YEAR END LIST - ALBUMS 5-1

And now for my favourite picks of the year. Some surprises here for you, I don't doubt...

5 - Intervals - A Voice Within

Intervals were a band I was familiar with in the same vein as Chimpspanner or Pomegranate Tiger. Solid, serviceable instrudjent. And then they went and added a vocalist, and released this. Holy shit. So many people decried them for it, and so many people were just plain, straight up WRONG. The songwriting on this album is immaculate, the drumming of Anus Pastry is phenomenal (as is his ability to pull odd faces in photos), and the vocals. It's a shame that Semesky has already upped and left, that's for sure. Ephemeral is up there for my riff of the year, no doubt.

4 - Machine Head - Bloodstone & Diamonds

I had been prepared for this album to now make my year-end list. I had made my peace with it, and that peace was based on Unto the Locust being decent, but not great, And then Machine Head come out with this, and kerbstomp any doubt I had. More astounding is that they're 45, going on 50... Exceedingly strong songwriting coupled with a more experimental edge combine to form an album that is better than The Blackening. And yeah, I fuckin' said it.

3 - Fallujah - The Flesh Prevails

Surprised, Bren? It grew that much on me in FOUR DAYS. I hadn't thought much to this based on the tracks I'd heard off of it. Then some bearded sod called me out on it, and I listened to it in full. In the three days after it came, I had listened to it end-to-end seven times. The mixture of atmospheric spacey-ness and crushing death metal is compelling. It's what The Contortionist would have been had they been a death metal band.

2 - The Devin Townsend Project - Sky Blue

I never foresaw myself enjoying a pop album, but ostensibly, that's what this is. Twelve tracks of pop metal that runs the gamut between hard rock and shoegaze. We have a song that was influenced very overtly by chart r'n'b (and Dev acknowledges this with no qualms whatsoever). What people should accept is that, musically, Townsend is past metal. Long past it. And his current direction is one I would lend my axe to gladly. This is EASILY his best album yet.

1 - Black Crown Initiate - The Wreckage of Stars

Surprise fuckin' surprise, eh? Anyone who knows me will know this and Sky Blue duelled it out for my AOTY for a few months. This finally pipped Devin to the post, and that's no small feat at all, especially for the band's first full length release. The heavy, the ominous, the ambient and the unexpected collide with the force of comets to form something truly special. Perhaps this album should have been called Herman? Because it is the planet smasher. No album this year has warranted so many listens... And it only came out in September. And I only got the disc in October (thanks Customs, you fuckers).

Other honourable mentions: Sabaton - 'Heroes', In This Moment - 'Black Widow', Devil You Know - 'The Beauty of Destruction', Verse Vica - 'Endeavor', Bloodshot Dawn - 'Demons', Cormorant - 'Earth Diver', Wovenwar - 'Wovenwar'.

YEAR END LIST - ALBUMS 10-6

Yes indeed! It's that time again where I count down my top ten discs of the year. It would have been five, but 2014 was a very good year for music and five simply isn't enough.

10 - The Algorithm - Octopus4

It's rare for an album that can be described as instrumental to make it onto my list (it's not fully instrumental - there is a prolonged section of French rapping on 'Un Dernier Combat' and scattered vocal clips here and there on other tracks), but The Algorithm has managed to make it onto this year's. More focused than his last release, 2012's 'Polymorphic Code', as well as more organic and with a higher focus on melody and catchy songwriting,

9 - Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Some bemoan Mastodon for their current direction, deride that they have eschewed heaviness for songs that are more accessible. I quite enjoy their current progressive leanings. Once More 'Round the Sun continues along the same tangent that began with The Hunter, with a few tracks that hearken back to their material on Crack The Skye. 

8 - Nexilva - Eschatologies

This is the debut full length (at least, to my knowledge) from these guys, who I saw in April this year. Extremely rapid, technical riffs and machine gun drumming meet a dual-layered vocal delivery of throaty growls and shrieks, with just a smattering of keyboards to blacken things up a little. They're also possessed of one of the most terrifying bassists ever. Sweep picking a bass? Yup. Fucking scary. The only downside to the album is that the snare seems mixed far too low for all those blasts.

7 - Scar Symmetry - The Singularity, Part I: Neohumanity

With Death Jovi, you know what you're getting, by and large. Technical, widdly riffs, coupled with thundering bass, drums and a double vocal delivery. It's cheesy as fuck and they know it. And normally, pop-metal doesn't work. But when it;'s left to Per Nilsson, it works, and it works bloody well. Scar Symmetry will likely never return to the melodeath sound of their Alvestam years, but that's fine - the current direction fits them like a glove. Or a custom fleshlight.

6 - The Contortionist - Language

2014 was certainly the year in which I came to appreciate dreamy, spaced-out tunes, where sonic density and heaviness takes a back seat. The Contortionist certainly sound nothing like they did on Exoplanet, and to a lesser extent Intrinsic. Lessard's vocals are warmer than Carpenter's, which leads to a warmer sounding album than the previous two were, but one no less compelling for it. Walk through a row of trees in autumn and tell me this doesn't make sense.