Metal Monday: Best And Worst of 2011
posted in: Rock
Coming up with the 2011 Best and Worst List was an incredibly daunting task because this year has been one of the best for metal that I can remember. The effort left me with ten albums that probably beat out every album released last year. Heck, even my picks for eleven through twenty might be a step above last year’s Top 10. This year boasts great albums from old bands, new bands, and everything in between in just about every sub-genre that a metalhead could come up with. Progressive, death, thrash, black, metalcore, power, sludge, doom, etc.”great albums across the board. If you’re reading this, you probably already know how much metal ruled this year. So, without further ado, let’s countdown the Best and Worst Metal Albums of 2011, shall we?
Best
10. No Help For The Mighty Ones by SubRosa
Not all metal groups that have women members or violins feel cheap and tawdry, and SubRosa are a perfect example. No Help For The Mighty Ones is a great sludge metal offshoot that delivers on of the most unique and re-playable records of 2011.
9. The Great Mass by SepticFlesh
Take a really killer death metal band and add in a hefty dose of the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and what do you get? Awesomeness, aka SepticFlesh. We did a Q&A with SepticFlesh after The Great Mass dropped. It’s a pretty solid Q&A, and a better album.
8. Paragon Of Dissonance by Esoteric
We actually published a review of this album singing its praises a few months back. Lo and behold, it’s held up as one of the more expansive and impressive albums of 2011. A really cool mix of sludge, doom, death, progressive, atmospheric, drone and post metal, Paragon Of Dissonance is a great album to get you through the winter.
7. Path Of Totality by Tombs
Tombs third, and latest, effort dropped back in the busy month of June without a ton of excitement and buzz around it. A few months later, people hopped on the Tombs bandwagon. Come time for year-end accolades, and Tombs seems to be making just about everyone’s list. It’s pretty rare that there’s an album from such an unknown act so widely acclaimed as one of the year’s best. Tombs definitely deserve it”Path of Totality doesn’t have a single weak spot on the whole album.
6. Weightless by Animals As Leaders
Tosin Abasi. What a talented dude. We already knew that he and his right hand man Javier Reyes were talented thanks to the great album that was Animals As Leaders’ self-titled album. This time around they’ve added Navene Koperweis (ex-Animosity) to the mix and given the album a slightly more human feel (their music still seems pretty impossible to us common folk). If you like incredibly technical, difficult,and ingenious guitar work, then this album is definitely for you.
5. Chaos of Forms by Revocation
Much like the aforementioned Animals As Leaders, Revocation also feature one of the best guitarists around these days: Dave Davidson. Back in August we asked the band some questions regarding their awesome new release Chaos Of forms. Probably the most versatile metal record of the year, this album features a little bit of just about everything”metal or otherwise”in a really metal package. It’s hard not to have the feeling this band is going to be around for a very long time.
4. Sedentary by American Heritage
Clearly there is a recurring theme of bands we’ve covered making it on this list. That doesn’t change here. Back in March we covered how great this album was, and it still holds up. American Heritage pick up where Mastodon left off with Remission, only with a bit more hardcore/punk influence. This album rocks. Hard.
3. This Is Where It Ends by All Shall Perish
All Shall Perish are a band that find themselves just a few steps ahead of the deathcore game at this point. Catchy songwriting, incredibly technical and proficient playing make for an incredibly well-produced album. It’s really anything you could ever ask for in a deathcore record, and then some.
2. Reports from the Threshold of Death by Junius
No bands out there do it like Junius, and that’s no lie. Reports is both a thematic and musical continuation of their second album, and is one of the most emotive metal albums of 2011”maybe even the last decade.
1. The Ghost You Gave To Me by 3
In modern metal it seems like most bands have completely forgotten about catchy songwriting and infectious hooks. At least, metal bands outside of the ultra-mainstream realm. 3 have put together a masterfully catchy and well-written album that still keeps all its metal cred, especially on the prog side of things.
Worst
10. Sounds Of A Playground Fading by In Flames
This album was so much a bad album as it was completely and utterly underwhelming. Just about every aspect of the album is doused in mediocrity with a couple of cool hooks, grooves and riffs sprinkled on top. For a 53 minute album, there’s a serious lack of interesting content here.
9. Burn This World by The Browning
The Browning seem to be another band stricken with a really cool idea but can’t seem to deliver something worthy of the original idea. Most of the songs on this album feel pretty half-baked. It’s hard to think that The Browning won’t eventually figure it out, but this album just isn’t there yet.
8. Post Mortem by Black Tide
You know that one song that always plays on the loading screen for EA’s NHL 12? Well, maybe not, but that’s about the only worthwhile piece of music on this album. They’re still quite a young band, so they get a pass for putting out a cheesed-up lame mainstream metal album (they should take notes from Trivium next time around”In Waves is “mainstream metal” done right).
7. Outlawed by Attila
It’s really hard to take this band seriously. They’ve listed themselves as “party metal” and play pretty ham-handed and obvious offshoot of deathcore. Whether or not they’re particularly serious about their music, it just sort of comes across as a bad joke.
6. My Damnation by Chelsea Grin
No band really has to be groundbreaking or switch up the pace very much to be good, but it seems to be pretty easy for a lot of bands to be woefully predictable and unoriginal. Even if you’re ripping off another band’s style completely (which Chelsea Grin aren’t really doing), you’ve still got to bring something worthwhile to the table.
5. Burning Fortune by Cauldron
In a fictional city where bands sound like they’re B-level acts from decades ago, Cauldron is the mayor. Their first album, Chained to the Nite was fun, cheesy and nostalgic. Now that the schtick has worn off, they’re just making exceedingly dull music. At least they’re really fantastic live.
4. Illud Divinum Insanus by Morbid Angel
Classic death metal group Morbid Angel tried to jump on the metal + electronic bandwagon in 2011, and it was for the worst. The death metal sections aren’t particularly engaging while the electronic parts just sort of seem bolted-on. Hard to believe that this is a Morbid Angel album, really. Someone pinch me?
3. The Black Crown by Suicide Silence
Suicide Silence was a deathcore band/still sort of is a deathcore band/is now also sort of a nu metal band. Things were looking up for them with No Time To Bleed: it was a simple, aggressive, groovy album that was perfect for moshing. They’ve since ditched that idea in favor of sounding more like Korn. Not the best choice.
2. Dedicated To Chaos by Queensrí¿che
I don’t even want to talk about it. It pains me to know that the last few Queensrí¿che albums are some of the worst albums every put out by a metal band, especially since they’re responsible for Operation: Mindcrime”one of the single greatest progressive and concept metal albums to ever be released.
1. Lulu by Lou Reed & Metallica
This album sounds like a group of washed up old dudes trying to sound hip, but in all actuality, sound tragically un-hip. Both Metallica and Lou Reed have seen better days, and it’s all too apparent on Lulu. Had this album been devised and recorded in the late 80s, it probably would have been one of the coolest albums ever. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.