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.
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!
