Reports from the Underground: 2021 Albums of the Year

Tier 2: The Runners Up

It is often a very tough decision between what your album of the year choice is and the runner up. Oftentimes, the runner up and the album of the year are almost so indistinguishable in quality that choosing between the two is mostly dependent on random liminal, unsuspecting circumstances like what you had for breakfast that morning or the mood that you woke up with that day. However, from the spontaneousness of our beings, a choice must eventually be met, and we come to our decision. These were close to winning the gold but missed the peak of the competition by a small margin. These are our runner ups, and second place choices of 2021.

Negură Bunget – Zău (Romania)
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal / Progressive Black Metal (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify
Pick by: Will

An album, the final installment of an immense trilogy, and a swansong to a central figure in the black metal scene. Negură Bunget’s 2021 album Zău shows just how much incredible emotional weight can be coalesced into a recording.

Following the death of band founder Gabriel “Negru” Mafa in 2017, the remaining bandmates spent four years painstakingly crafting the final album of Negru’s “Transylvanian Trilogy” from demo tracks left behind by the late drummer. The result is not just a beautiful sounding album which seamlessly blends black metal with traditional Romanian folk music; it’s a tribute to a man’s vision, an ancient and heartfelt funeral rite caught on tape.

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: Tinerețe Fără Bătrânețe, Toacă Din Cer
Recommended for fans of: Behemoth, Bathory, Agalloch, Nokturnal Mortum
You may also like: Dordeduh, Phendrana, Windfaerer, Batushka

Claemus – Daydream (New Zealand)
Style: Modern Progressive Metal (Clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify
Pick by: Mathis

Sometimes there are things in life that can unleash a dopamine flurry in your brain. For me these things are taking off my socks after a long day, waking up in the night and discovering I still have a few hours left to sleep before my alarm sounds, and experiencing music-induced nostalgia. Claemus is a new band, and Daydream is their debut album, but it gives me insane Skyharbor, Tesseract, and First Signs of Frost vibes. It is a eulogy to the style that Daniel Thompkins has established in all of his prog bands, and it is amazing.

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: Kinesis, Epilogue
Recommended for fans of: Skayharbor, Tesseract, The Contortionist, Circles
You May Also Like: First Signs Of Frost, Karmanjakah, White Walls

Épiphanie – L’aube (Canada)
Style: Progressive Death/Black/Folk Metal, Progressive Rock (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp 
Pick by: Zach

Like I said in my original review, nothing better than a musical character arc. Épiphanie started as your run of the mill deathcore band and ended up here at the apex of their career. Sure, they’ve mostly dropped the neoclassical shreddies of their self-titled when they crawled out of the Abyss, but it’s for the better. They no longer need technicality to wow, despite how complex their music remains. When this album started, I seriously thought I queued up the wrong thing. That, or this album was going to be their Cold Lake. 

But comparing that to this masterpiece would be nothing short of the highest disrespect. Everyone brings their A-game on L’aube. The standout being Mathieu Dhani’s jaw dropping vocal performance, but that’s not to say everyone else is fan-fucking-tastic. Virtuous without overly grandiose and stylistically bonkers without being avant-garde. Not a second on this album is wasted in the unusually short 37 minutes, which makes it so easy to do repeat listens. So, go on. What are you waiting for? Witness the best musical character arc of 2021. 

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: The whole album 
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Enslaved, Ne Obliviscaris, Persefone, The Faceless
You may also like: Hands of Despair, Dragonauta

Atvm – Putrid and Fucking Endless (UK)
Style: Progressive Death Metal (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify
Pick by: Dan

There’s a playfulness to this diverse and phenomenal death metal record that’s hard to describe – simultaneously esoteric and familiar, unpretentious yet undeniably technically proficient. It veers out of the norm, into slap bass breaks and psychedelic builds, thrashy chugs and soaring leads, all with a nod to the stalwarts of death metal’s roots. The production is slightly loose, and allowed to breathe, with fantastic clarity and separation thanks to the masterful ear of Colin Marston. Each song tells a different musical story, but somehow the whole thing feels coherent and cohesive. The bass in particular is a standout instrument despite the obvious attention-grabbing guitar playing. The riffs play games with time and rhythm, and each idea – while perhaps only distantly related to its neighbors at times – is allowed to fully develop in a manner for which most bands don’t seem to have patience (or skill, perhaps?). I’m really impressed, this is very, very good. My only gripe is that it’s so dense that by the end, it can be a bit fatiguing.

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: Sanguinary Floating Orb, Squeal in Torment… all of them, really
Recommended for fans of: Slugdge, Revocation, Contrarian, Sutrah, Xoth
You may also like: Deviant Process, No Living Witness, Ophidian I

Eternity’s End – Embers of War (Germany)
Style: Power Metal, Neoclassical Metal (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify
Pick by: Sabrina

Cut to the chase: this is the most technical band I’ve reviewed, and probably one of the speediest, and most mechanically extraordinary power metal bands out there. And it is no wonder since three of the enduring members of this band are ex-Obscura members. Who knew tech-death fans liked power metal? Embers of War is the band’s 3rd studio album and it is essentially a rollercoaster from beginning to end – guitar solo after guitar solo after –  pure prog wankery, and I love it. What is nice though is that this is not purely akin to some guitar virtuoso’s solo album, this has excellent elements from every instrument, even the vocalist. The only downside I can really say about this is that it is not the most dynamic, as it is constantly on full-throttle, and it is not the most boundary-pushing when it comes to conforming to power metal tropes. However, it takes the power metal formula and propels it close to its ultimate logical conclusion.

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: Arcturus Prime, Embers of War, Call of the Valkyries, Hounds of Tindalos
Recommended for fans of: Christian Muenzer, Lost Horizon, Symphony X, Helloween
You may also like: Forever’s Edge, Opus V, Parallel Dimension, Starbynary

The Stranger – Kaleidoscope (Australia)
Style: Prog Metal (mixed vocals)
Related links: Spotify
Pick by: Nick

After a solid, yet flawed debut, The Stranger made their grand return with Kaleidoscope. While this album seems to be your standard traditional prog metal album, there’s actually a crazy amount of inventiveness that leads to them standing apart from their contemporaries. While bands of their ilk tend to focus on longer compositions (often 7+ minutes), The Stranger manages to capture the same compositional exploration in songs that are all under the 7-minute mark. Many of these tracks feel like bite-sized epics in the best way possible with my favorite example being “Siren”.

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: Siren, The Gemini, Jester, The Devin You Don’t
Recommended for fans of: Caligula’s Horse, Haken, Teramaze
You may also like: Turbulence, Sullen, Lost in Thought, Altesia

Dordeduh – Har (Romania)
Style: Progressive/Atmospheric Black Metal, Romanian Folk (mixed, Romanian vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify
Pick by: Sam

Once upon a time the Romanian band Negura Bunget released their opus OM. This blend of atmospheric black metal, Romanian folk, and prog was to become a cult classic. For me, it’s an enigmatic record. I’ve always appreciated how unique and compelling its atmosphere was, but it somehow kept me at a distance emotionally. Dordeduh is a split-off from Bunget, and Har is everything I wanted OM to be. The dreamy atmosphere is still there, but now slightly less foreboding and more cinematic. It’s as if watching a Tchaikovski film where the images flow into each other seamlessly. Most importantly though, they succeeded in the emotional connection now too. The album flows like a giant stream of consciousness, swelling and shrinking intensity like the waves, but you can still take any individual song and enjoy it immensely by itself. I find this an incredible feat. I’ve only grown to love this album more as time goes on, and I strongly believe that in 10 years or so, we will look back on this the same way as we do OM. 

You can read the original review here.

Recommended tracks: Timpul Întâilor, Desferecat, De Neam Vergur
Recommended for fans of: Agalloch, Empyrium, Drudkh, Primordial
You may also like: Negura Bunget, Windfaerer, Phendrana, Aetheria Conscientia