Album Of The Year 2014

Primordial – Where Greater Men Have Fallen

November 25, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: Ireland
Style: Pagan metal / Black metal
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release date: 25 November 2014

Primordial don’t really do surprises. They do weight. Eight albums in, Alan “Nemtheanga” Averill is still singing every line like the fate of a nation depends on it, and Where Greater Men Have Fallen is their heaviest, rawest record in years.

Producer Jaime Gomez Arellano gives the band a rougher, drier sound, and it suits them. The title track marches in on a slow, grinding riff and Nemtheanga’s voice cracking at the edges. “Babel’s Tower” – which also got the band’s first proper music video, believe it or not – builds its chorus out of a single, hammering chord change. “The Seed of Tyrants” is the closest they come to black metal, all tremolo and fury. And “Wield Lightning to Split the Sun” closes the album with the kind of rousing, fist-raised ending only they can do without sounding ridiculous.

It is long and occasionally monotonous, and the middle of the album could lose a few minutes. But when it connects, nothing else in metal sounds like this.

Best tracks:

Where Greater Men Have Fallen
Babel’s Tower
The Seed of Tyrants
Wield Lightning to Split the Sun

Author’s rating: 8.5/10

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Bloodbath – Grand Morbid Funeral

November 17, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: Sweden
Style: Death metal
Label: Peaceville Records
Release date: 17 November 2014

Nick Holmes doing death metal again – that was the hook, and plenty of us were sceptical. On Grand Morbid Funeral he sounds less like a death metal vocalist and more like a man throwing up in a crypt, and honestly that suits the material. Bloodbath went for a deliberately raw, murky production this time, closer to old Autopsy than to polished Stockholm death metal.

The Autopsy connection is literal: Chris Reifert and Eric Cutler both guest. “Let the Stillborn Come to Me” and “Church of Vastitas” are the pick of the riffs, the latter with a slow, sickly groove that Holmes drags along nicely. “Unite in Pain” is a bit generic, and the album loses steam around the middle. But “Grand Morbid Funeral” itself ends things on a properly ugly note. Not their best, but more fun than I expected.

Best tracks:

Church of Vastitas
Let the Stillborn Come to Me
Grand Morbid Funeral
Famine of God’s Word

Author’s rating: 7.8/10

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Ne Obliviscaris – Citadel

November 7, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: Australia
Style: Progressive metal / Extreme metal
Label: Season of Mist
Release date: 7 November 2014

Three songs, forty-eight minutes, and a violin carrying half the melodies. On paper Citadel sounds like a prog nerd’s fever dream. In practice it is the most exciting extreme metal record I heard all year.

“Painters of the Tempest” takes up nearly half the running time and is split into three movements. The middle part, “Triptych Lux”, is the heart of the album: Tim Charles’ violin soars over black metal blasting, Xenoyr’s rasp tears through the gaps, then everything drops away into flamenco-tinged acoustic guitar before building back up. It should be a mess. It isn’t, because every shift feels earned.

“Pyrrhic” is the shortest piece and the most direct, ten minutes of controlled violence with a clean chorus that sticks. “Devour Me, Colossus” closes things in two parts, the first a wall of blast beats, the second a slow, sad fade of strings and cello. Jens Bogren mixed and mastered it, and the bass – often lost on records like this – actually sits up front where you can hear Cygnus doing something interesting.

Some will find Charles’ clean vocals too theatrical, and the album demands full attention. Give it that and it pays back tenfold. A deserved top-50 ARIA chart entry, too.

Best tracks:

Painters of the Tempest (Part II): Triptych Lux
Pyrrhic
Devour Me, Colossus (Part I): Blackholes

Author’s rating: 8.9/10

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Machine Head – Bloodstone & Diamonds

November 7, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: United States
Style: Groove metal / Thrash metal
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release date: 7 November 2014

A lot changed before this one: a new label for the first time in their career, and Jared MacEachern in for Adam Duce on bass. You would expect a band in that position to play it safe. Instead Robb Flynn made the longest, strangest and most dramatic Machine Head album yet.

“Now We Die” opens with a string section before the riff lands, and those strings return on the choruses – it should be cheesy and it isn’t. “Killers & Kings” is the short, thrashy single, “Night of Long Knives” is all menace, and “Eyes of the Dead” is about as good as their thrash side gets. The real surprise is “Sail into the Black”, eight and a half minutes that start on piano and acoustic guitar and drift into something dark and almost ambient before the band crash in.

Colin Richardson’s mix makes everything enormous, MacEachern’s bass sits right up front on “Beneath the Silt”, and Flynn sings better than he ever has. At over seventy minutes it is too long, and “In Comes the Flood” preaches more than it needs to. But this is a veteran band still taking risks. That deserves respect.

Best tracks:

Now We Die
Sail into the Black
Eyes of the Dead
Killers & Kings
Night of Long Knives

Author’s rating: 8.8/10

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Anaal Nathrakh – Desideratum

October 28, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: United Kingdom
Style: Black metal / Grindcore
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release date: 28 October 2014

Well over a decade into their career, Anaal Nathrakh still sound like a car alarm going off inside a church. Desideratum leans harder on the industrial side than anything they had done before – Mick Kenney, who produced it and handles guitars, bass and programming, piles programmed blasts and electronic pulses so high that some songs border on harsh dance music. Then Dave Hunt opens his mouth and it is unmistakably them again.

Hunt remains the band’s secret weapon. On “Idol” and “The One Thing Needful” he swings from shredded-throat shrieking to a soaring, almost operatic clean chorus without warning, and those hooks are why the record sticks. “Monstrum in Animo” is pure blasting chaos, the title track has a melody you will be humming against your will, and “Rage and Red” is as close to a mosh anthem as this duo gets. The mix is so dense it can be exhausting across the whole record; I wanted one more moment of air. But for forty minutes of controlled nervous breakdown, few people do it better.

Best tracks:

Idol
The One Thing Needful
Desideratum
Rage and Red

Author’s rating: 8.0/10

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Devin Townsend – Z²

October 27, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: Canada
Style: Progressive metal
Label: InsideOut Music
Release date: 27 October 2014

Two albums in one box, and they could hardly be more different. One half, Sky Blue, is a Devin Townsend Project record in the big, bright, wall-of-sound style of Epicloud. The other, Dark Matters, brings back Ziltoid, the alien from 2007’s Ziltoid the Omniscient, for a full sci-fi radio play with narration, choirs and orchestra.

Sky Blue is the one you will return to. Anneke van Giersbergen’s voice is a calm counterweight to Townsend’s all through the disc. “Rejoice” hits like a stadium anthem, “Warrior” has a chorus that sticks after one listen, and “Before We Die” builds to a massive, layered finish that is close to overwhelming. Not everything stands apart – some tracks melt into one long, glossy roar.

Dark Matters depends on how much you love Ziltoid. “March of the Poozers” and “War Princess” are ridiculous in the best way, but the story segments break the flow on repeat listens. Two hours of music is a lot to ask, but nobody else would even try this.

Best tracks:

Rejoice
Warrior
Before We Die
March of the Poozers

Author’s rating: 8.3/10

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At The Gates – At War with Reality

October 27, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: Sweden
Style: Melodic death metal
Label: Century Media
Release date: 27 October 2014

Nineteen years. That is how long the world waited for a follow-up to Slaughter of the Soul, and I will admit I went in braced for disappointment. Reunion albums tend to either chase the old record note for note or try too hard to sound modern. At War with Reality mostly avoids both traps.

After the intro “El Altar del Dios Desconocido”, “Death and the Labyrinth” kicks the door in with exactly the twin-guitar urgency you want, and Tomas Lindberg sounds as hoarse and desperate as he did in 1995. But the Björler brothers clearly were not interested in writing Slaughter part two. The title track and “The Circular Ruins” have more of the dark, winding melody of Terminal Spirit Disease in them, and the whole thing hangs together as a concept album, with song titles like “The Book of Sand (The Abomination)” that reward a look at the lyric sheet.

It is not perfect. Thirteen tracks is a lot, and the back half could lose a song or two. But “Heroes and Tombs”, with its slow, mournful build, is one of the finest things they have ever written, and “The Night Eternal” closes the album on a properly heavy note. A comeback that respects its own legacy without hiding behind it.

Best tracks:

Death and the Labyrinth
At War with Reality
Heroes and Tombs
The Night Eternal

Author’s rating: 8.5/10

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Slipknot – .5: The Gray Chapter

October 17, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: United States
Style: Alternative metal / Nu metal
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release date: 17 October 2014

Six years is a long time, and a lot went wrong in it. .5: The Gray Chapter is the first Slipknot record without Paul Gray, who died in 2010, and without Joey Jordison, who was out of the band by the end of 2013. You can hear the weight of that everywhere, from the hushed, creeping “XIX” to the way Corey Taylor sounds like he’s gargling glass on “Skeptic”.

What surprised me is how much fight is left in them. “The Negative One” and “Sarcastrophe” are as nasty as anything on Iowa, and “Custer” is gloriously stupid in the best way – you will be shouting the chorus whether you want to or not. Then “The Devil in I” and “Killpop” show the melodic side, and Taylor’s clean voice carries both without tipping into the radio rock of his other band. Greg Fidelman’s production keeps the percussion madness audible without turning the mix into mud.

It runs long, and “Goodbye” and “If Rain Is What You Want” slow things to a crawl at odd moments. But as a grief record that still wants to start a pit, it works. It went to number one on the Billboard 200 too, which says plenty about how badly people wanted Slipknot back.

Best tracks:

The Negative One
The Devil in I
Custer
Skeptic
Sarcastrophe

Author’s rating: 8.4/10

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Revocation – Deathless

October 14, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: United States
Style: Technical death metal / Thrash metal
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release date: 14 October 2014

Revocation teamed up with Zeuss and came out with their darkest, most vicious album. Deathless trims some of the jazzy noodling of the past and doubles down on riffs. Lots of them.

“A Debt Owed to the Grave” sets the pace: thrash speed, death metal weight, and Dave Davidson’s solos tearing through every gap. The title track is the obvious highlight, a twisting, melodic mid-tempo song with a chorus that actually sticks, while “Madness Opus” stretches past six minutes and lets the band show off its prog side without losing its grip. “Witch Trials” ends the record on a furious high.

If there is a complaint, it is that the middle of the album blurs a little, with “Scorched Earth Policy” and “The Fix” feeling like leftovers. Otherwise, this is the Boston quartet at its sharpest – technical, but always in service of the song.

Best tracks:

A Debt Owed to the Grave
Deathless
Madness Opus
Witch Trials

Author’s rating: 8.0/10

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Exodus – Blood In, Blood Out

October 10, 2014 Published by WeMetalheads

Country: United States
Style: Thrash metal
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release date: 10 October 2014

Zetro is back. That is the headline, and it matters, because Steve Souza’s nasal, sneering bark is the voice a lot of us hear when we think of Exodus. His first studio album with the band since Tempo of the Damned makes the whole thing feel like a homecoming.

After an odd industrial intro by Dan the Automator, “Black 13” settles into classic Bay Area chug, and the title track is fast, nasty thrash with nothing wasted. Kirk Hammett, the band’s original guitarist, plays a solo on “Salt the Wound”, and Chuck Billy roars alongside Zetro on “BTK”, which might be the meanest song here.

It is too long, though. Eleven songs, and the second half has riffs that start to sound like riffs you just heard. The production is clean to the point of being a bit flat. But when Gary Holt’s riffs lock in on “Body Harvest” or “Numb”, it is hard to stay seated. Solid, fun and very Exodus.

Best tracks:

Blood In, Blood Out
BTK
Salt the Wound
Body Harvest

Author’s rating: 7.7/10

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Primordial – Where Greater Men Have Fallen

Bloodbath – Grand Morbid Funeral

Ne Obliviscaris – Citadel

Machine Head – Bloodstone & Diamonds

Anaal Nathrakh – Desideratum

Devin Townsend – Z²

At The Gates – At War with Reality

Slipknot – .5: The Gray Chapter

Revocation – Deathless

Exodus – Blood In, Blood Out

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