Best Albums of 2018 - A Year In Review
But regardless, you might say, Adam, why are you beating around the bush so much? Well, to answer that I will say to you, this is my platform, I can speak as much as I want to. So let us discuss what exactly you will see in this list huh? Seeing as it is the first official list, we will explain how this is going to go; First, the two head writers of this wonderful blog will highlight 5 albums that are not on the final list, but that we thought needed a spotlight. Ideally, they will not be albums we have already covered on the blog, but I cannot control everything. After we do this, the writers here will create a top 10 list that showcases albums that we both agree on to be the highest echelon of music in the past year. These will be the best of the best. So without further ado, let us introduce, the best music of 2018.
- Adam Richards
Adam's Honorable Mentions
Paara - Riitti
Finnish sextet Paara caught my attention early this year with their sophomore release Riitti, and man was I impressed. Awesome folk doom and intense black metal combine to make a digestible and addictive album. While there are only 4 songs, with two surpassing the 11-minute mark, the listen is more enjoyable with every rotation. While it fell off my radar initially with the immense amount of music released this year, I decided to revisit the album multiple times, and never came close to regretting it. The first track, "Viimeinen virta", my personal favorite track, begins slow and clean with soaring vocals and breaks into addictive black metal with some of the cleanest kvlt a man can ever produce, even if it is in Finnish. Blast beats and tremolos float all over the album and sound absolutely amazing. This album's production fits the music so well, with it being just heavy enough while still being atmospheric. This year has been amazing for black metal, and this is one of the finest examples of those to surface this year.
Rivers of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name
This album has contributed to the majority of my repeat listens over the past year, and at a point, I could not stop listening to it. I would play the album multiple times in a row. Rivers of Nihil's third studio album Where Owls Know My Name has continued to captivate me with its weird aura. I simply cannot put this album down. While I do have my quarrels with it, this album managed to suit my listening tastes with mournful lyrics and pummeling instrumentation, minus the clean sections of course. But those clean sections provide well-needed breaks for those harsh bouts of riffage. And for the record, I am totally supportive of saxophone in my metal, so long as it remains, interesting, well-used, and sparingly used. This album was able to check at least two of those boxes, therefore I am satisfied. Songs like "A Home", "This Silent Life" and "Subtle Change (Including the Forest of Transition and Dissatisfaction Dance)" are that continue to draw me in as singles, but also as portions of the LP as a whole. While it is not my favorite progressive death metal album of the year, this album showcases a great maturity in this bands songwriting and has kept me coming back time after time.
Agrimonia - Awaken
Sweedish post-metal five-piece Agrimonia has released easily one of my favorite albums this year. Coming to my attention very early this year, I have revisited the album time and time again as I have gone through my yearly motions, and much like the albums above, I am continuously more and more impressed with it on every listen. This seems to be a trend with albums this year, where the artists are able to accomplish great feats of songwriting to the point of where LITERALLY every time I listen to the songs I hear something different. For example, on the third or fourth listen of this album, I noticed how the vocals sounded, not a bit off, but definitely different. When I looked into it, I realized that the vocalist is a woman! I was astounded by this because the vocals on this album are one of its best features, and show themselves as some of the best female harshes I have ever heard. Seriously. Listen to them. But regardless of this, the album is hooky, heavy, and amazingly well written. Definitely give this one a listen. (Also "Foreshadowed" may be one of the best songs of 2018, just saying)
Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods
Let us first address the elephant in the room, or moreover, the Abbath. Yes, this is Immortal sans Abbath, but it is also Immortal avec Demonaz, so how bad can it really be? Well, the answer to that is not at all. Not only is it not bad, but it also isn't good either. This album is great. More than that even. I love this album. For plebian scum like myself, it is easy to get hyped for a new album from legendary Norwegian black metal band Immortal, and while this is the first album by this band I personally have listened to, their landmark status has been made more than apparent to the world of black metal. Therefore, it is not only fitting that I mention this band and their music. This album was an amazing listen, with amazing riffs, pummeling drums, and earth-shattering shrieks driving this powerhouse of a "classic" black metal album. It never hurts to go back to your roots, and this album is a trve example of that. Every song is amazing, with the title track and "Called To Ice" being highlights of sheer black metal proficiency. Ah, also "Mighty Ravendark" is, a. perhaps my favorite Immortal song, and b. Easily the best black metal song this year. Just a little something to plug your brain with. Anyway, listen to this album for a rockin' black metal time.
Møl - Jord
Black metal is a fascinating genre. Zeal And Ardor uses slave spirituals to haunt their listener into questioning what exactly the message is, Ulver utilizes electronics and ambient elements to barely pass as black metal, Jute Gyte uses harsh noise and absolute chaos to make you absolutely uncomfortable, and Oranssi Pazuzu uses psychedelia to send you into a trip without any actual substance use. As you can see, black metal provides a strong base for vast experimentation. While all of these bands are not what is called blackgaze, or not even post-black, where some might place blackgaze, they are all great examples as to how the black metal genre is so open to interpretation. Bands like Alcest and Deafheaven have cemented themselves as curators and innovators of this subgenre, and although the latter has released an amazing album this year, I believe Denmark's Møl has crafted a far superior work. By keeping aggression high and production dreamy, this bands' debut album Jord came to me far later in 2018 than I wish it had. Simply put, its black metal crushes you while a light ambiance floats above the whole record. The clean sections match the harsh in passion and permeate throughout each song. "Penumbra" and "Lambda" are excellent examples of how the shoegaze influence directly translates to black metal, and this crests with "Ligament" perhaps my favorite song on the album. This record is very fun, very intense, and showcases a brilliant band and their skills. This album is amazing, and I cannot wait to see how they progress.
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2018 was a seminal year of change in many ways. It saw the collective world plunge ever deeper into the darkest timeline, marked huge changes in my personal life and most important of all saw music firing on all cylinders with unfathomable amounts of good releases. In the golden age of the modern underground, so many great collections of tunes manage to see the light of day and as always keeping track of all them can be incredibly difficult. It is certainly a task that I did not live up to, and becomes increasingly trying when delving into the back catalogs of so many greats (cough TDH) but alas I still managed to consume enough worthy art to kill any sizable horse. So here it is, the collaborative list comprised of mostly taste-made picks from the overall metal blogosphere packed with just enough originality to warrant existence.
- Samuel Graff
Sam's Honorable Mentions
Between The Buried And Me - Automata I/II
Between the Buried and Me hold a special place in the hearts of many a prog nerd across the world, and for good reason. The veritable legends have dropped consistent fire for the past 11 years, so it should come as no surprise that Automata I and Automata II continue this trend. Though the Sumerian enforced decision to split the release in two did actively hinder the album for a time, as a whole the work sees the Carolinian greats doing what they do best over 10 tracks that span just about an hour of run-time. This album has it all, the math-tinged "heavy" sections, the catchy melodic hooks, the Btbam signature brand of weirdness, and most importantly 4 of the best prog musicians (and Tommy) in the world delivering on multiple levels. It doesn't even matter that this is probably my least favorite of their post Colors material, Automata is just great. Highlights like "Condemned to the Gallows," "Blot," "the Proverbial Bellow," and the instant brassy classic "Voice of Trespass" are sure to be live staples in the years to come and I'll definitely continue to jam out to these sheer prog bops whenever the hankering for Btbam bites.
Death Grips - Year Of The Snitch
Everyone's favorite hip-hop experimentalists are back with their 6th full length and it manages to sound distinctly Death Grips while furthering their sonic evolution. Year of the Snitch is an esoteric and abrasive piece out of weird rap music that stands out as something unique in 2018. "Black Paint" may very well be the krautrock/hip-hop/noise banger of the year and the rest of the track listing sees MC Ride and the boys noiding listeners with samples of their previous work, densely layered synths and guitars, songs with no discernible melody and the stand out oddness that makes their music so great in the first place. Each Death Grips albums holds a special place in their discography and Year of the Snitch will surely be remembered as their bleakest -yet somehow listenable- venture yet.
1914 - The Blind Leading The Blind
Among other things, 2018 was the 100 year anniversary of the end of WW1, a conflict so horrible in its vastness that would define the shape of the world to come. Ukraine metallers 1914 surely recognize the gravity of it, as they have dedicated the projects very existence to the great war itself. Their second LP the Blind Leading the Blind sees the group take the subject matter and turn it into a truly compelling collection of blackened death with a few other genres thrown in for good measure. Standout tracks "Paschenhell" and "A7X Manifesto" mold great songwriting with genre cliches in a fantastic way, while the epic "the Hundred Days Offensive" injects a heavy helping of post-metal to make for a truly compelling conclusion. Metal as a genre is rare as it can sound like the horror it portrays and 1914 use this inherent aural strength to imbue this album with an immediacy that rings especially true in these troubled times. This and the fact that the Blind Leading the Blind chock full of bangers make it a worthy listen for sure and a welcome addition to this list as a whole.
Gaerea - Unsettling Whispers
Ah black metal, a styling so ripe for experimentation, yet somehow rooted in the blast beats and kvlt wails of the past. Chances are, you've probably heard a lot of samey sounding trve albums in your day as I certainly have. Thankfully Portuguese newcomers Gaerea kind of exploded onto the scene this year provide a refreshingly novel take on this beloved sub-genre. They took the sonic palettes of Dodecahedron, Mgla, Ulcerate, and Schammasch to name a few, threw them in a soup with some chromatic tremolos and atmospheric passages for good measure, and served it up in the form of Unsettling Whispers to the acclaim of this corpse paint wearing chef. Now if that strained metaphor didn't convey it, this album contains a little bit of every micro sub-genre of the blackest of metal and the way that Gaerea molds them into a concise 41-minute piece of concentrated kvlt is quite impressive. The work is amazingly cohesive and offers a great look into what makes the evilest of metal sub-genres so damn awesome. Debut albums like this are hard to come by, and I cannot wait to see what else these masked metallers have in-store.
Forn - Rites of Despair
Sludge/doom outfit Forn hail from the great city of Boston, and their second LP Rites of Despair is a fantastic piece of sad boy metal. This collection of tracks takes the best of what both sub-genres have to offer, taking the hardcore bite of sludge guitars and stacking some Yob-influenced ethereal cleans atop over the course of this 65-minute contemplative monster. The low growls break through the mix to sing about the deeply compelling journey through a damaged mind while the rhythm section pummels away. The band operates as an efficient unit, adeptly blending these different elements to form a collection of tracks that are both incredibly aggressive and deeply introspective. Moreso than any other album if its ilk, it feels distinctly personal and serves as an excellent soundtrack as the outside world burns increasingly brighter.
THE TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2018
10: Eneferens - The Bleakness Of Our Constant
One man projects are inherently interesting. Much of metal and music as a whole comes as a byproduct of positive human collaboration, so to remove that base quality is intriguing in of itself. American black metal has had a healthy relationship with the sole creator, with Leviathan being probably the most important kvlter to come from this great continent. Enter Eneferens, the brainchild of Minneapolis native Jori Apedaile with their (his?) third full length the Bleakness of our Constant. Like a few other albums here, this work takes a myriad of influences and sub-genres and fuses them into a digestible package of intense sadness. We got em all on display here: black, post, folk, doom, and even death and the way Apedaile flows in and out of obvious genre trappings create some wholly unique compositions. The tone of this collection of songs is almost aggressively depressing and some of the pieces on display here truly beg for some sort of deeper introspection. For me, the standout track is "the Weight of the Mind's Periapt." This emotive tune turns the post/doom elements up to eleven, complete with a fantastic chord progression and crushing sentimentality that eventually gives way to some haunting Akerfeldtesque cleans. It calms down as the guitars drone on and everything else falls away while the vocals deliver the haunting title of the album. It just feels so damn good, so human, so bare. The Bleakness of our Constant is easily one of the best "atmospheric" releases of the year and I'll be damned if any other 2018 release can sadden the listener so effectively in a cohesive 43 minutes. - SG
9: King Goat - Debt Of Aeons
I pushed hard to keep this album on the top 10, and I will not expound upon this too far, seeing as I did write a very positive review regarding this magnificent release. In short, King Goat's Debt of Aeons is hands down the best "traditional" doom release of this year. However, when I say "traditional", I do not mean to refer to such bands as Reverand Bizarre, although I could draw many comparisons between the two artists. I mean that this is the quintessential doom album of the year. It has everything classic doom metal desires, while still being able to incorporate new and interesting ideas in every song. Soaring vocals, slow chugging guitars, passionate drums, and headbanging breakdowns are all things that make this album great. This again will be a shorter analysis, as you can read the full review here. What I will say though is that this album has slightly dwindled in my ranking of albums this year. This is because of the unneeded interlude tracks "Psychasthenia" and "-", as well as the somewhat lackluster closer "On Dusty Avenues". While I still love this album, I agree to its low placement on the list. However, due to a large amount of time spent on this release occupying my listening rotation, I had to include it here. It is still an amazing album that cements King Goat as a band that has an amazing future in the great world of doom metal. - AR
I pushed hard to keep this album on the top 10, and I will not expound upon this too far, seeing as I did write a very positive review regarding this magnificent release. In short, King Goat's Debt of Aeons is hands down the best "traditional" doom release of this year. However, when I say "traditional", I do not mean to refer to such bands as Reverand Bizarre, although I could draw many comparisons between the two artists. I mean that this is the quintessential doom album of the year. It has everything classic doom metal desires, while still being able to incorporate new and interesting ideas in every song. Soaring vocals, slow chugging guitars, passionate drums, and headbanging breakdowns are all things that make this album great. This again will be a shorter analysis, as you can read the full review here. What I will say though is that this album has slightly dwindled in my ranking of albums this year. This is because of the unneeded interlude tracks "Psychasthenia" and "-", as well as the somewhat lackluster closer "On Dusty Avenues". While I still love this album, I agree to its low placement on the list. However, due to a large amount of time spent on this release occupying my listening rotation, I had to include it here. It is still an amazing album that cements King Goat as a band that has an amazing future in the great world of doom metal. - AR
8: Haken - Vector
So uh, Haken. The boys from Britain are arguably the greatest progressive metal band of our modern era. After dropping Dream Theater worship that's better written than actual DT in the form of Aquarius and Visions, they released The Mountain which I would consider the flat-out best prog album of the 2010s. Its followup Affinity was an experimental homage to the '80s, and in my eyes was somewhat disappointing, but still awesome in a distinctly Haken way. 2018's Vector continues the groups artistic evolution, this time ramping up the heaviness by way of djent, and by cleaving the fat for the groups shortest and most straightforward release. If anything, Vector further proves that the band deserves to sit atop the throne of modern prog through a collection of concise prog metal bangers. Opener "The Good Doctor" is 4 minutes of pop prog goodness combine with some elements of funk and a little climax of its own. "Puzzle Box" is a riff-fueled epic that weaves in and out of its main riff while threatening to burst with djent goodness. "Veil" is this album's signature "Haken epic" and it may not have the highs of Restoration's "Crystallised", but it still delivers on its own. "Nil By Mouth" and "Host" provide fair track variety with the former being a quirky,mosh-inducing prog rager and the later being the albums low ballad. Closer "A Cell Divides" ends things just as nicely as they began and caps off one tight prog album. Vector feels like the result of Haken learning to trim the fat (with the exception of like 9 key/guitar solos but it is prog) in a meaningful way which lends each track a unique sense of purpose. I'd be amiss to not mention that this album is probably my "happiest" release of 2018, Simply pressing play allows the simple euphoria of jamming to my favorite prog band doing what they do best. - SG
7: Fluisteraars/Turia - De Oord
Including a double track split EP could be considered as a questionable choice, but when it consists of two of the finest Dutch black metal outfits performing at their absolute A game, I assure you it is justified. Fluistaars and Turia have dropped many impressive EPs and full-lengths (as well as members of both participating in roughly 9000 other bands) but De Oord takes everything that makes these groups great, and by extension the scene as a whole and distills it down into a pairing of atmospheric black bliss. "Oeverloos" by Fluistaars is the first at-bat. It's massive and triumphant beyond what should be called black metal. Building and building upon a simple, yet intriguing chord progression for the entirety of its run-time, continuously adding moments of "fuck yeah" until its conclusion. As a song, its continuous weaving melodies flow wonderfully into bliss and feels hopeful in such a bleak time. Turia's "Aan den Golven der Aarde Geofferd" offers quite a contrast by embracing the uncertain chaos of the subgenre. Droning through an unsettling chordal motif that echoes throughout the track's 17-minute being. Its primal savageness proves to be an incredibly effective counterpoint and by the time the aural warfare eventually calms down into an elongated fade out, the work feels wholly complete. This relatively short split about two Dutch rivers that border the respective bands' hometowns manages to contain the two best black metal tracks of the year. De Oord takes the moderately light subject matter and spins into a compelling statement that exemplifies what the subgenre has to offer. - SG
So uh, Haken. The boys from Britain are arguably the greatest progressive metal band of our modern era. After dropping Dream Theater worship that's better written than actual DT in the form of Aquarius and Visions, they released The Mountain which I would consider the flat-out best prog album of the 2010s. Its followup Affinity was an experimental homage to the '80s, and in my eyes was somewhat disappointing, but still awesome in a distinctly Haken way. 2018's Vector continues the groups artistic evolution, this time ramping up the heaviness by way of djent, and by cleaving the fat for the groups shortest and most straightforward release. If anything, Vector further proves that the band deserves to sit atop the throne of modern prog through a collection of concise prog metal bangers. Opener "The Good Doctor" is 4 minutes of pop prog goodness combine with some elements of funk and a little climax of its own. "Puzzle Box" is a riff-fueled epic that weaves in and out of its main riff while threatening to burst with djent goodness. "Veil" is this album's signature "Haken epic" and it may not have the highs of Restoration's "Crystallised", but it still delivers on its own. "Nil By Mouth" and "Host" provide fair track variety with the former being a quirky,mosh-inducing prog rager and the later being the albums low ballad. Closer "A Cell Divides" ends things just as nicely as they began and caps off one tight prog album. Vector feels like the result of Haken learning to trim the fat (with the exception of like 9 key/guitar solos but it is prog) in a meaningful way which lends each track a unique sense of purpose. I'd be amiss to not mention that this album is probably my "happiest" release of 2018, Simply pressing play allows the simple euphoria of jamming to my favorite prog band doing what they do best. - SG
7: Fluisteraars/Turia - De Oord
6: Horrendous - Idol
Being well versed in the prog genre can be a very helpful quality when listening to most metal these days. It is rare to find a band in the modern death metal scene that does not utilize progressive themes or cliches. Quartet Horrendous have truly been able to take the two genres of death and prog and fuse them into an interesting listening experience on every rotation. Idol shows a matured version of a 90s death metal band mixed with strange vocals, odd rhythms, and a FAT bass line. Seriously, the bass on this album is perhaps the finest released this year, and after listening to this album many times, it makes me very happy whenever I hear such an unrecognized instrument in metal making a giant compliment to the album as a whole. With so much going on at one time throughout each track, every listening experience can be focused on a certain aspect of the music. The complex drums, amazing riffs, the aforementioned bass, and of course the unconventional vocals. Each song feels full and neither too long or short in length. With only a 40-minute runtime, this feels great to listen to at almost any point in the day. I am even listening to it as I write this little blurb. This album makes a genre that is generally a copy and paste format, to a plebian like myself at least, and infuses it with energy and grace, unlike anything I have heard this year. Without question, this is the best death metal album of the year, and perhaps the best progressive one as well. If you haven't heard this album, definitely give it a listen. - AR
5: Mournful Congregation - The Incubus Of Karma
Funeral doom remains one of the most difficult sub-genres to penetrate as a metal fan in 2018. It probably has something to do with the incredibly slow tempos, the continental song lengths, the crushing dirges or its nature along with a few other factors. So then, its a wonder that 25+ years into their career that Aussies Mournful Congregation has managed to take the metal world by storm with their 2018 opus, The Incubus of Karma. This album exemplifies the core tenants of funeral doom. Crushing heaviness, extensively long songs continuously longer than 15 minutes, tempos slow enough to outlive a cow, and subject matter of the grimmest variety. The Incubus of Karma takes what many would hear as weakness and turns it into destructive strength. Mournful Congregation writes with an ear of considerable maturity, injecting beautifully sorrowful guitar leads and melodic thoroughness into these monolithic compositions to make them digestible enough for any discerning metalhead while retaining the unbelievable weight that makes them so compelling, making this 80-minute colossus not only listenable but amazingly engaging as well. Another fantastic soundtrack for the dismal year. - SG
4: Sumac - Love In Shadow
This is another album that I had previously reviewed on this platform, which you can see here. Much like the King Goat album, I gave Sumac's third LP a glowing review, and for very different reasons than I am to put here. After relistening to Love In Shadow to place it where it truly deserves on this list, it revitalized its grandiose that I had experienced on the first few listens. This album is long, and therefore I did not listen to it as much as I should have. For those who don't to read the fully comprehensive review, here's the picture; This album is visceral, it's brutal, and it's unrelenting. The breaks are short-lived and come and go before you can catch your breath. It is dissonant in all of the right ways and is probably the heaviest album of this list. This band is amazingly consistent and honestly, I did not know that I needed this album. Sumac released two full-lengths this year, this solo and one with Keiji Haino, and both are amazing. This comes after What One Becomes only released two years prior, and their debut, The Deal, one before that. But this is an uncontested beast. This album rivals What One Becomes for the place of the best of their three solo records, and has firmly set Sumac as front-runners of the sludge and post-metal genres of the modern era. - AR
3: Frontierer - Unloved
As Dimitri Minakakis so eloquently put it almost 20 years ago, "I smell that whore", and thus, with a dissonant octave, mathcore was born. Now the Dillinger Escape Plan's "43% Burnt" and Calculating Infinity are far from the first album in the style, but that intro joke was worth it. Anywho, mathcore in the 2010s has seen somewhat of an unusual existence as most seasoned fans see the genre as having peaked in the mid-2000s with the exception of whenever the most recent Car Bomb has been released as one is reading this. That's why Frontierer's Orange Mathematics was seen as a breath of fresh air for the subgenre, and also why the bands sophomore effort Unloved hits so damn hard. Evil genius Pedram Valiani had a hell of a year in 2018 between this release and Sectioned's debut album, Annihilated. While both are fantastic in their own right, Unloved edges it out through sheer force of will. This album really has it all. The slabs of iron that make up the guitar tone, the throat-shredding mid growls that turn every other line into a hook while simultaneously being over the top edgey in the best of ways, the brutal mix of harsh electronics, the razor-tight rhythm section... I could go on for days, but to put it bluntly Unloved really rocks. It appeals in every which way to the scene kid deep within me. The dizzying array of mathematical loops Valiani and the gang jam through is truly impressive, and the only thing more so is how well crafted the damn thing is. Each of the 14 tracks has a distinct identity of its own and each finds a new way to pummel the listener with an inventive "fuck you". This is one of the best mathcore jaunts in recent years and is hands down the best straight up -core release of the year. Sauce this on and as the endless aural knives press against your eardrum, ask yourself; "Does it feel good?" - SG
2: Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It
Post-rock, keys, and mathcore. If we are being honest, those things should not go together. Keys can probably fit into both of the subgenres listed but, smashing all of it together? No, it really should not work. But, like most genre mashes like this, I am left completely dumbfounded by the beauty and precision to which this feat is accomplished. Rolo Tomassi's fifth studio album, Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It, is breathtaking. This album uses synthesizers and drawn out guitar passages, much in the vain of a plethora of atmospheric black metal and post-rock bands, to provide a beautiful ambiance for the crushing riffage and aggression that mathcore is so famous for. Everything is so perfectly placed in each song, the mixing is phenomenal, and the performance from each member is so emotional and passionate. While "Aftermath" showcases a gorgeous upbeat post-rock track, full with Eva Spence's soaring clean vocals, its swift transition into "Rituals" sends the listener full-force into a mathcore fury. The polyrhythms that the drummer is able to accomplish is nothing short of classic mathcore. Where the late The Dillinger Escape Plan would jazz up their breakdowns, Rolo Tomassi uses soft piano and synths to create ethereal passages that are so perfectly contrasting to the heavy sections. Comparatively to their older material, TWDALWBI is a perfect example of a bands evolution into a cleaner sound. And no, this does not mean the band has sold out. This albums atmosphere permeates the pummeling mathcore in the most perfect way. Thank you, Rolo Tomassi, for crafting such a magnificent beast that is absolutely amazing in its beauty and its viciousness. - AR
1: Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want
I will not lie to you folks, I would have never known this album existed without all of the popular review sources, a majority of who rated this album absurdly high; Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop rated this album a 10/10, the honor to which he has only granted to 4 albums prior (all deservedly so as well). If that does not say enough about this album, I do not know what will. This album is dark, abrasive and uncomfortable. It puts you in a black box and closes in the walls further and further with each song. Every track is unique in its own right and makes you wince as you hear the dissonant synths and shrieking guitars. This album is not for everyone, so the title so gladly lays out for you. You Won't Get What You Want is amazing. Daughters' comeback album is a triumph of not only their return to the scene but is also a strong feat as a senior effort. This band has completely changed their style from their mathy and punky debut and sophomore albums. Their self-titled third album saw more experimentation, closer to this vain, but none of those albums compare to this. This is their Led Zeppelin IV; their Colors; their Jane Doe. This is the cream of the crop. I want to talk about the sound of this album. When I first introduced this band to a friend, one who does not listen to metal, or much intense music for the matter, he was immediately off-put by the harsh dissonance and draining vocals, and to quote him directly, claimed this album was "shite". I will not be harsh on him as he is a good friend but come on, man. It's in the album title. Listening to this album should not be an enjoyable experience. It should be harrowing and uncomfortable. It is so dissonant and abrasive, it can even be nauseating at some points. The culmination of all of the instruments grants the listener an unrivaled experience. This is dark, disturbing music that will instantly kill any vibe. If you enjoy this album, I would like to present to you a challenge. Go to a party and put on the final track of this album, "Guest House", which is perhaps the harshest, most unsettling and intense song on the entire album, and gauge the response from the room. I can almost guarantee that within the first 15 seconds of the song someone will be asking you to turn it off. If they decide not to turn it off, however, the probably will decide it is time when Alexis' vocals pierce the shrieking instrumentation with his moaning vocals. And only if they decide to make it to the climax, where strings play the most intense minor second that could penetrate the already dense murk that is this masterpiece, and the words "Let me in" have firmly etched their ways into your brain, you know you have found the right kind of people to hang out with. This album makes people feel a certain way, and that way that they feel is not positive. It is negative, pessimistic, and cruel. Much like the world today. This is also, for the record, not a metal album. This album would fit much easier into the noise rock category seeing as that is basically what it is, although it is very unique and hard to classify. Regardless of what this album's subgenre is, it is undeniably the best album of the year. If you have not listened to this album, please listen to it front to back just once. It is a perfect representation of the shitstorm that pretty much encompassed 2018. If you are put off, fine, it's very understandable. But if you are intrigued, continue to discover the true meaning of this albums haunting majesty, because words cannot do it justice. - AR
(PS: Let Me In)
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Well, if any of the 5 people reading this somehow made it to the end, thanks! This was an experience to write and illuminating in many aspects. Moving forward with this blog we're gonna push for a more regular schedule (if life and whatnot don't interfere) and may even attempt weekly releases about metal, music, anime or whatever the hell piques the interest of us writers. We'd also like to drop a few long-form think pieces about various topics. Either way, merry 2019 and here's to hoping our collective worldly situation somehow improves.
- Samuel Graff and Adam Richards
Re: 1914; The track is called "A7v Mephisto"...
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