WED., DECEMBER 05, 2007
Post Spotlight to Facebook2007 Rewind: The Year in Metal
by Scott Seward
For the last couple of years, heavy metal fans have been struggling to keep up with the onslaught of amazing albums being released seemingly every week. 2007 was no exception; not since the early and mid '90s has the underground been as strong or as creative. Genre-defining, genre-defying and just flat-out trailblazing music can be heard from every quarter of the metal omniverse — from black metal to doom metal, from post-metal shoegaze to '70s stoner vibes. If you missed out on any of the action, eMusic can handily and heavily get you up to speed.
Let’s start with veteran grindcore brutes Pig Destroyer. Their Phantom Limb album can be tough going for vegetarians but for meat-eaters, the band’s state-of-the-art sound and endlessly inventive riffing — not to mention their hyper-violent speed and heaviness — will be hog heaven. Likewise, the Georgia crust kings known as Baroness serve up some spicy barbecue on their superb Red Album. Southern rock swing is combined with sledgehammer riffing to create a progressive sludge metal epic. Speaking of sweet Georgia sludge — Relapse Records has reissued two crucial past releases by the revered Harvey Milk (My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be and the hard riff rock of The Pleaser) and both are essential for scholars of everything slow, low and bruising. If that isn’t enough low-down southern blood and guts for you, than proceed to Rwake’s blistering Voices of Omens album and wallow in your own filth.
The Great Thrash Metal Revival showed no sign of slowing down. 2007 saw many bands vie for the crown of coolest new old-school thrash act. You can try Dekapitator’s nostalgia-drenched The Storm Before the Calm for maximum crunch. Or you could go for the unabashed Slayer-worship of Evile’s Enter the Grave and get hooked by their ridiculously catchy riffing. If you're in the mood for revelry, you can’t go wrong with the keg party vets of Municipal Waste and their The Art of Partying. And if you want a little '80s crust punk action mixed in with your '80s crossover thrash, than you have to hear the U.K.’s SSS and their speedy and relentless Short Sharp Shock album. It shreds and then it shreds some more.
2007 saw the return of many old school black metal pioneers.
If it seems as if half of all new metal bands are injecting Bay Area and German thrash into their sound, then it also seems that everyone else is either falling hard for black metal or massive walls of doom. Landing on the latter side is Chicago's Minsk. Their second full-length The Ritual Fires of Abandonment combines the glacial post-metal grandeur of Isis with epic sludge and doom that is mighty indeed. France’s Monarch! are no slouches when it comes to massiveness either on their double-disc endurance test Dead Men Tell No Tales.
The black metal world saw the return of many old school pioneers. The infamous Mayhem came out swinging on their Ordo Ad Chao album. And so did the equally venerable Forgotten Woods on their intriguing and lo-fi Race of Cain LP. Darkthrone, a law unto themselves, perversely and decisively proved that they are more metal than you on F.O.A.D. and war metal vets Marduk once again reminded us that they really know how to make Marduk albums on Rom 5:12. It might have been Sweden’s Watain who made the definitive black metal statement in 2007 though, with their confident and captivating Sworn to the Dark album.
But what about death metal? Nile fought the good fight in ancient Egypt (again) on Ithyphallic. Blood Red Throne proved that there was definitely life in the old brutality on Come Death. And the blazing and furious Nox knocked everyone for a loop with their stellar Ixaxaar.
And then there were albums that offered a little bit of everything. Korpiklaani’s addictive trollish hootenanny folk metal on Tervaskanto. Giant Brain’s debut on the Small Stone label mixed krautrock with Detroit guitar fire. Vreid brought the cowbell to black metal on I Krig. And not a moment too soon! Car Bomb did an instrumental math metal number on your head with their Centralia. Iron Fire, Battlelore, Kamelot, Symphony X, Mystic Prophecy, and Epica brought swords, Vikings, derring-do and a whole lotta sweep picking to the party. And Anaal Nathrakh on their Hell Is Empty, And All the Devils Are Here album? They made you forget everything else you had heard, because after you listen to an Anaal Nathrakh album you kinda forget your own name.
Let’s start with veteran grindcore brutes Pig Destroyer. Their Phantom Limb album can be tough going for vegetarians but for meat-eaters, the band’s state-of-the-art sound and endlessly inventive riffing — not to mention their hyper-violent speed and heaviness — will be hog heaven. Likewise, the Georgia crust kings known as Baroness serve up some spicy barbecue on their superb Red Album. Southern rock swing is combined with sledgehammer riffing to create a progressive sludge metal epic. Speaking of sweet Georgia sludge — Relapse Records has reissued two crucial past releases by the revered Harvey Milk (My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be and the hard riff rock of The Pleaser) and both are essential for scholars of everything slow, low and bruising. If that isn’t enough low-down southern blood and guts for you, than proceed to Rwake’s blistering Voices of Omens album and wallow in your own filth.
The Great Thrash Metal Revival showed no sign of slowing down. 2007 saw many bands vie for the crown of coolest new old-school thrash act. You can try Dekapitator’s nostalgia-drenched The Storm Before the Calm for maximum crunch. Or you could go for the unabashed Slayer-worship of Evile’s Enter the Grave and get hooked by their ridiculously catchy riffing. If you're in the mood for revelry, you can’t go wrong with the keg party vets of Municipal Waste and their The Art of Partying. And if you want a little '80s crust punk action mixed in with your '80s crossover thrash, than you have to hear the U.K.’s SSS and their speedy and relentless Short Sharp Shock album. It shreds and then it shreds some more.
If it seems as if half of all new metal bands are injecting Bay Area and German thrash into their sound, then it also seems that everyone else is either falling hard for black metal or massive walls of doom. Landing on the latter side is Chicago's Minsk. Their second full-length The Ritual Fires of Abandonment combines the glacial post-metal grandeur of Isis with epic sludge and doom that is mighty indeed. France’s Monarch! are no slouches when it comes to massiveness either on their double-disc endurance test Dead Men Tell No Tales.
The black metal world saw the return of many old school pioneers. The infamous Mayhem came out swinging on their Ordo Ad Chao album. And so did the equally venerable Forgotten Woods on their intriguing and lo-fi Race of Cain LP. Darkthrone, a law unto themselves, perversely and decisively proved that they are more metal than you on F.O.A.D. and war metal vets Marduk once again reminded us that they really know how to make Marduk albums on Rom 5:12. It might have been Sweden’s Watain who made the definitive black metal statement in 2007 though, with their confident and captivating Sworn to the Dark album.
But what about death metal? Nile fought the good fight in ancient Egypt (again) on Ithyphallic. Blood Red Throne proved that there was definitely life in the old brutality on Come Death. And the blazing and furious Nox knocked everyone for a loop with their stellar Ixaxaar.
And then there were albums that offered a little bit of everything. Korpiklaani’s addictive trollish hootenanny folk metal on Tervaskanto. Giant Brain’s debut on the Small Stone label mixed krautrock with Detroit guitar fire. Vreid brought the cowbell to black metal on I Krig. And not a moment too soon! Car Bomb did an instrumental math metal number on your head with their Centralia. Iron Fire, Battlelore, Kamelot, Symphony X, Mystic Prophecy, and Epica brought swords, Vikings, derring-do and a whole lotta sweep picking to the party. And Anaal Nathrakh on their Hell Is Empty, And All the Devils Are Here album? They made you forget everything else you had heard, because after you listen to an Anaal Nathrakh album you kinda forget your own name.
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