ofthe next slip Knot, that's behind us.
But what they're doing instead is they'recarving out a body of work that
I think at this point we cansay rivals almost anyone, because this quadrilogy

(02:55:15):
of alms they've done, it's upthere with the Beskajia Run, It's up
there with Slipknot, Pantera, Mastardon, with Sugar Dillingder, Escape Plan Converge,
any of those amazing, artistically rewardingdiscographies that metal has offered in the
twenty first century. Going back tothe early nineties, perhaps more it stands

(02:55:35):
up next to them. And ifpeople see Code Orange as something of a
failure in spite of all that becausethey didn't become the new nine inch Nails,
well, you know, more foolthem, because even if not for
everyone, like you say, they'vealienated pretty much every camp that will have
them. I think the work speaksfor itself and that's ultimately the record,
that's what's going to go down inhistory. And this record seems to be

(02:55:58):
them most divisive so far, likepeople outright hating it, which I think
is if not really a first,it's maybe a first on this kind of
scale, And on one hand Iunderstand it, But on the other way,
I just think I don't know whatyou're hearing, because again, it's
the band that we all love forsurprising us, surprising us all over again.

(02:56:22):
People prime to be surprised getting somethingthey weren't expecting and it being as
rewarding as anything they've ever done,and in a completely different way, just
like only they could do the impossible. Yeah here here, I thought that
was going to be your your albumof the year, Shall we say number
one together? I'm gonna do minefirst, if you don't mind Alum of

(02:56:46):
the Year twenty twenty three, hereit is, Hey Perrin say the line
Yay Grave Pleasures Plague Boys. Ifeel like I listened to Mother Blood so
much it became like the background thrumbof myself conscious like default. If I
do not have something in front ofme holding my attention, my brain would
start singing a grave Pleasure song likethe monkey playing the symbols right, and

(02:57:07):
like they in terms of like youknow, an artistic legsit that you was
just talking about cod Orange whatever.They aren't necessarily like the runaway best band
in the world. You know,this is the first time I've had that
album of the year because in twentyseventeen they were up against those other twenty
seventeen giants you know, Forever turnit in your arms. But they are
the one that are like Default,pir and Radio Station more than any other

(02:57:28):
band in the world, and they'reabove them this time by a long way
for me. Like, I thinkthis is the most unthreatened album of the
year I've ever had to do inthis show, Like I normally like keeping
my cards close to my chest,but you guys knew this in my album
there six months ago, right,I must have listened to this album like
ten times more than any other albumthis year, because it is just it's

(02:57:48):
what I want to be hearing onany given day, at any given moment,
you know. Like my Spotify rappedtop Songs was like song from this
album, something else, another songfrom this album, something else from this
album, all the way down untilthe entire track list was done, like
pound for pound. This is thestrongest set of songs. It is the
album where without having to look atthe trat list, I can just reel

(02:58:09):
off, oh yeah, Disintegration,Girl Heart like a slaughterhouse when the shooting's
done, Higher Annihilation because it's justthe classic fucking set of songs. It
is buoyant energy and existential gloom allwrapped up in the perfect package to put
some fucking zip in your step whilemaking you feel really fucking goth at the
same time. That's what they do, right, and they're the best in
the world at it. Even inHer Shadow Casse Solar Clips Creation cool like

(02:58:35):
the tropes and the Grave pleasures languagethat it speaks, all of it is
just brimming like just excited to bethemselves. I you know, some of
the stuff that you were saying abouthow kind of the I think people you
know, they go to grave pleasuresfor a thing, but how they have
evolved that thing, and how they'venot made an identical record any one time.

(02:58:58):
I think that's the underrated of theirkind of current status. And they're
a pretty fucking underrated band in thegrand scheme of things, realistically, aren't
they. It's god level chemistry youare hearing in this band, like the
way these musicians feed off each otherand feel in each other's blanks. It's
one of those lineus where again,this is the lineup they had from Mother
Blood prior to that, you know, Beast Milk to Dream Crash to Mother

(02:59:20):
Blood. Someone changed along the way, and you can hear that in those
records there are different personalities in them. This is now the lineup where it's
like you don't want any member tobe replaced, like they are just all
so special and all elevate what theother person does so much. And they
bring their musical backgrounds and expertise tothe table. And I think you know

(02:59:41):
the songs they write, obviously theyfollow in the spiritual footsteps of all of
those classic post punkin and goth rockbands from the nineteen eighties. But because
of that, I don't find GravePleasures to be regressive, because the songs
they are writing have never been writtenin this way before. This is the
only album ever to sound like bothBrian Ferry, Rancy Perzuzu, like those

(03:00:01):
awkward, janging, clanging krout rockriffs down now now and now or now?
How do they do that in thefucking hart sort house, like you
said, And they intuitively jam thoseinto these places of just sort of like
effervescent pop songs. You're not meantto do that and Playboys in particular,
the kind of new surprise leaps fromGrave Pleasures this time, considering it is

(03:00:24):
the same line up as the lastone and they haven't had that new dash
of color from a new person inthe room. They've taken the time to
really mull this one over and addthese new brushstrokes, new textures. It
sounds unbelievable to my ears. Thisis the best produced album of twenty twenty
three by a fucking mile. Andthey do not have the highest budget,

(03:00:50):
right Like, there are some higherbudget ones that sound like shit compared to
this. Something as simple as thatkeyboard flourish in when the shooting's done in
the chorus, and the first timeI hit that, it just lit me
up like a revelation, like I'mseeing a movie and color for the first
time, Like High on Annihilation.Hitting that drum part and just taking off
is heavenly and it hasn't gotten oldand it hasn't stopped again, making me

(03:01:15):
feel like I'm hearing a song fromthis band who all of their fucking songs
I've memorized. They're in the bankin a new way again and lead Balloons.
Realistically, a few thousand people haveheard that song, and it is
one of the biggest feats of songwriting, something that sounds sublime, like the
world just stops turning for that moment, and like it would be used in

(03:01:37):
movies un till the end of time, right, like you know, like
fucking Michael Fassbender will be listening toa soundrack of Grave Pleasures while failing to
assassinate people. And this record hasa particular sort of doomed poignancy, you
know, the way it has kindof slowed down and been more subtle compared
to something like Mother Blood, youknow, of all the Grave Pleasures ones
it's sort of that slowly sliding overinto the end that just speaks to me.

(03:02:00):
It's kind of a concentration of loadsof things I've spoken about, you
know. It has the effortlessly coolhip shaken slink of Queens the Stone Age.
It has the gothic lust and romanceof Creeper. It has that dance
pop spontaneity, everything as a hookof Paramore, the crushed velvet sensation of
Catatonia, or that nocturnal heaviness ofdepeche Mode, the insane chorus power of

(03:02:22):
a Green Lung or a Code Orangeor Villivarlow. But the several years between
making these records. Like I've saidoften, but I think with Grave Pleasures,
it's so so true, it's aretreat inwards, right, Like it's
not taking stock of what is popular. It's like they went into a cocoon
and completely in their own time,on their own watch, developed unaffected by
any even trajectory in rock music.And Matt has obviously got two albums on

(03:02:46):
my list. And if I'm gonnaput it down to one thing, why
I resonate with his work so much, it's just the belief that music can
in itself be kind of mystical,Like it's it's increasingly hard today to make
music that has that that breaks threefrom the trappings of you know, the
digital world and has that kind oftimeless quality. But if you could coon

(03:03:07):
it away from those external voices,it can have a power that isn't explained
through a tangible physical means, likerecords can still evoke something more and kind
of exist at a time. That'sthe thing that when you compare Great Pleasures
to Killing Joke or Joy Division orSuing the Banshees whoever, I think they
get like Unknown Pleasures sound special andmysterious and enigmatic whenever you put it on.

(03:03:33):
This record has me lost in thatchance. It is the seductive high
of imminent collapse and then the subsequentyearning low of conspiracy of love. I
just think it stands up to anymusic like this that has been made.
Yeah, I feel kind of dumbbecause when you said, you know,
Dawn raided a number two, Iwas like, what's number one going to
be? And then you come offit and uh, well, here we

(03:03:56):
are. So here we are.Indeed, in year where many of my
favorite bands released some of their bestwork, and in a year where the
band I called the best metal adjacentband to emerge in the last decade,
released an album that met every singleone of my impossible expectations for them.

(03:04:16):
It's kind of mad that something elsehas come out on top. But around
the midpoint of this year, somethingcame along, assessed my expectations, defed
each and every one of them,and turned me an unwilling skeptic into a
blubbering, dribbling feet smooching mess.Because the best album of the year is,

(03:04:39):
of course, Avenged Sevenfolds. Lifeis but a Dream Now. When
the singles for this were coming out, the kind of mean part of me
was rubbing my hands together in likeslathering delights. Uh oh, the last
metal band to break through have donethe unthinkable. There fucked it all up.

(03:05:01):
It's gonna be hilarious. We loveYou is bad? Nothing is bad?
Satannger who ill ad the venom inwhat now? And then like it
comes out and my claws are out, I'm ready to hate it, not
wanting to, but absolutely primed forit to be an embarrassing flop. I
kind of thought this would be oneof the funny reviews where we just you

(03:05:24):
know, go song by song andlaugh at it. And over the next
fifty three minutes, I am turnedfrom a playground bully into a mess.
And it's because of this one ofa kind ride through metal, skate punk,
disco, funk, French house,grunge, sixties prog and jazz,

(03:05:46):
fusion, goth rock, free form, jazz, piano, avant garde,
and yet I never felt like Iwas listening to something which was just trying
to surprise me. This doesn't feellike an album made by people with the
intent of you know, oh,you didn't see that coming. It feels
like some kind of unknowable thing expressingitself with whatever musical tools it has.

(03:06:11):
It it's disposable. It's making mesound like a wanker. But I don't
really know how to sort of hashout what it is about this record that's
so brilliant to me. Like thevariety is obviously like the headline grabbing thing,
and that is very impressive, Butanyone can mash a bunch of styles
together, like it seems like it'senough for some people to go, oh,

(03:06:33):
it's salsa, and now it's grindcorethat's experimental and wild, and you
think, no, it's kind ofcalculated and nothing. And you can hear
when that seems aren't completely ironed outon a record like this, But I
don't hear the jarring thing that peopleseem to criticize this record for. I
genuinely think it seamless. I can'timagine these songs without the funk deviations,

(03:06:54):
or the random punk rock or progrock, even instrumentals, or the musical
theory drama. I just don't.They couldn't exist without them, or they
certainly wouldn't be as good. Andit is, you know, it's remarkably
diverse, but that's not why Ilove this record. It would all mean
nothing if the song power, whichI think some people have overlooked because of
our sort of surface level mental itis, wasn't fantastic. And this record

(03:07:18):
is absurdly catchy, like the AsIt May, As it May in Game
Over or the Immortal No No,it might sell craz in Mattel tell you
what, as someone who loves thisrecord and loves that song, I laugh
out loud whenever that comes on becauseit is such a baffling, wrongheaded decision,

(03:07:41):
and yet it completely works like that, you know, the more PILs
more fiend and I Love You.It's kind of funny and it's fucking great,
like that song that when that cameout, I really thought, now
we are in for it. Nowthis is a fucking train wreck. And
even when the record, when wereviewed it, I was like, that's
the song. I'm not sure onnow I look forward to that one actively.

(03:08:05):
Nobody the song which again I wasn'tall that keen on amazing Pink Floyd
Breaking Cosmic is as good as anyband has ever aped. Pink Floyd.
The chorus of Beautiful Morning, Imean, we've been doing the the alis
In Chain Special in the months runningup to this, and that song has
that kind of sickly groaning quality inthe middle of this spacey mental prog in

(03:08:33):
bizarro metal record, the daft punkhook on Easier and that solo, every
second of g Ordinary Death. Ijust think every move is pulled off massively.
It does so many things that shouldn'twork together, and they do without
feeling the least bit tacky or cheapor naff. And I mean the cliche

(03:08:56):
of it's an emotional rollercoaster. Peopleoften say that, and you listen to
the record and go, no,it's really sad. That's just one direction.
That's not a roller coaster. Thisis a roller coaster because there's bits
where I kind of get like mistyeyed at the sort of the storytelling and
the sounds of it. And thentimes like I was singing in Mattel,
where I cackle like an idiot,and it hits all the buttons that I

(03:09:18):
want a free spirited, joyful rockor metal arms to hit, and in
ways I've never had them hit,and by a band who, frankly,
I just did not think were capableof it. Like I really like Avenge
Sevenfold, I never admired them likeI do now because you're saying I kept
my cards close to my chest.This album has not budged from number one

(03:09:39):
since I heard it, because thisarm is kind of it's almost shaped how
I view sort of music a bit, because if a band like Avenge Sevenfold,
who you know, I wouldn't sayuninvented by any stretch of the imagination,
they'd establish themselves as like heroes orlike demi gods to a certain type

(03:10:00):
of you know, rock and metalscene or whatever, and they're scoffed that
by like the snobby music critch thatwe've referenced about if they can wade into
foreign waters and make something brilliant andlife affirming, joyous and exciting, why
can't you, Like, yeah,you'll alienate people. Why not do that?
What's the big deal? It's alla laugh anyway. They could have

(03:10:22):
played it safe. They didn't,and they won and lost. That's what
makes the whole music thing exciting.And they made twenty twenty three so much
more exciting. They made the mostdivisive record of the year, and not
in a way that any band inrecent memory has released a divisive record,
and they seem profoundly disinterested with pleasinganyone but themselves, Like it's one of

(03:10:45):
the most popular metal bands of alltime, going completely against the grain of
what's expected and wanted from them andmaking what is, without competition, for
me, their best work to date. And like I said, it's not
won. Everyone knows. I don'tknow. Maybe this sounds smug, but
I bet the farm in a fewyears, maybe more, this will be

(03:11:07):
more widely recognized it for what Isee it as, which is just an
incredible, liberating, exalting metal record, kind of unlike anything anyone else has
ever made. So I mean,where else could it land. Yeah,
I'm I'm I'm glad that one ofus has it in there. I wasn't

(03:11:30):
necessarily expecting to have it at numberone. I figured it would be high.
But in a way, it's like, you know, might as well
have it there, because if you'regoing to go that that hard one,
it feels right for that record,you know, it feels right that it
should either not appear at all orbe the top, because that's how it
has landed this year, and Ilike I I don't think it works.

(03:11:54):
And some of those bits that you'veyou've mentioned, the more pills, the
plastic daisies or the shit, Ithink it's shit. But I never wanted
to paint this record as a let'sall roast them for having fucked up failure.
I've always you know, again,you've mentioned it a lot in kind
of an ironic way because we we'reboth are in the same wavelength of you

(03:12:18):
like it. I don't you know, the others could be period again,
is it? But we all kindof we've sort of made this piece and
recognized, you know, what acrazy record that you could really fall on
either either side of. And that'syou know, with the audience and everything
that's I'm sure that's where it's gonnago. It's gonna be. You know,
there are, like alluded to afew times, there are records for
me that do things in a morecohesive way that make me go, Yeah,

(03:12:43):
this record isn't as you know,emotionally of assuring in it's like freethinkingness
as other things, so I thinkhave a bit more skill and a bit
more nuance. But the fact thatit went there, and the fact that
it like completely did all the thingsthat you have said it does, I

(03:13:03):
think I always you are it ismore fun that the record exists, like
I for me, you know,for me, it's comfortably that I like
one song on it. Basically it'sfor me absolutely the least I'm going to
enjoy an event sever old record,But it's way more fun to have it
as a thing to talk about andthat exists. So Yeah, as I

(03:13:26):
say, genuinely glad, while Idon't think it works that at least somewhere
along the line it can be kindof pointed at and gone that was really
something they did that. I thinkthat maybe the most amazing thing about it
is, like you say, notjust that we're so divided on it,
but so we all completely agree onwhat it is. Like. There's a

(03:13:48):
massive metal record that isn't going toappear on any of our lists, and
we covered it at length, andthere was part of that when we were
reviewing it, the Sleep Sooken record, where it was like, I don't
know if I'm necessarily hearing what otherpeople are hearing with this record. Everything
you say about that shit, that'srubbish, that doesn't work. I hear

(03:14:09):
exactly what you hear. I took, but for some reason that's not the
response my brain has. No.Yeah, it's always been emotional with me.
It's always been you've jammed these elementstogether in a way that doesn't make
me feel good about it in theway that you know other things do,
and for other people it has,and that's that's art. Baby. So

(03:14:31):
there you go. Albums of theYear from us two. What a fucking
show. Thank you so much forjoining us. If you have not heard
any of the forty albums we havespoken about, go and listen to them.
By definition, we think they're thebest. Next week you're gonna get
forty more Sam and Mark they're gonnahave their turn, and we are also
gonna hear your listener album of theYear results, so I'll repeat what I

(03:14:52):
said earlier. Please do get intocontact and give us your top twenty albums
of the year so your votes canbe counted. Comment on the thread in
the nastomael facebook group, send usa DM somewhere if you can. In
the words of al Pacino in Heat, give me what your guts, don't
miss it. Be right back