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.
