Wolves in the Throne Room live at Portland, ME’s SPACE Gallery

“This is Between the Buried and Me’s best album,” a friend told me in a bar the night The Parallax II: Future Sequence was released. I was aghast but my friend turned out to be correct. The way the band weaves melodies from earlier tracks into later tracks is unmatched on this album, not to mention that they are the strongest of Between the Buried and Me’s career. I regularly find myself humming the main hooks to “Extremophile Elite” and “Silent Flight Parliament” even if I haven’t recently spun the record. Mix these catchy hooks with all the spastic prog acrobatics you expect from Between the Buried and Me, and you wind up with a record that has nearly unlimited relistening potential. Between the Buried and Me’s discography is incredibly dense at this point but this album cannot be missed.

Recommended film pairing: "Thor: Ragnarok" (2017)

The scope of III is immense. It is the Skyrim of black metal. The fact that all of III is the work of one man is mind-boggling. Suffocating black metal, medieval acoustic guitar passages, chant vocals, and snails-paced avant-garde sections are all present over the nearly one-and-a-half hour epic. The second half of this record is where it becomes truly extraordinary. After the dissonance and density of the first several songs, it is breathtaking the way III opens up from “The Spiral Mountain” through to the album’s melodically triumphant conclusion. This is my favorite record to listen to on a cold winter morning’s drive. It is the consummate musical manifestation of the Northern winter landscape.

Recommended film pairing: "How to Train Your Dragon" (2010)

Bonus: check out Andrew Rothmund's five-year anniversary article on III plus interview with project mastermind Ayloss.

Behemoth got their edge back on The Satanist. They announced both the defeat of the stagnation of their sound and the remission of lead singer Nergal’s cancer in one exultant work of art. Behemoth are as obsessed with Satan as ever, as the album title gives away, but there is an air of positivity here. “Messe Noire” and “In the Absence Ov Light” sound more revelatory than depressed. Take pleasure in blackened death metal, take pleasure in life, take pleasure in The Satanist.

Recommended film pairing: "Spotlight" (2015)

Luc Lemay is more than a metal guitarist and vocalist, he is a composer. That statement is not hyperbole. Lemay wrote and arranged “The Battle of Chamdo,” a five-piece string piece, that sits in the middle of a dissonant technical death metal album. Whether you want classical music with your death metal or not, it illustrates the level of musicality behind Colored Sands. Each note and change of tempo has been thought out here. It is not a group of guys randomly flailing away on their instruments with the goal of being faster or more brutal than everyone else. Colored Sands exists to pull emotion from you, and it will succeed if you allow yourself to become immersed in its delightfully impenetrable wall of sound.

Recommended film pairing: "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997)

Панихида fills every second of its runtime with compelling black metal. The Russian Orthodox chants remain as haunting as they were on Batushka’s Litourgiya, but the metal itself is much meaner. The nameless vocalist sounds rabid on tunes like “Песнь 3,” which contrasts diabolically with the clean female vocal parts. The guitar melodies sound like they were plucked from actual church hymns, except they are being played on distorted eight-string guitars instead of a church organ. This was my favorite album of 2019 and it is one of the best the decade has to offer.

Recommended film pairing: "Eastern Promises" (2007)

Bonus: read our Batushka vs. Batushka review from earlier this year.

It’s astonishing how many different emotions Deftones conjure on Koi No Yokan considering their relatively restricted sonic palette. The star of the album is vocalist Chino Moreno, whose ethereal vocals emote senses of yearning, desperation, and adoration throughout the album. Moreno may not be the most technically gifted singer, but his ability to create an atmosphere is invaluable for an album that features variations on the quest to find the ultimate love. Like love itself, Koi No Yokan manages to be beautiful, sensitive, ecstatic, and occasionally crushing. This alternative metal masterpiece is a prime example of what can be achieved when form is used to properly follow function.

Recommended film pairing: "Spirited Away" (2001)

Sometimes there is no greater solace than sadness. It can be a comfort when despair wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket. Sorrow and Extinction expresses this “joy-in-sorrow” feeling with massive detuned guitar riffs, crawling slow tempos, hints of psychedelia, and emotive wailing vocals. The organic production leaves enough space for the occasional rocking guitar riff to rise from the muck and inject a little life into the gloom. If this is what the end of the world sounds like, we are in for a beautiful conclusion.

Recommended film pairing: "Melancholia" (2011)

Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms slithers into listeners ears with a creepy harpsichord introduction before accelerating to top speed with stellar melodic death metal riffage. Slugdge were on a tear this decade. They released four stellar albums, three of those in consecutive years, yet this one is the perfect cosmic mixture. It adds the right amount of technicality and tightness without becoming robotic. The album artwork, baroque waltzes, and uncomfortably detailed songs about clam harvesting combine to create an uneasy and perverse atmosphere. Slugs are gross and so is Slugdge. Listen to them on Halloween.

Recommended film pairing: "Slither" (2006)

Monolith of Inhumanity was a game-changer when it was released. It catapulted Cattle Decapitation to the top of the deathgrind pack and introduced a vicious and bizarre new screaming technique to the metal genre. On tunes like “Dead Set on Suicide” and “A Living Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat,” Travis Ryan’s pitched-screams added a new injection of melody without compromising the brutality of the end product. Detractors may refer to this technique as “clean singing,” but it is hardly “clean.” It is filthy, and more importantly, it is unique. Cattle Decapitation achieved something on Monolith of Inhumanity that innovative bands of every genre strive for -- an instantly recognizable sound.

Recommended film pairing: "28 Days Later" (2002)

Kvelertak’s eponymous first record is stacked top to bottom with black-‘n’-roll bangers. It must have been an intimidating task for the marketing team at Indie Recordings to pick the singles because nearly every song on this record has hit potential. From the straightforward stomp of “Mjød” to the epic classic rock riffs of “Liktorn,” Kvelertak never slows down and never stops rolling. It is the metal party album to end all metal party albums. If the world is ending and you want to have one final rager, you should put on this album. Simply put, Kvelertak is the most fun you can have listening to a metal record from the creatively fruitful 2010s. Bravo Kvelertak, and bravo heavy metal. Cheers to ten more years of amazing music.

Recommended film pairing: "This Is the End" (2013)

The first great album of 2010 still holds up as one of the best albums of the 2010s. Eparistera Daimones is just as much a spiritual as musical follow-up to Celtic Frost swansong Monotheist, continuing its themes of crushing, impending doom and hopelessness. From the funeral dirge of “Abyss Within My Soul” to the headbanging might of “A Thousand Lies”, it still stands alone in its singularity of vision and label-free heaviness.

End of Mirrors is, as the kids say, a mood. Drawing from an inky black well filled with post-punk, goth and psychedelia, Alaric found the sweet spot on their second album. Restrained, tribal drum patterns and heartbeat basslines lay the foundation for shimmering layered guitars and Shane Baker’s haunted vocals. It’s the soundtrack to a thousand rainy days.

“Time to wake up.” That’s the sample that starts album opener “In Our Blood," and it works as a clarion call to anyone that thinks they can put a YOB record on for background music. Following up the slightly uneven Atma, Clearing The Path To Ascend is YOB at their very best. Alternately melancholy and pulverizing, methodical and inventive, it puts more raw emotion and intensity into four songs than most bands can put into four albums. The hypnotic hammering of “Nothing to Win," the ethereal journey of “Marrow"; the peaks and valleys here are palpable, and the album is unforgettable.

Chris Spencer’s abrupt departure from Unsane earlier this year was sad news for the passionate fanbase they’ve grown over the last 25 years. As the godfathers of New York City noise-rock, Unsane could always be counted on to deliver the goods, both live and in the studio. Wreck represents the best of their post-millenium output, chock full of barbed-wire riffs, harmonica solos, and a dead-on cover of Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha." Intensely emotional and about as subtle as a street fight on East Broadway, Wreck does exactly what its title sets out to do.

Death rock for the people. In an instance of seemingly divine intervention, the Fenriz-approved Beastmilk found superfans in the members of Converge, leading one Kurt Ballou to bring them stateside and producing the best post-punk album of the decade. Climax is not a grower; from the first thirty seconds of “Death Reflects Us,” listeners know they’re hearing something special, a dark vision of the past and a boldly energetic step into the future. Beastmilk’s subsequent demise is lamentable, but like Joy Division before them, the instant classic they created eclipses that and everything else.

Unsane is dead; long live Whores. The most exciting, intense, and fun noise-rock band to hit the national scene in years, if not decades, the Atlanta trio found perfection in the ugly, imperfect sludge on their debut full-length. The bloody, nihilistic “Baby Teeth” puts a ten-ton hammer into your brain, equal parts catchy and bludgeoning, while rubbing up against the serpentine grooves and pitch-black humor of “Mental Illness As Mating Ritual." Every song is an instant earworm, never overstaying its welcome, and feels at home in any hardcore, metal or hard rock playlist. Gold will still be in the conversation when the “best of the last 20 years” lists come around in another decade or so.

It happens every time: the gentle, acoustic lilt of “He Comes” lulls the listener into chill mode, despite the subtle tritone inflections haunting the background. Then wham! “Death Knows Where” bursts from the relative quiet, Mercyful Fate + Candlemass heaviness wrapped in aesthetics cribbed from The Cure and Coven. Evolving from the classic metal catchiness of their self-titled debut to the moodier, Gothic overtones of 2011’s The World. The Flesh. The Devil., In Solitude perfected their sound on Sister. The title track sounds just as much at home on an Argento soundtrack as it does on the mainstage at Wacken, and closer “Inmost Nigredo” traverses the metal landscape from ambient ballad to pulsating proto-doom to soaring epic. A modern classic.

Classic rock has never really gone out of favor, to the point where some of its oldest revivalists have been around longer than the original bands ever were. Of all the bands that have worshipped at the Zeppelin + Stones + Lizzy altar over the last several decades, Tony Reed’s Stone Axe sits head and shoulders above the rest. Despite its status as a side project to Reed’s main gig in the more prolific Mos Generator, Stone Axe is the vehicle that tracks closest to the mutton-chopped godfathers of yore, and their second album distills those influences into the best classic rock album since 1979, never mind 2010. “Old Soul” makes II’s intentions clear as crystal, while “Chasing Dragons” reinvents the FM rock radio staple and “Live for the Day” is as close to a long-lost Free b-side as anyone can get. The magic of II is in the details: yes, “Those Were The Golden Years” is a Thin Lizzy tribute, but not in a typical duelling-guitar fashion. It delves into Phil Lynott’s songwriting-as-storytelling style, a characteristic missing from too many would-be Lizzy worshippers. It’s one detail of many that makes II special, an enduring rock record in its own right, beholden to no era but that of its listeners.

A lush, cinematic, fully realized piece of musical art. Blood Lust is the short ends of Easy Rider left out in the desert somewhere after Fonda and Hopper drifted out into the ether, discovered by Crowley devotees, and then melted into copies of the Beatles’ self-titled album and Coven’s Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls. “I’ll Cut You Down” is a foot-stomping boogie born too late for the Manson crowd; it’s too good for them, anyway. “Curse in the Trees” is a doom crawl that rivals anything Rise Above has ever released, and perennial live staple “13 Candles” takes the word "jam" back from the musical cringe lexicon. Without a single bogus track, Blood Lust is Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats at their absolute best, solidifying a sound and aesthetic often imitated, but yet to be duplicated. It’s easy, and foolish, to dismiss Blood Lust as a throwback or a 1960s rehash. The only retort: okay, go find a classic rock record that’s both this heavy and catchy, at this level of musicality, produced this well. Granted, there are a few. They’re the best the golden era of heavy rock had to give. Blood Lust is their peer.

Lovecraft. Time travel. Jesus twins. Black lotus. Microhazing? Look, this is a High on Fire album. It’s best to not ask questions and just roll with it. But this isn’t just a High on Fire album (is it ever?) -- it’s their best album this decade, and since they’re the best band of this century, math tells me De Vermis Mysteriis is the best album of the decade. There’s no fuckery to be had here: Des Kensel’s opening thunderous tom rolls in “Serums of Liao," followed quickly by Matt Pike’s furious tone of the gods and acidic Lemmy howls, all announce Mysteriis to the masses as a big, bold statement of heavy metal. Before the listener even has a chance to breathe, “Bloody Knuckles” kicks down the doors in all its descending-riff beatdown glory.

De Vermis Mysteriis is nothing if not relentless. Even the relatively chilled instrumental “Samsara” is a showcase for bassist Jeff Matz’s insanely underrated playing chops, as well as Pike’s underutilized solo skills. “Spiritual Rights” kicks off the b-side with a vengeance, thrashy and tribalistic; when Pike bellows “I’ll scourge your ghost!” you believe it. “King of Days” is the metal ballad we don’t deserve, but desperately need. “Romulus And Remus”? Does an epic doom track about mythical Roman noble demigods and lyrics like “Geminis suckled of the wolf” need any kind of justification? Of course not, and neither does placing this glorious, infinitely listenable album at #1. De Vermis Mysteriis encourages us all to drop out, tune down, turn it up, and take a trip. Enjoy the ride.

Only legends can take a nearly ten-year gap between albums and remain relevant. It might also help to be known as one of the bands with the greatest stage performances in all of heavy music. Rammstein's return in self-titled form shows us the most dynamic slice of this household-name band to date, honing hard rock's edge with razor-grade industrial metal then cleaving you to bits with it. Rammstein also sees the first instance in the band's history (correct me if I'm wrong) of screamed vocals from Till Lindemann -- album midpoint "Puppe" has the famed baritone achieving significant distortion and grit at high volume as the song opens up into something… unexpectedly layered? Seriously, this is the heaviest Rammstein song to date, and also the thickest, and it's just one of ten other virtually perfect songs that comprise Rammstein's almighty German girth. "Puppe" is my favorite, in part because of the harsh vocals, but also that goddamn wall of fucking noise that I've never heard from Rammstein before.

Even the opening track and first single "Deutschland" (a mirror, sort-of, of "Amerika" from 2004's Reise, Reise) demonstrates this band as literally incapable of growing soft, tame, or lame. The music video shows this clearly: Rammstein's members are now quite obviously older, but their senses for groove and melody are still on brand. Like the Rammstein that I discovered super-early on in my metal phase (which has yet to cease), this new album totally excited (and satisfied) me; like Duffman from The Simpsons, Rammstein never dies, only the actors that play it. I was so much different back then, almost two decades ago now, yet this band has maintained that sensational appeal all the while -- I'm not alone on this either, Rammstein ticked the highest on US charts in the band's history at #9 (but obviously #1 peak throughout much of Europe). Fick ja.

True, bare fact: Liturgy would be treated and understood just like any other cutting-edge experimental black metal band out there (though few they are); however, because project mastermind Hunter Hunt-Hendrix maintains a completely harmless but nonetheless somewhat pedantic and contrived media presence, people write the band off as equally pedantic and contrived. This is sad, mostly because such a write-off relies on understanding Hunt-Hendrix as a boxed, digital personality first instead of a storied, human maker of music. It's almost as if some music "fans" are actually more interested in the eccentricities of artists than the actual music; it's almost as if we're subscribed to only one way of artists interacting with their music in public. Above all else, I think, hating on Liturgy is old hat nowadays, so even if someone polishes their rod so shiny that their opinion about this band is more imposing than the sun, they're still behind whatever edge they think they're honing. Not liking Liturgy's music is totally fair; not giving it a fair chance is a huge mistake, especially if you're a little bored of black metal.

So, this year saw the surprise release of H.A.Q.Q., Hunt-Hendrix's absolute top work to date. Not only is this new brand of Liturgy much more accessible, it's far more emotive and bare than albums prior. It achieves its surging nature by more strongly fluctuating the wavelengths of the music's entire ensemble, not just modulating individual pieces to achieve a certain sound. The "burst beat" thing is on H.A.Q.Q. far toned down, replaced with groovy but still super-saturated choruses that beg for headbangs. Gone are the clean chants of The Ark Work, an element which arguably played to that album's favor but wouldn't find comfortable home on H.A.Q.Q.. That said, Hunt-Hendrix imbues some extra melody and polishing, adding to the album's dreamy, hypnotizing aura.

H.A.Q.Q. will not transcend you, and there is no such thing as transcendent music, as long as we conceive of transcendence from a standpoint favoring empericality. However, humans do not experience the world through purely empirical senses, and I'll venture a fair bet that H.A.Q.Q., if heard appropriately, can disconnect your conscious mind from the past (depression) and the future (anxiety) in all the right ways. This can happen with any music really -- achieving an in-the-moment presence with the music, hearing it second by second -- but Liturgy have never made it so easy to cross the boundary between listening and hearing, understanding and feeling. As for, specifically, the philosophy or philosophies or anti-philosophies or whatever which are purposefully embedded within the music (and adorning H.A.Q.Q.'s cover artwork)... beats the hell out of me.

Everything about Car Bomb is radical in an angular, artistic way, accomplished by mainlining the most radical band in all of metal -- Meshuggah -- without copycatting, emulating, or otherwise ripping off the Swedish legends. In fact, Car Bomb is the purest antidote to djent discovered to date, something fresh and new while still grounded in established radical metal theory, plus that lovely dose of mathcore. This means the band is at once totally fresh yet totally relatable; indeed, that is what's radical about them. Mordial as a successful Car Bomb album, at least, comes as no surprise: it sounds like Car Bomb. As a successful post-mathcore (?) album, well, it checks every single box, then adds a few more boxes, then checks those, then lights your pants on fire, then laughs maniacally while breaking down harder and wickeder than most deathcore but instead with actual style.

Mordial is a modern art painting that punches you in the fucking face.

Semi-interesting story: it was actually former Invisible Oranges Editor-in-Chief Ian Cory who turned me on to Car Bomb; he called them "one of the most criminally underrated bands in heavy music," and he was and still is 100% correct. Car Bomb aren't unknown, but diving deep into their discography reveals so many dynamic angles and protrusions and weird grooves and headbangy chugga-chugs that the band feels huge. No matter, popularity is dumb, and so is waxing too much poetic about something better listened to than read about. Spin Mordial so it can spin your head.

Death metal is super in-vogue right now, which in my opinion is badass. The glut of fantastic death metal this year is almost overwhelming, but think of the alternate reality: a lack of new death metal? Fuck that, more is always better. That said, I don't think Cosmic Putrefaction's entry into the death metal annals this year really fits the vogue. I mean to say that it leans away from OSDM characteristics in lieu of spacey blackening, plus it's a little more chaotic and spasmodic and even abstract than the more concrete (albeit progressive) sound defining the genre at the moment. Multi-instrumentalist G.G. masterminded this project, but contracted Brendan Sloan of Convulsing for vocal duties (along with a second guest too). Altogether, At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm scorches and slices like Satan jabbing at a misbehaving demon with his flaming trident, only in space, at absolute zero. And, of course:

BLEGH!

-- "The Ancient Demagogue"

I'll be honest, too: At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm is a lot. I'm actually glad it's less than a half-hour long. I can barely take the entire album at once; it's a mental overload with few breaks. But it really roars during its pithy overture, climbing to densely layered highs and sinking to guttural, plodding lows. It favors short-burst fluctuations over grand, sweeping movements, but the range of this album is by no means limited. It also coheres nicely, not so much as a story or narrative but more like a string of connected variations on the same straightforward goal: to fuck your mind up with death metal.

A Gaze Among Them isn't metal outright, but who gives a shit, this album will wreck your goddamn heart and soul. Big|Brave do not hold back or veil any emotionality here; the album is basically a bleeding wound, and listening to it is like being bled on. That alone qualifies it for honorary metal status, in my mind at least. With a heartwrenching vocal performance and unabashed postmodern/post-rock style, this band went far above and beyond its genre's usual trappings to deliver something much more universal and potent. And it's not like Big|Brave grounded themselves in easy-sell grooves or generalized noise-walls with tons of embellishment; A Gaze Among Them feels explicitly raw despite its production and polish. Think lens wide open. Think blurry cityscapes through fogged-up car windows on a rainy night after a funeral. Think the warmness of tears on a frostbitten face.

Botanist's Ecosystem is sheer magnificence not just for black metal, but all extreme music. Replacing distorted guitars with hammered dulcimer obviously impacts Botanist's sound in relation to genre peers, and it also solidifies their idiosyncrasy even though writing music about/for nature is nothing new at all. The band's approach has never felt more honed and tuned: Ecosystem is Botanist distilled and finely packaged. The album shimmers and dances about, calling to mind ballerinas in the forest when most black metal feels either like a gamma-ray burst or being tossed straight into hell's maw. It's actually impressive how accessible all of Botanist's music is, especially Ecosystem, which is one reason of many why I appreciate and adore this band so much and always recommend it for newcomers to black metal who want a different path inward.

The concept of beauty in metal often gets convoluted somewhere between "real ugliness is pretty" and "fake beauty is ugly" -- Botanist, however, throw the question out altogether. Ecosystem feels natural, of nature and for nature and with nature; it feels like when I journeyed across Iceland's desolate landscapes or when I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. You don't so much listen to Ecosystem as stand inside of it, becoming part of the music if you let yourself, owing to the album's trance-like undertones and ethereal atmosphere. Black metal, yeah right, actually. Green metal is where it's at.

Hail Earth. Or at least we better, lest Earth eat us alive.

Of all the 20 albums mentioned in this article, Disillusion's stupendous decade-plus return from full-length dormancy with The Liberation is by far the most likeable. It is the most things to the most metalheads; if it's truly as good as I say it is, it might as well be all things to all people. This album cuts through the staleness of its genre like an iron-hot machete, solidifying melodic death metal as capable of being hyper-modern, super groovy, and a motherfucking blast to listen to, all sans cheese. It's just plain fun, but without being goofy or daft. Disillusion have written a dead-serious death metal album that functions brilliantly whether through headphones in bed at night or through the car stereo on the highway -- its guitar/bass-lines feel timeless and shimmery, the drumming scales back when necessary but goes full-tilt at the most opportune moments, and lead singer Andy Schmidt's voice burns like a tire fire.

For nearly an hour, The Liberation delivers all the entertainment value of a blockbuster but without the hollow recycledness that accompanies most big-name releases nowadays (both music and movies). I set it next to Kalmah's The Black Waltz in my head as an album nearly impossible to resist headbanging to, especially alone, despite its proggy complexity -- Disillusion integrated a ton of nuance and production into this album, and it all works to enhance the physical impact of their music instead of masking it. It's engineered to exacting precision (let's call this the Porsche of metal albums), but feels superhuman without being robotic or mystical. I am so sold on this album; just buy the damn thing and rock it a thousand times over.

Simple talk: GEAR is some top-quality shit. This album is the kind you find while sifting through endless pages of would-be/could-be releases on Bandcamp, and just when you're about to give up, you click one odd-looking album as a last-go before just putting on some rando black metal or whatever because you couldn't find anything both new and decently interesting. What you get instead of the rank stench of musical disappointment is a 20-minute instrumental motherfucking masterpiece that vacuums your mind into a veritable hole where it is massaged, vibrated, and undulated like the squishy mass it is. GEAR pulses with energy most viciously raw; this band needn't vocals simply because their music is just so profoundly catchy and groovy that even the greatest vocalist ever would still tarnish its right-out jam. Penultimate track "Radiation Judge" does it perfectly in one go, too, acting as summation, climax, and coda in pithy breath, but leaving you breathless with its assaulting groove and saturated atmosphere.

Basically, I can't tell whether this music is superhuman or inhuman; it chugs along with machine-like intensity but creates such beautiful auras in its thickened wake.

The work, all-in, is a DIY collective of ten: guitarists (four), synth, bass, drums, recording, mastering, and visual artwork. Well, to you ten, here's my message: thank you, holy shit, and please make more of this stuff. If you can't tell from my esctascism about this release, I pretty much consider it musically flawless. It might actually be my top pick if it were a full-length (not that this brevity detracts from the music itself, but rather that GEAR could definitely tell even grander stories with more room to work). Suffice it to say: this release captures so very rawly the musical energy that most, if not all, metal conveys, and does so transparently and without pretense. Think of it as concentrate; I, however, never add water.

The collectivity of music is inherently ritualistic; all music becomes ritual on the personal level as well. Few bands outright, though, call to mind the actual capital-R Ritual (or even ceremony) that Heilung does, opting instead for something which doesn't involve lots of chanting in obscure ancient languages, a legion of tribalistic drummers, and an immensely captivating stage performance. Futha is definitely not metal, and even though some of the vocals are harsh, I think Heilung is sort-of doing their own thing here. And what a wonderful thing Heilung is, because I simply do not have any other music which can zonk me out into oblivion like their latest album Futha can. It's the kind of magic when you try to mentally compile the album in your head, you find yourself completely unable to capture its raw essence without having it playing.

The intensity that Heilung imbues into their sound is definitely shared by metal, and again, I think an honorary metal certificate is warranted here. As much as Futha is a showcase of beat and energy, it's also certifiably intoxicating with its huge variances in mood, vocal styles, and pacing. Getting lost in this one is pretty much a given no matter what the situation; there's no casual listening of this album or any Heilung album for that matter. I appreciate this level of fastidiousness when it comes to creating something that sounds truly special; Heilung have already made a name for themselves as exacting scientists of sound, not just creators of it. And, special news from last month, the band will be touring North America next year. Consider me already there.

A slight bend to the traditional rules of lists: here are two albums as #1, not one. However, these twins were released together, and separating them (or picking one over the other) just seems pointless when both, taken as one, comprise something so profound and so moving that the choice just had to be clear. Storm Mysticism and Shores of Avarice represent some of the finest black metal ever laid to tape; Sanguine Eagle take everything into consideration, combing the genre for just the right pieces before arranging them into something completely unexpected. Much of these two albums is occupied by not-metal -- the artistic ambiance we're gifted before, between, and after the black metal is just as important. When given full attention, these two albums dole out swaths of energized, traumatic, and textured noise (whether harsh or gentle) on wavelengths so powerful, sometimes it blows you back in your chair a bit.

I suppose when it comes to music that I like and appreciate this much, there's only so much I can really turn into verbiage. Sanguine Eagle just happens to nail those sweet-spots of polished rawness and clamoring silence, all without even feeling like they're trying. It's the effortlessness of Storm Mysticism and Shores of Avarice that gets me each and every time: Sanguine Eagle does a lot without sounding like they're about to boil over, a problem I think most black metal of this ilk contends with. And when the highs break and fall into depthless valleys, or when you're rocketed out from hell into space at lightspeed, Sanguine Eagle always feels there with you, not playing to you, but for you.

It's the closeness of music I was talking about above. I felt that with Sanguine Eagle the most this year, hence its position on this list. These two albums feel like they could bridge any two disagreeing black metal fans; together, they feel like a culmination of a genre's work, not just a band's individual work. Whether they succeed on this level is yet to be seen, but for me, success is already here: Storm Mysticism and Shores of Avarice moved me in ways more positive than I can describe with words or that the band themselves will ever really know. And so, of course, there's always a bit of a mystery to music too, between the creators and consumers of it -- I'm all for that mystery, why some things work for some people and not for others, and champion any band who can bank on the intrigue of what feels like pure magic.