Teeth of the Divine’s STAFF PICKS for 2011
Well, another year. Another late year rush to get staff picks together, which is a lot like herding cats. Another year of rotating staff members. Another year of departed metal icons. But despite of all that, another year of seemingly endless awesome metal. Its seems like each year is always better than the last with a mix of old acts returning, newcomers bringing the thunder and of course the perennials and old reliables. Sit back and feast your eyes on this years cream of the crop according to the staff here at Teethofthedivine.com. And of course feel free discuss, dissect and discredit, but more importantly tell us your picks, good and bad of 2011.
STACY BUCHANAN
Top 20 Albums of 2011 (in no particular order)
The Atlas Moth An Ache For The Distance – Well-executed psychedelic and multi-layered metal, vastly improving from their already great debut.
Blut Aus Nord 777 Sects / 777 The Desanctification – Cold, mechanized metal that injects Godflesh industrialism with a blackened aura and esoteric subject matter. Best when listened to in the colder months.
Harm’s Way Isolation – Hatebreed + Entombed; the burly breakdowns and attitude of the former with the sunslight studios, death-n-roll groove of the latter. Boom.
Disfiguring The Goddess Circle Of Nine – Not sure why this record wasn’t embraced more by the metal community. I understand the aversion to newer styles, dislike of trends, etc. but I’m sure the deathcore tag and Big Chocolate’s popularity was probably why a lot of metalheads unfortunately didn’t rock this brutal tech/slam deathmetal record.
Inevitable End The Oculus – Chaotic metalcore had its glory days in the early 2000s, but burned up and bled dry due to a zillion of copycat bands. These Swedes revive the thrill of truly insane, technical spazziness on their sophomore album.
Disma Towards The Megalith – Riffs that equally pound, crawl, and sludge their way with a deliciously eerie oldschool deathmetal vibe and a satisfying spectrum of tempos. Bonus: the tried and true metalheads may cry foul, but there is a HUGE amount of unintentional breakdowns throughout.
Weekend Nachos Worthless – This was my “angry” record of the year. Powerviolence, crusty hardcore, and grind thrown into a blender, but taken to the next level with truly irate vocals that are never NOT pissed the fuck off.
Junius Reports From The Threshold Of Death – Lush, metaphysical metal with dense layers of melodic ambiance. Truly celestial metal.
Mastodon The Hunter – What more needs to be said about metal’s ambassadors to the masses? New record finds them playing a little more fun, fast and loose.
Morbid Angel Illud Divinum Insanus – Easily the most hated record in metal of recent memory. It all comes down to expectation: If you’re open to this record being ANYTHING instead of a limited belief and narrow spectrum of possibility, you’ll find a lot of great things to like about this album. If you just wanted more of the same (which for Morbid Angel in 2011 would technically be subpar compared to the competition that’s caught up/surpassed them anyway) then it’s too bad you’re disappointed, cause really, it’s your own fault. Sure a couple of songs don’t work for me, but the rest compensate enough to complete an album that surprised even me with repeated spins.
Rotten Sound Cursed – Besides making some of the fastest grind created by humans, they also are stop-on-a-dime precise and tight.
Skeletonwitch Forever Abomination – Riffs are the lifesblood of metal (duh). And this record tempers deathmetal, thrash, blackmetal and straight up traditional metal riffs into an inseparable mass of… well, metal. And it shreds.
Solstafir Svartir Sandar – Icelandic rock/metal four-piece return with an impressive album of hard-to-pigeonhole ambient metal. Things get a little more experimental and slightly more melodic on this album, but it’s the honest and emotional delivery that comes first and foremost and really drives home their passion.
Subrosa No Help For The Mighty Ones – Dirge metal that’s equal parts ethereal darkness and doomy riffs. But what elevates this record’s pedigree is the use of dual violins and noir vocals of front-woman Rebecca Vernon.
Tombs Path Of Totality – Believe the hype.
Trap Them Darker Handcraft – It’s funny to say a band whose styles are grind, extreme metal and crusty hardcore has “matured” in their songwriting, but that’s exactly what’s happened here.
True Widow As High As The Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth – Doomy, melodic, post-metal, shoegaze three-piece that is delicate and unearthly.
Wolves In The Throne Room Celestial Lineage – I think this new wave of American blackmetal or post-blackmetal, whatever you wanna call it, gets waaaay too over-analyzed.
Zombi Escape Velocity – Vintage synth/moog/electronic tunes that sound like they were pulled directly from some great 70s sci-fi flick.
Opeth Heritage – The butterfly finally emerges from the cocoon fully developed and realized. Jazzy, prog-metal with noodling, some twists and turns, and a vintage sound (bonus points for continually discovering new sounds with each listen).
Some honorable mentions:
Book of Black Earth – The Cold Testament
Fleshgod Apocalypse – Agony
Circle of Ourobous – Eleven Fingers
Vildhjarta – Måsstaden
Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore
Animals As Leaders – Weightless
Graveyard – Hisingen Blues
Obsequiae – Suspended in the Brume of Eos
Disappointments:
Altar Of Plagues – A meager four songs (one of which is an instrumental) on this “album”, only one of which that is simultaneously good, not boring and doesn’t wear out its welcome = don’t believe the hype.
Ulver – I’ll preface by saying Ulver is one of my fav music acts ever. But honestly, their kite is starting to float a little too far away and needs to get reeled back in a bit. If Shadows of the Sun was a downgraded meow after Blood Inside’s roar, then this new album is even more inconsistent and as a result, tame.
Vallenfyre – What’s the big fuckin deal? Typical oldschool deathmetal with some doomy overtones. Ahem… yes? Oh, that’s it? The fact that this was from a supergroup only makes it more disappointing.
Jesu – Basically an album of the same song over and over again. And that song is mediocre.
Bloodiest – The premise was exciting, but what it resulted in wasn’t anything special or particularly new.
Haven’t Had a Chance to Listen To Yet:
40 Watt Sun
Graf Orlock
Find more articles with: 2011, Blog, Staff Picks
Apparently there are quite a bit of new staff that I have never heard of. Any of you folks posting in the forum?
on Jan 2nd, 2012 at 13:03Chuck = globox
on Jan 2nd, 2012 at 13:50Fuckin A Jodi! Vintersorg rules
on Jan 2nd, 2012 at 16:09Surprised 40 Watt Sun left so many folks cold. Just picked it up last week & am digging it.
on Jan 2nd, 2012 at 18:3240 watt sun does nothing for me and I am the doom guy. It’s drawn out and whinny to me.
on Jan 2nd, 2012 at 19:12My list: http://abismo666blogzine.blogspot.com/2011/12/lo-mejor-del-2011-sebas.html
on Jan 2nd, 2012 at 20:17(Nº1: 40 Watt Sun)
I can always count on Grim to deliver a list that has little to no overlap with anyone else’s… which is a good thing ’cause otherwise I’d have never heard of gems like Slartibartfass. Weird name, great black metal.
on Jan 3rd, 2012 at 23:31another overlooked 2011 gem: Witheria – thanks Larry! you are 2 for 2 for me this year
on Jan 4th, 2012 at 00:03It’s CRIMINAL you left off Novembers Doom. Aphotic was better then most this year, and not even an honorable mention?
on Jan 10th, 2012 at 00:17I was lucky enough to see 40 Watt Sun in Chicago this last fall and considering I met up with a bunch of the MetalReview staff it was a great time. Superb show.
With that said, I can totally see why many out there aren’t into the album much. It is a tad whiny in spots, and the songs do appear to go nowhere on the surface but for me there’s quite a bit of depth in that fuckin’ record. I personally dig it quite a bit and it cracked my top 5… shit just resonates very, very well with me. I hate to use the ol’ cliche, but I truly feel it’s one of those albums where you’re gonna absolutely fucking hate it, or as has been the case with just about every fan of it out there I’ve run across you hold it in very high regard. Seems there’s no in between on this one.
Lastly, nice lookin’ list, Erik. There are a lot of albums on there I haven’t heard yet and will likely investigate more than a few of them. Also, gonna miss your work over at MR big time, but I look forward to continuing to follow you on Teeth. Cheers!!!
on Jan 12th, 2012 at 16:26