Links to previous pages:
– TIER 4: MAIN POST & HONORABLE MENTIONS
– TIER 3: THE GREAT
– TIER 2: THE EXCELLENT
– TIER 1: THE RUNNER-UPS
And so finally we have arrived! Is your patience growing weary yet? Have you managed to hold out? Was our writing good enough to keep your attention? I sure hope so, these albums are, in our opinions, the absolute cream of the crop of what we reviewed this year. Dylan, Nostrebor68 and I all picked our favorite record of the year, and here we listed them in alphabetical order. They may, or may not be a surprise to you (depending on how closely you followed this blog), but that doesn’t mean they are any less good!
Though as usual, before we get to it, here’s a link to the Spotify playlist with all the recommended songs of our runner-ups and our albums of the year. Now, finally, time for our albums of the year!!
Hands of Despair – Well of the Disquieted (Canada)
Style: black/death (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Original review: April
Pick by: Sam
This isn’t a surprise to you now, is it? Back in April I gave this a totally-not-biased 11/10 score, and I’m still just as raving about this now as I was then. My bias also hasn’t decreased in the slightest. At this point in time I have all of their CDs and a t-shirt of this album. As I said just now with Venus in Fear, my taste in prog metal can (generally speaking) be traced back to two bands: Dream Theater and Opeth. ViF traces back to the former, this goes to the latter. There’s just something about bands with long, dynamic, meandering songs that mix extreme metal with clean vocal passages which hits my sweet spots like few other music can. I don’t know, it feels natural, the way music like this swells and shrinks. It’s almost like breath.
And you know what? Hands of Despair simply nailed everything on this record. From the production to the songwriting to the pacing to the vocals to the instrumentation. This is a behemoth of a record. It’s 78 minutes long, spread out over 8 songs, with an average song length of nearly 10 minutes (and 13 if you count l’Invasion as one track). Yet thanks to the all the musical variety and captivating songwriting it doesn’t become boring at all. A simple way to describe it would be “Opeth, but more brutal”, but there’s more to it than just that. Despite sounding a lot like the Swedes, HoD have a very distinct personality. Their death metal is heavier, there are less folk influences in the clean sections and more doomy instead, and they also incorporate black metal into their writing. Also just as one instantly recognizes an “Opeth riff”, Hands of Despair have an instantly recognisable signature riffing style as Well (pun intended). There’s just enough familiarity in their music to have a vague idea of where they’re going next, but the execution of every idea is done with such skill it will floor you even if you saw it coming.
Honestly I could ramble on for ages about this record. But for the sake of keeping this brief, I’ll refrain myself from that. All I can say is that it’s just a phenomenal record, and how this band has managed to stay as underground as they did is a miracle to me. Go listen to it, now. Oh, and give their first to a spin as Well, they’re also great.
Recommended tracks: Doppelganger, Amok, Body and Souls
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Edge of Sanity, Enslaved, Ne Obliviscaris
Potmos Hetoimos – Vox Medusae
Style: post sludge (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Original review: Missed albums edition
Pick by: Dylan
I wasn’t prepared for Potmos Hetoimos when I first pressed play. But to be fair, I don’t think anyone is. It’s a one man post sludge with hints of hardcore and black metal band with a flavour of FUNK added on top of it.
The sheer technicality in this album is enough to get a conversation started. There’s not a single instrument here that can’t go absolutely nuts, with plenty of abrasive sections present on the album, that borderline suffocate you with so much going on. But there are also many well thought out interludes to give you some much appreciated room to breathe, with a piano or a sax usually driving them. It’s never long until you’re at the middle of chaos again though, and this chaos never fails to amaze every time I Iisten to Vox Medusae.
And to top it all off, this is a concept album. There’s even multiple characters, not represented by different vocalists, but by SCALES the guy himself made for each character.
Wrap it up lads, AOTY (at least for me).
Recommended tracks: I, IV, V
Recommended for fans of: ?????????
Sunless Dawn – Timeweaver (Denmark)
Style: melodeath (harsh/mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Original review: November
Pick by: Nostrebor68
Hooooooooooly shit. This album left me speechless. I saw this album floating around a bit when it first came out, and kind of avoided it because a lot of “BTBAM-esque Prog Death” (as it was described) just doesn’t do it for me. That was an enormous mistake on my part, because this album absolutely blew my mind. The songwriting, the performances, the production, everything is just divine. And even two months later, I still can’t stop listening.
First and foremost, the guitars, man. Every moment provides constant and surprising lead and riff work that I just can’t get out of my head. The bass tone is thick and present, leaving me bobbing my head to the rhythm, and the drumming is absolutely wild, flying between various beats and fills with ease, while never feeling too chaotic at the same time. The vocalist sounds like a beefier Thomas Giles, and with whatever the thing he’s doing with his throat is, he absolutely blows Tommy’s harshes out of the water.
Every single element of this music blows me away every time, the songwriting is sublime, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what they have in store for us in the future. You’ve set the bar high boys, keep it coming. A well-deserved album of the year placement for me.
Recommended tracks: Aether, Grand Inquisitor
Recommended for fans of: Persefone, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, good music
So… That was it! What do you think of our list? Is there an album we covered that you wished was on here instead? Did we overrate or underrate an album? Let us know! It was a pleasure doing this for y’all, and I hope you’ll find just as much enjoyment in these albums as we did. We’re already underway for our January edition (which will come out in 10 days or so), and there are some good things on the horizon. I’ve finally contacted a web-developer, so maybe this website will look a little less shit next time around, and that’s not all! But I’ll leave news of that for the next edition. It’s way too late, but happy new year! Let’s hope 2019 will be just as good music-wise, and maybe, maybe, a little better.
BUT… Before we wrap this up, I want to write a thank you letter to Dylan and Nostrebor68 for joining me on this endeavor. They’re two really great persons and our time together on our little Discord server has been a blast. This blog wouldn’t have been where it is now without them. Heck, this probably wouldn’t even exist anymore if it weren’t for them. Back when I finished the June edition, I was in a really dire state, both mentally and physically. Now, while I’m still definitely sitting behind my computer too much and should take r/nosurf way more seriously than my actions in life reflect, my health has increased massively since then (aka I’m not dying anymore).
Honestly, I’m just really grateful for the two of you. Your tastes fill up the holes in mine, and mine for yours. If you’re reading this, you’ve been a massive boon to this blog, and to me. So really, thank you. Also since Nostrebor’s leaving after this, I want to give him another special thanks for all he did. You’re a great writer, and a great person. Best of luck in the future!!