I never finished this. I gotta get the 2017 list started, though, so here ya go with an unfinished post.
So…2016 was actually a really good year for music. I can’t lie; I was pretty content with a lot of stuff. Don’t even have a ton of stuff to say other than that, really. I’m still kinda sad about the state of hip-hop, pop or otherwise, and black metal is still kinda annoyingly ubiquitous, but there’s a lot of great stuff out there.
HONORABLE MENTION
Vomitface – Hooray For Me * (This would have been higher, but the band’s Twitter account became a really stupid, insulting Hillary Clinton shill feed after the election. Bad politics get you kinda bumped.)
10) Oddisee – The Odd Tape
9) The Mercury Program – New Myths
8) Oddisee – Alwasta
7) Cult Of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner
6) Emma Ruth Rundle – Marked For Death
5) Zeal & Ardor – Devil Is Fine
4) Vodun – Possession
English bands are notorious for fusing other forms of music seamlessly into pop punk or metal; from Black Sabbath, Bow Wow Wow and The Clash to the Noisettes and that unnamed Damon Albarn/Simon Tong/Tony Allen/Paul Simonon thing, Afro-Pop, soul, and blues have always been fair game for Britons to adapt and use to their advantage. Vodun goes one step further by examining the iconography and culture of the West African religion from which their name comes and cramming it into a busy tapestry with psychedelic heavy rock and R&B.
3) Nails – You Will Never Be One Of Us
Unsubtle, brutal, and demolishing, Nails is a far more interesting band than their pretty straightforward approach would suggest. This might be the apotheosis of HM-2 worship (apologies to Iron Reagan), to be honest. Not a lot to say; this speaks for itself, and I love it.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGGGh03jN4w&w=560&h=315]
2) Helms Alee – Stillicide
I think the most telling part of Helms Alee’s fourth full-length is that its first track, the heavy-footed intro “More Weight,” directly reprises the last track on their first full-length (“Wild Notes,” off of 2008’s glorious revelation Night Terror). That album’s careening, teetering-on-the-edge of control sound informs this one more than the band’s previous two, more ambitiously diverse releases. That aside, the band’s formula is still the same–deceptively challenging arrangements, dynamic shifts and the interplay between all three members’ distinctly different voices.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpyXodEdkpY&w=560&h=315]
1) Sumac – What One Becomes
Yep. Better than Helms Alee’s best album in years. I don’t know how else to explain it. The Russian Circles/Isis/Baptists supergroup is easily the best thing ex-Isis frontman Aaron Turner has touched in years (which, considering how prolific he has been since Isis went defunct, is saying something). Taking the ponderousness abstractness of Khanate and cramming it into the ferocity of early (think Red Sea) Isis with the virtuosity of PacNW post-hardcore and letting it all fight out was the best idea anyone ever came up with; Kurt Ballou’s mix allows all three musicians to operate in space. Turner sounds as monstrous as he’s ever sounded here, and his and Brian Cook’s Electrical Guitar Company axes crush.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QyHhd1JYuw&w=560&h=315]
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