BATUSHKA - Litourgiya [2015 Blindspot]

Batushka – Litourgiya (2015, Witching Hour Productions)

When December 2015 ended we were all listing our favorite albums of the year, revisiting the best moments of it and trying to be original and true to ourselves and our precedent reviews. However, the flow of releases kept coming and the debut album of Polish black metal band Batushka, Litourgiya, was one of the sadly overlooked albums of the end of the year.

CATTLE DECAPITATION – The Anthropocene Extinction [2015 Blindspot]

Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction (2015, Metal Blade)

With their seventh album, the vegan deathgrind act Cattle Decapitation comes back after a much praised album that was Monolith of Inhumanity. Based in San Diego, California, the obvious heirs of Cannibal Corpse and Exhumed are pushing the extreme level of the genre a bit more.

BATTLE PATH – Ambedo [2015 Blindspot]

Battle Path – Ambedo (2015, Inherent Records)

From Tennessee, the Doom metal meets Black metal five piece Battle Path is a superbly well fitted band to play with Indian or Bell Witch. Walking alongside the two aforementioned genres that through recent years have been blended more and more together, their doom metal could be at time Funeral doom and their black metal a bit crusty on the side. It makes for a mix of many complementary genres.

Best Metal of 2015

This is a companion piece to my Top 10 Best music of 2015.

Best Music of 2015

Here it is the mandatory year end list; my own top 10 of the best music of 2015. Surprise, no Adele!

Enjoy and please share your picks!

ECHELON - Indulgence over Abstinence Behind the Obsidian Veil

Music Review : Echelon - Indulgence over Abstinence Behind the Obsidian Veil (2015, Metal Inquisition Records)

With frontman Dave Ingram (ex-Bolt Thrower and ex-Benediction) and Rogga Johansson of numerous projects on all instruments, Echelon is an old-school Death metal monolithic band of grand scale. The familiar Bolt Thrower vocals of Englishman Ingram are one thing that helps the familiarity of the sound of Echelon while Johansson pounds on the drums and plays all the instruments just as good as any four piece band.

MGLA - Exercises in Futility

Mgła – Exercises in Futility (2015, No Solace | Northern Heritage)

While it almost felt into my blindspot category of 2015, the third full length album by Polish black metallers, Mgła, is one of the most celebrated releases of the genre this year. With six intense songs of pure black metal with a melodic undertone of a solid yet typical guitar riffing. Typical but above the rest in contemporary black metal. Exercises in Futility unravels as this complete and dense album that delivers a true to the best of the heritage of the genre but also with a contemporary production that give justice to the grandeur and depth of their music.

BEATEN TO DEATH - Unplugged

Beaten to Death - Unplugged (2015, Mas-Kina)

Back in my college years I had a huge grindcore kick and I spined bands like Brutal Truth, Spazz, Soilent Green, Anal Cunt, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Swallowing Shit, Pig Destroyer, Rotten Sound, and Nasum. When Mieszko Talarczyk, Nasum frontman died in the infamous Thailand tsunamis back in 2004, my interest kind of slowed down a bit. Mainly because Nasum was the best grindcore band of the moment and the genre was getting a bit tired on me.

HORRENDOUS - Araneta

Horrendous - Araneta (2015, Dark Descent)

In the recent years many genres have stagnate and left fans biting again and again in their old classics saying : they don’t make them like this anymore. Even the greats like Iron Maiden and Slayer have more or less missed the mark this year. 

THY CATAFALQUE - Sgùrr

Thy Catafalque - Sgùrr (2015, Season of Mist)

Avant-Garde mastermind Tamas Katai from Hungary has been forging a kind of music originally closer to black metal but evolving in a way that transcends genres and labels. Using a large array of instruments and sonorities, the experiments of Thy Catafalque are fast, engaging, and have enough time to unfold as the songs evolve and unveil their labyrinthine structures. At some point, there’s a eerie sense of contemporary but also timeless experience with Sgùrr even more than with Rengeteg.

VHOL – Deeper Than Sky

VHOL – Deeper Than Sky (2015, Profound Lore)

The supergroup that is VHOL delivers again the product of a real supergroup and not just a record of big known names making average music that will sell. With Mike Scheidt (YOB) on vocals, two ex-Ludicra of John Cobbett (Hammers of Misfortune) and Aesop Dekker (Agalloch) together with bassist Sigrid Sheie (Hammers of Misfortune, ex-Amber Asylum) we are in for what a metal album should sound like.

TEMPLE OF BAAL – Mysterium

Temple of Baal – Mysterium (2015, Agonia Records)

Coming out of France, the blackened death metal act of Temple of Baal has been active since 1998. We often hear the mix of the genres that are black and death metal, done so many times, and almost as a single formula. With that in mind, I entered into this album with no real expectations. Added to that, I am more a black metal fan than a fan of death metal, so I can be very critical when it comes to those genres. Especially when mixed together.

DEAFHEAVEN – New Bermuda

Deafheaven – New Bermuda (2015, Anti-)

It was not until last year that I discovered Deafheaven’s sophomore album Sunbather and their mix of my favorite genre in music black metal with a genre I’m not that connoisseur of, shoegaze. It was around October that I immersed myself in songs like ‘’The Pecan Tree’’ and ‘’Dream House’’. I gave them a somewhat high score but not the highest I ever gave to a new album. Why?

TSJUDER – Antiliv

Tsjuder – Antiliv (2015, Season Of Mist)

In this era of saturated genre albums, especially a genre where evolution or departure from the original guidelines is often quickly discarded. In the black metal genre, many good records are released each year. However, a few are or are potentially labeled as great.

BEACH HOUSE – Depression Cherry

Beach House – Depression Cherry (2015, Bella Union / Mistletone / Sub Pop)

The dream pop duo of Beach House formed in 2004 has release a series of widely celebrated albums. With their latest, Depression Cherry, they are doing a return to their original form of more minimalistic music and a more guitar oriented wall of sound. 

MYRKUR - M

Myrkur - M (2015, Relapse Records)

After making a burst into the black metal community with her EP in 2014, Myrkur, or Amalie Bruun, has united forces with producer and member of Ulver, Garm, Teloch from Mayhem and Sir of Nidingr to make one of the most idiosyncratic metal albums of 2015.

KRALLICE – Ygg Huur

Music Review : Krallice – Ygg Huur (2015, self-released)

Since ten years or so, American black metal has been revigorating the metal world with new band tenures and new extremity in a music that is probably the most repellent for the occasional listener. Of all those American bands, Krallice might be the most unique in sound with an almost metalcore clarity and a death metal intensity.

TAME IMPALA– Currents

Tame Impala – Currents (2015, Interscope)

Kevin Parker’s band, Tame Impala has been on a series of successes since its debut in 2007. First with Innerspeaker and then with Lonerism with which he earned a lot of money with the song Elephant only. The much awaited Currents is, to me, reaching in the spheres of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memory. In the way that it is far from the usual records I would listen by myself. It brought me out of my comfort zone, which is underground extreme forms of metal.

LOCRIAN – Infinite Dissolution

Music Review : Locrian – Infinite Dissolution (2015, Relapse Records)

While most Black metal bands are centered about the dark themes in human nature, the new generation of American black metal bands have taken an approach near light and the human introspection. This anti-conformism of a very conformist and hermetic genre is giving a fresh breath to a genre that could have stayed deeply rooted in its origins of Satan worshipers and underground influenced bands like Discharge and Black Flag.

AKITSA – Grands Tyrans

Akitsa – Grands Tyrans (2015, Hospital Productions)

While opening with Dévoilé like most of the primitive black metal origins of the vein of early Ulver and Darkthrone the Montréal based band led by O.T. pushes its listener into a path that black metal territories have been visited for almost thirty years of lo-fi recordings, distant drumming, scratchy strident guitars, and desperate screams.