Mars Budziszewski

1. Vastum – Hole Below (20 Buck Spin)
I admittedly slept onPatricidal Lust, but quickly Hole Below hooked me with deceptive psychological cunning rather than brutish barbarity. Music that forms from the deep corners of foggy mental depravity to make for one of the year’s best and my favorite.

2. Mgla – Exercises In Futility (Northern Heritage)
Mgla knows what riffs are worth repeating for long stretches. The songs display a precise level of restraint that creates just the right amount of tension. Darkside’s cymbal work is so crazy tight and complimentary to the guitars. As a (not so good) drummer his playing and the drum production were highlights for me. His busy ride playing on “Exercises In Futility V” made this an exceptional album to me.

3. Nechochwen – Heart Of Ackamon (Bindrune Recordings)
No more lazy Agalloch comparisons, Nechochwen own their sound. The themes of Native American struggle and loss of culture to western expansion in our recent history is a potent source of inspiration for their progressive folk-metal. Heavy history and music that does it justice.

4. Panzerkreuzer – Aurora (Endwar)
I felt like a shivering scared child watching from a doorway as the Reich war machine were flooding the streets of my town. The rumble of tanks and diving U-boats become formidable death metal. Some of the heaviest production this year and certain to stay an underrated album.

5. Primitive Man – Home Is Where the Hatred Is (Relapse)
With hatred dripping like the many leaky pipes, air conditioning units, and one decomposing corpse in apartment 507, Home Is Where the Hatred Is doesn’t crush hope so much as reinforce that there wasn’t any to begin with. Birth. Scrape by. Death.

6. Clandestine Blaze – New Golgotha Rising (Northern Heritage)
Mikko’s best album since Deliverers of Faith. Traditional 2nd wave black metal is still a spicy concoction when executed well. Clandestine Blaze is still one of the ugliest and you know…trve

7. False – s/t (Gilead Media)
Songs so thickly layered and caustic that it should be off putting but the whole swirling mystical vortex is too mesmerizing. The listener has to put in some work. I found myself almost isolating parts and then reassembling them to digest each song. I had the pleasure of catching them live on their tour to promote this record. Rachel’s performance forgoes theatrics and she seems completely caught up in that same vortex. Perhaps a conduit for some other unearthly entity.

9. Akitsa – Grand Tyrans (Hospital Productions)
Not as easily classifiable as strictly “black metal”. You might have to bust out the less often heard “dark metal” tag that creeps up from time to time to describe bands that have taken a few left turns from the basic template. The shrill, blackened production is all there but Akitsa pulls in post-punk riffs and vocals for an interesting and varied album. It’s not perfect and a few times it seems like another band shows up entirely but I had a tendency to forget about this record and find my self surprised each time I gave it a listen.

10. Pissgrave – Suicide Euphoria (Profound Lore)
Teeth gritting, maniacal, monotone vocals, and music that mimics the fervent excitement of a serial killer after an exceptional day of serial killing. The cover art should make the most desensitized metalhead recoil with “Eeeehh! The fuck?”.

• Honorable Mentions (Just five)
• Howls of Ebb – The Marrow Veil (I, Voidhanger)
  I had heard their 2014 album Vigils of the 3rd Eye a few times on soundcloud this year but I actually listened to The Marrow Veil. If post-human beings, part nano and biological, had come across some metalhead’s preserved record collection many millennium into the future, and tried to mimic what strange music they were hearing it would sound like The Marrow Veil. That 60’s spy/Goblin riff in “Standing On Bedlam, Burning In Bliss” is worth the listen alone.
• Secrets of the Moon – Sun (Lupus Lounge / Prophecy Productions)
  If the lead singer was so pretty and marketable as that of Deafheaven the metal elite would be having seizures because Sun is the real gateway metal album that they fear could expose black metal to the false headbangers. It’s retains enough black metal atmosphere, and even a few spots of full-on fast black metal albeit softened by a more round and pleasant production. Aside from that it has what is most dangerous: catchy, well written songs. Your one friend that is cool but never got past Slipknot and screaming vocals might actually dig this record. Guard it with your life, or spread the news far and wide.
• Koufar – Lebanon For Lebanese (Fusty Cunt)
  Power Electronics. A bit of a left down the alley for a metal year end list but it’s well known that Noise/PE is a genre that a fair amount of metal listeners also get into. Koufar is inspired by his minority Lebanese heritage and makes an exceptional album about pride and mid-east strife that doesn’t feel icky like much of the right wing/NS extreme stuff that is an accepted facet of the noise genre-scape.Sarpanitum – Blessed Be My Brothers (Willowtip)
  Besides Obsequiae another band released an excellent medieval themed album this year. On Blessed Be My Brothers there are no folk instruments nor passages utilizing them to oversell the concept. Instead they incorporate medieval sounding riffs and subtle synths that work as killer death metal songs first.The Body & Krieg – s/t (At A Loss)
  Just the type of noisy, weird, yet digestible assault I can get into. I think it’s a testament that these guys got together for just 2 days to record this material. A tight deadline or short window of opportunity is a great motivational force and can really bottle a vibe that would otherwise peter out over a longer session, or some back and forth internet cobbled exchange between creators. It’s not perfect, but has a flare and uniqueness that you won’t find in any other metal related record this year.Disappointing Albums of NoteCorrections House – Know How To Carry A Whip (Neurot)
  I dig the name, the aesthetic, Mike IX’s lyrics, and the overall idea of this super-group of sorts but the parts do not make a compelling whole on album number two. I don’t think I hyped it up either, it’s just a bummer that more engaging material isn’t coming from this group.

  Lost Soul – The New Beginning (Apostosy)
  Like the deluge that engulfed Atlantis this record is a massive tidal of riffs, uprooting epic layers of instrumentation which was sort of the problem for me. It was all debris, massive columns, and statues of gods crashing and swirling with the waves and, as a listener, I am helplessly among it all with nothing to hold on to. I was a big fan of Immerse in Infinity and was more convinced by it’s grandiosity than Atlantis: The New Beginning.