Post by Nickyboi on Dec 7, 2010 5:45:00 GMT -5
I've been reluctant to post this without hearing the new one from Negative Plane, but I can always drop that in later I guess.
2010 has been a pretty decent year as far as I'm concerned:
Coffinworm - When All Became None
Onion Munchers - Paracletus
Grand Magus - Hammer of the North
Grave Miasma - Realm of Evoked Doom
Haeresiarchs of Dis - Denuntiatus Cinis
Nachtmystium - Addicts
Nagelfar - Srontgorrth
Rotting Christ - AEALO
Twilight - Monument to Time End
Von Goat - Septic Illumination
Watain - Lawless Darkness
Winterfylleth - The Mercian Sphere
Witchrist - Beheaded Ouroboros
The debuts from Von Goat and Coffinworm were great, really encouraging material and I hope we see more of them in coming years.
Initially, I was hugely impressed with the albums from Nachtmystium, Watain and Twilight but as time has gone on, I find myself drawn to them less and less. All three have some brilliant tracks but they all come unstuck because of their inconsistency, for me. Conversely, AEALO and Hammer of the North, which initially left me cold, have really grown on me. Haeresiarchs of Dis took me completely by surprise and delivered an excellent album, reminiscent of Emperor at times.
Despite being re-releases of old material, the Grave Miasma EP and Srontgorrth deserve some recognition for being utterly, titfuckingly brilliant.
The Mercian Sphere is an album that's really made me sit up and pay attention. Winterfylleth's debut was decent enough, a fairly no-nonsense Anglo-Saxon-themed blast, but I've been really impressed by the maturity of their second full-length. It's a grander album by far, introducing such arty accoutrements as acoustic interludes, but they genuinely add depth to the album as a whole . The metal is definitely blacker than it was on their previous effort, the tone overall being darker and less celebratory. It's still just short of greatness but there's obviously a lot of potential for this band.
Paracletus... well, it was going to go one way or the other. As I was handing over my cash I was fully expecting to have been duped by fancy NED pre-release material, anticipating another riffless tech-fest supposedly exuding menace and theological brilliance but actually delivering something akin to Blut Aus Nord on a bad day. So maybe I'm being overly enthusiastic purely because Paracletus isn't like that - at all - it's seriously fucking good. Sinister melodies are married wonderfully alongside that familiar murky chaos into a very convincing whole; a fitting end to the trilogy, but where next for DsO?
Beheaded Ouroboros probably needs no introduction, but it's certainly the most savage and ferocious album I've heard this year. Initially I was a bit disappointed with its brevity but not a second is wasted, and frankly I'm not sure I could take much more after 39 minutes of such an assault. Dense and violent, anyone that hasn't heard this yet should endeavour to do so.
I think that's every new release I bought this year, and I'm struggling to pick one above the others. Maybe I'll be able to provide a definitive winner once Stained Glass Revelations is released.
2010 has been a pretty decent year as far as I'm concerned:
Coffinworm - When All Became None
Onion Munchers - Paracletus
Grand Magus - Hammer of the North
Grave Miasma - Realm of Evoked Doom
Haeresiarchs of Dis - Denuntiatus Cinis
Nachtmystium - Addicts
Nagelfar - Srontgorrth
Rotting Christ - AEALO
Twilight - Monument to Time End
Von Goat - Septic Illumination
Watain - Lawless Darkness
Winterfylleth - The Mercian Sphere
Witchrist - Beheaded Ouroboros
The debuts from Von Goat and Coffinworm were great, really encouraging material and I hope we see more of them in coming years.
Initially, I was hugely impressed with the albums from Nachtmystium, Watain and Twilight but as time has gone on, I find myself drawn to them less and less. All three have some brilliant tracks but they all come unstuck because of their inconsistency, for me. Conversely, AEALO and Hammer of the North, which initially left me cold, have really grown on me. Haeresiarchs of Dis took me completely by surprise and delivered an excellent album, reminiscent of Emperor at times.
Despite being re-releases of old material, the Grave Miasma EP and Srontgorrth deserve some recognition for being utterly, titfuckingly brilliant.
The Mercian Sphere is an album that's really made me sit up and pay attention. Winterfylleth's debut was decent enough, a fairly no-nonsense Anglo-Saxon-themed blast, but I've been really impressed by the maturity of their second full-length. It's a grander album by far, introducing such arty accoutrements as acoustic interludes, but they genuinely add depth to the album as a whole . The metal is definitely blacker than it was on their previous effort, the tone overall being darker and less celebratory. It's still just short of greatness but there's obviously a lot of potential for this band.
Paracletus... well, it was going to go one way or the other. As I was handing over my cash I was fully expecting to have been duped by fancy NED pre-release material, anticipating another riffless tech-fest supposedly exuding menace and theological brilliance but actually delivering something akin to Blut Aus Nord on a bad day. So maybe I'm being overly enthusiastic purely because Paracletus isn't like that - at all - it's seriously fucking good. Sinister melodies are married wonderfully alongside that familiar murky chaos into a very convincing whole; a fitting end to the trilogy, but where next for DsO?
Beheaded Ouroboros probably needs no introduction, but it's certainly the most savage and ferocious album I've heard this year. Initially I was a bit disappointed with its brevity but not a second is wasted, and frankly I'm not sure I could take much more after 39 minutes of such an assault. Dense and violent, anyone that hasn't heard this yet should endeavour to do so.
I think that's every new release I bought this year, and I'm struggling to pick one above the others. Maybe I'll be able to provide a definitive winner once Stained Glass Revelations is released.