FREE MUSIC MONDAY: 05/01/2015

Free Music Monday does exactly what it says on the tin. Every Monday I will scour BandCamp for only the best free albums.

Free Music.

Every Monday!

Got that? Good.

Let's begin. 

Sea Oleena - Sleeplessness

There are certain trends I notice when trawling BandCamp for free albums. The first is folk, a lot of people put out free folk albums. While I’m sure some of these are great I don’t listen to enough Folk to be able to tell if they’re worth listening to or not and so I tend to leave them be. The second is Post-Rock, a genre second only to Djent in the rock world's hierarchy of bedroom produced albums.

With such saturation of the market, it seems impossible to not include a Post-Rock or Folk album into these articles week-by-week. But what’s the point of posting something generic when you have Sea Oleena’s Sleeplessness? This Canadian release’s mixture of Folk elements and Post-Rock sprinkled over a stew of Ambient Lo-fi Shoegaze creates a rather appetising sonic signature. Unlike much Post-Rock and Shoegaze, the instrumental focal point is not on electric guitars, but the haunting and ethereal vocals of Charlotte Oleena. Indeed Electric Guitars are completely absent from this special brand of Shoegaze; Piano, Acoustic Guitar and big round Bass tones instead fill up this dreamscape (with a small hint of electronics for good measure,) I suppose that’s where the folk elements become apparent.

The song writing is gorgeous, and the production is lush and deep. This album, I believe, will bring up different metal images for everyone, but to me it is the backdrop to a rainy city street. Not because the album itself is sad and grey, but because it is the opposite. It’s soft and comforting, but in a way that makes you feel as if those Summer days are in the past; not the present. Sleeplessness manages to take stale genre tropes and make something fresh out of them; a release well worth your time. 

Vanishes - All Cities Flashing, Forever

I was initially drawn to this release by the album art. It is thoroughly bad-ass isn’t it? The suitably retro cover is the gate to an impressively detailed Chiptune release from Vanishes. While some of the synth sounds on All Cities Flashing, Always seem harsh and unpalatable on BandCamp’s over loud player (as their divine will seems happy to cover VAT calculations but not add a volume control) the production is actually rather impressive. Sounds that could easily become a loud mess are instead highly emotive, tracks like Beatrix Saves The Queen, for example, takes white noise and crafts it in to a surprisingly emotive melodic tool.

It is this use of emotion that I find most impressive on this release. Chiptune, which is basically electronica made with old video game sounds for those not in the know, is normally associate with a far happier, more melodious style. Vanishes however, seem to be going straight for a dark audio assault that is about as far from the genre stereotype as you can get. Yes the production is spot on; that doesn’t mean it is always pleasant, but it is always effective and enjoyable.

Even when melodies and synth sounds present themselves in a more upbeat fashion, the sampling philosophy found on this release has a habit of undermining it. The majority of the “vocals” on this album are samples from old 80s and 90s cassettes that the artist has. These tapes consist of children saying random kid stuff, presumably they’re old home movies or kids playing radio or something like that. Adding these recordings to the nostalgia fest that is Chiptune, the whole thing becomes an experiment in the halcyon days of the listener (assuming they’re in their 20s or early 30's.) Even when the kids aren’t saying sad things (which they do) the whole thing seems rather down, like someone realising that these are not the times they live in any more. All Cities Flashing, Forever is a soundtrack to lost youth presented in a wonderfully retro package.

Kowloon Walled City - Container Ships

I was honestly surprised to see that this album was free. I remember reading about it some time ago and it received pretty good reviews. Now that I have listened to Kowloon Walled City’s 2012 release, Container Ships, I can see why. Drinking heavily from the chalice of Unsane and Isis this is a dragging monolith of an album which is as light and it is expensive …which it is to say it’s damn heavy. San Franciscan Sludgy Noise Rockers' pulsating, bass heavy sound is that special kind of sinister that only Post-Metal and Sludge seem to be able to pull off. It doesn’t need speed to be aggressive. This album has all the aggression you could ever need, bubbling under the surface of the instrumentation and in the grim, desperate vocals.

Atmosphere is truly the focus of this release, it is minimalistic, spartan and absolutely oppressive; it is indeed much like the Container Ship of its name sake in its utilitarian bleakness. As far as album names Kowloon Walled City have really hit the nail on the head here. It is a cliché thing to say, but this is one of those albums where staring at the album cover while listening really does fit perfectly. The band care not for soloing, overly melodious leads, or anything that distracts from the percussive, groove based riffing. That is not to say there is no melody, tracks like Container Ships itself do have incredibly emotive (i.e. bleak) passages based on melodies created through the interactions between the low-end and guitar parts. Creating melody whilst remaining absolutely devastating. If you're looking for something as heavy and roughly hewn as a concrete wall, then look no further.

Interested in having your band featured on this weekly article? E-mail us at pyramidnoise@gmail.com with the subject line "Free Music Monday" with links to your Bandcamp page.

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HAPPY 2015 FROM PYRAMID NOISE

Image Sourced from Cumbrian Sky (https://cumbriansky.wordpress.com)

I want to welcome you, dear reader, to the space year 2015 (still hoping for that commercial Hover Board announcement.) As may have been obvious from the lack of articles we’ve been away traversing the interstellar void since Christmas. Now we're back to kick 2015’s ass; journalism style.

Anyway, to ensure that we collectively begin this year with a decent cynical attitude, here are a bunch of Twitter users not knowing who Paul McCartney is.

Happy New Year indeed…

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RELEASE ROUND UP: 2014

The folks over at LambGoat have put together a huge-ass list of Metal albums that have come out in 2014! It seems pointless to put together a release list for the last two weeks of the year. I mean to be honest, what foolish label would trying and push releases in period of time that their buyer base is almost guaranteed to be drunk?

You can check out the list HERE

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THE WORST ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS JUMPERS EVER

We can all agree that Christmas is a time of great joy. It's a time of giving and love and snow and presents and food and well... a lot of great stuff. However there is a plight upon this, the most Holy of commercial Holidays:

THE ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS JUMPER.

These things are a plight upon the world and must be stopped. For future reference here is a list of the worst offenders so you can recognise the enemy when you see them. The appropriate course of action normally includes burning. 

10: Didn't even have the good graces to write "Sleigher" on it. Heathens.

9: If there was ever a jumper to punch your Nan in, it's probably this one.

8: Christmas; the season of bestiality and matricide. 

7: The album is a classic, this is just tragic. 

6: Nothing says Christmas like animal sodomy.

5: But it...

4: ...seems to be...

3: ...a theme.

2: There's going to be a new Christmas movie tradition started in my house this year. 

1: It really is that simple. Whoever thought of this should be forced to wear every single one of these things all at once in atonement to my eyes.

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BEST ALBUMS OF 2014: #10 - 1 - THE FINALE

It's finally here, the last part of Pyramid Noise's countdown of the Best Albums of 2014. If you've missed the first two parts, they can be found here and here. As with previous lists you can listen along on 8Tracks here, or at the bottom of the page.

Every album in this section deserves the number one spot. This is not in a "Thanks for showing up, have a trophy" kind of way, all of these albums could have taken top billing for very legitimate reasons. Every last one. This year has been a great one for metal and alternative music in general and the qualitative differences between every album on this list is minimal, if there at all. 

So here we go. The final 10.

10: Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation

Artificial Brain get the award this year for best debut full-length release. This is an album unique in the Technical Death Metal genre, managing to both be otherworldly strange yet catchy as the bubonic plague (ABSORBING BLACK IGNITIIIIOOON!). When you see the grim art, courtesy of the new standard in Metal artists, Paolo “Madman” Girardi, gracing the cover, you instantly know of the madness within. This New York Quintet are not content with sweep picking and riffing at 100mph and calling it tech. This is Tech in the same way H.R. Giger is Tech. It is twisted, pulsating and alive, yet you cannot look away. Angular and inhuman riffing meets with only the sludgiest of Death Metal production to create something truly special on this album. If you only listen to one Technical Metal release this year, make sure it is Labyrinth Constellation. It will infect you like it has the rest of us.

9: Black Crown Initiate – The Wreckage of Stars

Black Crown Initiate get the award this year for best debut fu… wait a second… 

*AHEM*

The Wreckage of Stars follows on from the equally fantastic EP; Song Of The Crippled Bull. These guys play Progressive Death Metal in a way opposed to the modern ideas of Progressive Death Metal; Death Metal with some ambient parts thrown in. Instead Black Crown Initiate mix in Folk, yup, finger picked guitar Folk and some of the catchiest choruses you’re likely to hear in Death Metal with their weirdly groovy Prog Death riffery. (And before you ask, no this isn’t the Ensifirum type of Folk.) Whilst some may argue this makes the album “poppy” I say to them pah! Try not to sing along and headbang with Great Mistake. I dare you. With a little more polish, Black Crown Initiate, with their mix of Modern Extreme Metal and Folk elements, are on their way to becoming the Opeth for a new generation. Whilst it is too soon to hold them aloft to that standard, this is still one hell of an album.

8: Revocation – Deathless

I foresee a future in which Revocation have become a house hold name. It is hard to pigeonhole Deathless and doing so would likely be a grave insult. Revocation have released what can only be described as a Metal album, a really, really, fucking great Metal album. It’s Thrash, it’s Death Metal, it’s Metalcore, it’s Melodic Death Metal; it is METAL. They have somehow made an album that is a gestalt conglomerate of traditional Metal styles, but without making an album that you feel you’ve heard before. Revocation have mastered straight up extreme music in a way seldom seen before and likely not seen again. You have A Debt Owed to the Grave to listen to this album.

7: Cynic – Kindly Bent To Free Us

The release of Cynic’s Kindly Bent To Free Us was met with the sound of an infinite number of jimmies being heavily rustled. Instead of pandering to an audience famous for fearing change however, these Floridians embraced Old School Prog Rock and kicked its ass. Paradoxically, this move away from the heavier side of music has created an album that is far less accessible. The songs are longer and denser, time signature wizardry is more prevalent and nothing is done to sacrifice unabashed progression. If Cynic were a lesser band it would be far too easy to meander and get lost in pretence, but Kindly Bent To Free Us doesn’t waste a single note. To many listeners Cynic was a Progressive band first that had Death Metal elements mixed in. By dropping these distractions Cynic have been able to focus on what they’re really good at. This album cements Cynic as the Progressive Powerhouse that they have always been.

6: Mastodon - Once More ‘Round The Sun

You’re probably tired of hearing about how Mastodon have managed to make their signature sound accessible to a pop-music level without sacrificing their intrinsic Mastodonyness. It cannot be overstressed, however, just got good Once More ‘Round The Sun really is. Not since Oblivion has Mastodon been this catchy, it’s next to impossible to spin this album without getting half of it stuck in your head. Though at the same time, it’s as if those melodies entering your skull had some psychotropic effects. This manages to be Mastodon’s most accessible and yet trippiest albums to date. Impeccably addictive song writing meets Georgian Prog on Once More ‘Round The Sun in a miasma of hash smoke. Mastodon have proved here that the lacklustre The Hunter was not the end of them.

5: The Devin Townsend Project – Sky Blue

As much as I personally worship Devin Townsend I was not a fan of Epicloud. Hevy Devy seemed to know what he wanted to do with that release that revelled in 80’s cheesy nostalgia, but I just wasn’t feeling it.  Sky Blue however, the The Devin Townsend Project half of the double Z² release, manages to be what Epicloud wanted to be all along. Sporting some of the biggest choruses of the Canuck’s career Sky Blue doesn’t pretend it’s anything other than it is. A big cheesy, fun album. You can argue all day that he should keep making Metal or reform Strapping Young Lad or whatever, but when Devin releases something as compulsively listenable, that has and continues to actually make the hairs on my neck stand on end, it’s very hard to complain.

4: Every Time I Die – From Parts Unknown

All I want is for everyone to go to hell, there we can be free and learn to love ourselves.

These are the words emanating from Keith Buckley’s tortured vocal chords at the finale of this, the seventh full-length release from Buffalo Hardcore unit, Every Time I Die. I start with this because it perfectly encapsulates this album. From Parts Unknown is the heaviest the band have been in some time, with some thanks going to the production job done by Kurt Ballou of Converge and God City Studios fame. It is, as with many other ETID albums, twisted and lonely, but there is a certain optimism in this album that was missing from the previous release, Ex-Lives. Every Time I Die are mad at the world, at society, at you, for fucking them over and this is no clearer than on tracks such as the chilling and experimental Moor. At the same time though, tracks like Decayin’ With The Boys shows that all is not lost, it’s a full on Hardcore party anthem. It is and ugly album, but it is honest and it is not going to hold back. With From Parts Unknown Every Time I Die knows the world is a screwed up place, but insist you may as well have a party while you’re here.

3: At The Gates – At War With Reality

At The Gates had two hurdles to overcome with At War With Reality. Firstly they had to live up to the almost 20 year old legacy of Slaughter of the Soul. Secondly, those 20 years have been dense with bands heavily influenced by that release. These are bands SgtD of StuffYouWillHate.com would describe as “AtTheGates-core” and it would only be right that the past-masters release a better album than any of these bands ever could. So it must be asked:

Did they manage it?

…

Of course they did, what kind of stupid question is that anyway?

Is it as seminal and important to the development of Metal as Slaughter of the Soul? Well no, but few albums are. It is however the album they were always going to make at this point. A really great one. The latest from the Gothenburg giants mixes together Terminal Spirit Disease, The Red in the Sky is Ours and Slaughter of the Soul to create an album that firmly crushes any and all competition born of the last 20 years. At The Gates have reclaimed the Iron Throne of pedal riffs, as we always believed they would.

2: Soen – Tellurian

Soen fill that void that Tool has left in our hearts. Whilst Cognitive, the bands debut, was a pale imitation of Tool’s sound, Tellurian shows that Soen can match Tool blow for blow. There is something wholly organic about this release from the Swedish Super-group. Something the band must have been aware of when they named their album. Tellurian means “of the Earth” or “Organic” if you will. What started as a band pre-occupied with capturing a certain sound, has become a band freed of any need to enforce that influence. The drum and bass focused sound on this album comes free and easy, ranging from heavy progressive grooves to light and ethereal passages.  This is an ambitions album with every track breaking the 5 minute mark.  Despite this, at no point do these tracks feel more than half their actual length. This is a band made up of truly gifted individuals, including ex-Opeth drummer Martin Lopez and it shows. The new refined sound from Soen on Tellurian shows a band finding themselves in the same way that Tool don’t find time to record a new album.

1: The Contortionist – Language

If I could set a theme in alternative music this year, it would be huge changes in style (That and Prog, this year has been great for Prog.) White Arms of Athena, Cynic, Job For a Cowboy and too many more to even list have come through with albums that completely change how they are perceived. None, however, have embraced this change so fully and with such skill as The Contortionist. Leaving behind past attempts at appearing progressive through interspersed ambient synths, Language is an old style progressive rock album. One filtered through the modern sensibilities of the contemporary extreme progressive world. It would not be too farfetched to call them the new Cynic, high praise indeed, but high praise well deserved.  It is not a heavy album, but it is a beautiful one. One that I believe casts aside the notion that modern progressive bands cannot show restraint or taste when writing music. This album is a river, it ebbs and flows, melodies float in and out. At points there is a small waterfall and the heaviness picks up, only to smoothly transition back into the gorgeous, flowing depths that this release provides. If you had ignored The Contortionist before now, I urge you to drink deep from what Language has to offer.

And there it is. The end of our countdown of 2014. It really has been a great year and we can only hope that 2015 provides just as much excellent music.  

Pyramid Noise: Top Albums of 2014 #10-1 from Pyramid Noise on 8tracks Radio.

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FREE MUSIC MONDAY: 22/12/2014

Free Music Monday does exactly what it says on the tin. Every Monday I will scour BandCamp for only the best free albums.

Free Music.

Every Monday!

Got that? Good.

Let's begin. 

Anup Sastry – Titan

The world of one-man Djent projects tend to fall into certain patterns. In the minority you have the unfairly talented people who are able to play every instrument they need with more skill than most of us can dream to play one. Damn you Ben Sharp, Damn you. For mere mortals however, machine aid must be sought. Often you’ll find that an artist will track guitars and bass and shove Superior Drummer 2 in the mix for their percussive requirements. The drummer for Skyharbor, Intervals and Jeff Loomis, Anup Sastry, however, has done things in reverse. The only real instrument on this impressively meaty Djent album, are the drums, but it’s very hard to tell.

Call it a criticism of the oft over-produced nature of Djent if you will, but even without such loaded opinions to back it up, this is one hell of a release. Despite being a drummer at heart it seems that Anup has the art of melody writing pretty well covered. This album djents in all the right ways and in all the right places. In reality it is perhaps not that surprising that this album is as solid as it is. Good Djent, in my opinion, requires two things; a good sense of groove and rhythm and a strong ear for melody, both of which are present here. As the rhythmic power house behind many a progressive band as well as for two bands that both appeared on our best of 2014 list, I wouldn't be surprised if some of that Melody work has rubbed off on him. If nothing else, this is worth a listen just to see how that programmed guitars sound.

(Spoiler: Better than you’d expect.)

Nicholas Nicholas – Wrong

Brooklyn project Nicholas Nicholas’ brand of Shoegazey Dream Pop is somehow both nostalgic and comforting whilst still feeling new and interesting. Wrong feels like a distant memory, something from your childhood half forgotten. The production is unashamedly inspired by the 80’s. Old school synths, guitar and drum tones that wouldn’t feel out of place on a The Cure record and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a Shoegaze record, reverb and delay on basically everything. While it is influenced by this 30 year old sound however, it retains a sense of modernity that prevents Wrong from simply becoming another throw back release.

The ambience of this album may best be described by a faded photograph, perhaps a photo of yourself when you were very young. There’s nostalgia, sadness of things passed, but it’s warm; bittersweet perhaps being the best word to use, but the album, despite its title, refuses to become completely morose.

The guitars drone ethereally as you expect and the melodies both from the guitar and mouth are hauntingly delayed to the point of incomprehensibility. It is all very Shoegaze, very solid, but nothing unexpected. I don’t see the album causing any hardcore fan of Shoegaze proclaiming this to be the future of the genre and all that came before it are now irrelevant. But it certainly is a great example of the genre and well worth a listen.

Elizabeth Veldon – Music For The Solstice

As today marks celebrations for the Winter Solstice over on the Salisbury Plains, it seems apt to include an album released just for the occasion. Glaswegian Experimental Noise Aritst (as if there’s a non-Experimental Noise Artist) released Music For The Solstice on December 21^st, which the actual date of the Solstice according to Google.

Citing John Cage as a major influence, it is unsurprising that much of this album is quiet to the point of silence. This is not an album to have on in the background, as I made the mistake of doing on a first listen. This is an abstraction of ideas and is something that should be paid attention to. Music For The Solstice represents what the event means to Elizabeth Veldon, realised in processed sine waves. It may not make sense to anyone else, but that’s okay. Music is a very personal expression and that is what I believe this to be, pure personal expression. It is perhaps not something you would listen to over and over, but on this, the darkest night of the year, it might be worth sitting alone with your headphones for half an hour and reflecting.

this is music for the solstice, designed for headphones. 
listen in the dark, wrapped in sound.

Interested in having your band featured on this weekly article? E-mail us at pyramidnoise@gmail.com with the subject line "Free Metal Monday" with links to your Bandcamp page.

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RELEASE ROUND UP: 14/12/2014 - 20/12/2014

Its Teeth

Pulses (EP) (Self-Released)

FFO: Russian Circles, Nine Inch Nails, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky

Listen: Directional Passages

Post-Rock, in recent years, seems to have taken a more bubblegum, sunny day, approach. All in all it’s far too happy and pretty. Its Teeth, solo project of Jacob Belcher of Bastards and Cult Kids fame, in Pulses has captured the darker side of the genre; retaining the ephemeral prettiness of Post-Rock whilst mixing in a lo-fi, electronic grittiness. This release is a breath of fresh air for those who always wished Goodspeed You! Black Emperor had Trent Reznor as a member.

Self-Inflicted Violence

The Sanctimonious Hypocrites Of Reality (Art of Propaganda)

FFO: A Pregnant Light, Deafhevan, Alcest, We Came Out Like Tigers

Listen: Siren

(Post) Black Metal has become a many faceted and versatile beast over the years and UK’s Self-Inflicted Violence are proof of this. Following on from releases such the Dream Pop influenced (if not criminally over-rated) Sunbather and the Punk-Rock and Screamo influenced releases of A Pregnant Light, Self-Inflicted Violence have crafted Black Metal as you may have not heard it before. It is tonally schizophrenic, shifting from light to dark with ease and takes influence form genres un-ashamedly un-Black Metal. Those who favour traditionalism will be indignant at my use of the Black Metal genre when describing this album. Yes the influences of Punk, Shoegaze, 80's Goth Rock and whatever else these guys saw fit to thrown in there often outweigh the pure Black Metal sound, but it would be hard to call this album anything else. Let the traditionalists think what they will. This album is great. 

StarGazer

A Merging to the Boundless (Nuclear War Now!)

FFO: The Chasm, Mitochondrion, Portal, Absu

Listen: An Earth Rides Its Endless Carousel 

A Merging to the Boundless is part of the weirder side of Extreme Metal. Whilst early notes may give this album away as straight up Death, anyone actually paying attention will be rewarded with so much more. It mixes in Thrash, Old School Progressive Rock, Jazz Influences and a myriad of other experimentations. This does not, however, undermine that true death metal approach. Forgoing the sterile over-production that may be linked to phrases such as “Experimental Progressive Death Metal”, StarGazer have instead gone for the old standard of Extreme production; murk. This is one that’ll appeal heavily, though no solely, to those who worship at the altar of early 90’s Death Metal. 

Other Releases

Asking Alexandria – Live From Brixton and Beyond (DVD) (Sumerian Records)

Astrakhan - A Tapestry Of Scabs And Skin (EP) (War On Music)

Blindfisted - Blindfist (Polypus)

Consecration -Ephemerality (UKEM)

Detente - Recognize No Authority (REISSUE) (Xtreem)

Ethir Anduin - I magen av svart kaos (Satanath)

Goatvermin/Cult of the Horns - Goatvermin/Cult of the Horns (SPLIT) (Satanath Records)

Hetroertzen - Aon Soph Aur (Lamech Records)

Ill Omen - Remnant Spheres Of Spiritual Equilibrium (REISSUE) (Nuclear War Now!)

Infant Death - Total Hell (Apocalyptic Empire)

Morbosidad - Tortura (EP) (Nuclear War Now!)

Obscyria - Nefarious Sanctuary (Go Fuck Yourself Productions)

Phantom Chemistry - Whiksey Slurs (BettyElm)

Pineal - Smiling Cult (HPGD)

Quietdrive - The Ghost Of What You Used To Be (Self-Released)

Sabhankra - Seers Memoir (Self-Released)

Siege Mentality - Arrest Days (Witch Hunter)

Skybound – Darkfall (We Are Triumphant Records)

Surachai - Form Volume III (Self-Released)

Svartsyn - Nightmarish Sleep (Carnal)

Telsas Revenge - Au Montreal (Self-Release)

The Cinema - Talking In Your Sleep (Self-Released)

The Story Changes - Never In Daydream (EP) (Self-Released)

Threads - All I've Ever Known (Broken Rim)

Zero Down - No Limit To The Evil (Minotauro)

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BEST ALBUMS OF 2014: #20 - 11

It's finally here, after a few delays we're ready to continue from last weeks' Best Albums of 2014 countdown from #30 to #21 (Not seen it? Click here!) Maybe that album you were so angry wasn't on that list will be on here, or maybe it won't, maybe you'll still be mad and can rage in the comments. It'll be fun.

Either way, it's time for Part 2 of Pyramid Noise's Best Albums of 2014!

Want to listen along as you read? Then find the 8Tracks Playlist here, or embedded at the bottom of the page!

20: Electric Wizard – Time To Die

We have to face the fact that Electric Wizard are never going to release another Dopethrone. That doesn’t, however, mean that they are incapable of releasing another good album. Dopethrone is pretty much the best Stoner Doom album ever made; it’s hard to top that and highly unfair to dismiss Time To Die off hand, as many fans have done. The UK Stoner Titans continue their ramblings into the world of psychedelia with an album that will lull you into a hypnotic state… whilst gnawing on your jugular. This is pure, filthy, desperate, evil pressed on to wax.

Or it is if you own the vinyl, else it’s burnt onto glass and plastic and that just doesn't have the same ring to it.  

19: The Great Old Ones – Tekeli-li

The cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft is a popular theme in Metal. Nothing is perhaps more metal than realising your own insignificance in the face of monstrous space beasts that will send you completely insane just from looking at them. No, not even Satan is that metal. Few bands however, truly capture the essence of Lovecraft’s nihilistic Cosmicism; the worst offender in my books being Cradle of Filth’s Cthulhu. The Great Old Ones’ brand of Melodic Post-Black Metal, however, captures this aura of inescapable doom perfectly with an album as multi-dimensional as its subject matter. From the brooding string opening of Je Ne Suis Pas Fou to the final, lonely notes of Behind The Mountains, Tekeli-li is a grandiose, yet darkly ambient, homage to one of horrors greats.

18: Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails

While I was not caught up in the same hype avalanche as the rest of the metal community, which may account for its mid-tier position on this list, I still immensely enjoyed Fallujah’s follow-up to 2013’s Nomadic EP. Having shed the last vestiges of their Deathcore past, these San Franciscan’s have embraced a sound that is somewhere between technical and progressive and atmospheric and beautiful. The Flesh Prevails is most definitely a death metal album, though it is so much more than that, but simply calling it a Progressive Death Metal album still does not quite capture what this release is all about. It is an album of lights and shades running parallel, becoming intertwined and tangled and then breaking free of each other; it has all the makings of a modern classic.

17: Unearth – Watchers of Rule

Unearth prove that early 2000’s Metalcore still has the scope to be awesome. Whilst other contemporaries of Lamb of God and the NWOAHM movement are dropping like flies, Unearth are soldiering forth, or rather, they are part of a war charge. Watchers of Rule may not break the rules found in the Class of 2005 Metalcore battle plan, it’s questionable if it even bends them, but it does use them to full, ferocious, effect. Whilst a lot of Metalcore bands write songs based around catchy choruses or simple open string chugging, Watchers of Rule is based on riffs, and there are killer riffs to be found on every track of this album. This is the American four piece, and perhaps even the genre, at its best.

16: Bloodshot Dawn – Demons

If you had told me a few years ago that one of the best Melodic Death Albums of 2014 came not from snow swept Sweden, but from the British Seaside town of Portsmouth, I would have had you burnt at the steak for heresy. 

BURN THE HERETIC, BUUUUURN. 

This, however, is exactly what we find. Bloodshot Dawn, in Demons, have released a relentless metal album. The variety on display here is remarkable and the finger blistering riffs often take you by surprise. This is more than just good old fashioned Melodic Death Metal, the British metalers have taken inspiration from every far-flung corner of extreme music. Bloodshot Dawn’s self-titled debut was a band showing their potential, Demons is a band breaking it wide open.

15: Skyharbor – Guiding Lights

Guiding Lights is the easy listening Djent album you didn’t know you wanted. If Intervals’ A Voice Within (featured on part one of this list) could be said to be Djent filtered through the melodious hooks of pop music, Skyharbor’s sophomore release is filtered through Post-Rock. The focus here is on atmosphere, yes the mainstays of the genre remain, but even those are toned down in order to serve the greater atmospheric goal. All aspects of Guiding Lights have been crafted in a way to create ambience; the vocals range from soaring to soft and haunting, the guitars can go from dirty groove machines to whispers on the wind in seconds and the electronics are suitably chilled. Skyharbor share Intervals’ ability to write expertly realised songs in a genre known for the riff-salad approach, the difference is that Skyharbor just do it better.

14: Ne Obliviscaris – Citadel

This is a hard album to write about. Citadel is complex, it’s progressive, it’s beautiful and, I’ll admit, a little bit wanky. What defines this sophomore effort from Ne Obliviscaris, however, is the tangible skill that has gone into each track. Every journey (I hesitate to use the word song as 5 of the 6 tracks are parts of greater wholes) is wonderfully constructed, climbing the mountains of metal aggression and traversing green valleys in beauteous violin sections; both are executed brilliantly. In this writers humble (but correct) opinion Citadel is the album Fallujah wanted to write. Whilst both bands have written incredible albums, Ne Obliviscaris possess a cohesion of thought and skill in composition that is difficult to match.

13: Perturbator – Dangerous Days

This will perhaps be the only time on this list that a music video is mandatory viewing prior to reading an album’s entry. 

Go on, I’ll wait.

Done? Good.

DID YOU SEE HOW COOL THAT WAS!? THAT’S PURE MULLETED, SHOULDER-PADED BADDASSERY IN MUSIC FORM! This is easily my favourite electronic release of the year. While you may only know of Perturbator for that one track he did on the Hotline Miami soundtrack, the music is worth far more than that limited exposure. His brand of retro-style synth pop sounds like it should be playing in a gothy night club, owned by a bad guy from a late 80’s action movie. It’s dark, sexy, paradoxically cheesy and endlessly enjoyable.

12: Hang The Bastard – Sex in the Seventh Circle

Hang The Bastard are putting the occult back into sludge metal. Sex in the Seventh Circle delivers deranged mix of Doom and Hardcore that hits hard and slow and has groove to spare. Occult themes and imagery are expertly coupled with mammoth stomping riffs and Black Metal style vocals (which makes more sense when you consider their Blackened Hardcore past.) It’s a truly strange mix; Crowbar-esque riffing, Hardcore energy and Black Metal screeches all merge together to form a lumbering, gestalt beast that is out for blood and human sacrifice. And it’s fantastic. Sex in the Seventh Circle is half Hammer Horror, half Hammer Smashed Face.

11: Job For a Cowboy – Sun Eater

I’ll get this out of the way, prior to Sun Eater I did not care for Job For A Cowboy. I saw them live, listened to songs on youtube, I just did not like what I perceived to be their kind of stale, soulless extreme music. So for Sun Eater to make it on this list? That is a big deal. Job For a Cowboy are no longer the Deathcore poster child they once were. Sun Eater has more in common with Technical and Progressive Death Metal (especially evident in that rubbery bass sound that sits high in the mix) than it does with Deathcore. This huge departure in sound has served the Amazonians well, the music retains the aggression and heaviness from their core-cantered past, but the sonic move has resulted in a complex and engaging album. Sun Eater feature top notch performances from every member and proves that a Zebra can perhaps change its stripes, and for the better.

That is it for this, the second part of the Pyramid Noise 2014 countdown! Come back soon for the third and final part! Do you disagree with any of these choices? (Of course you do.) Then let us know in the comments below!

Pyramid Noise: Top Albums of 2014 #20-11 from Pyramid Noise on 8tracks Radio.

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