#hebosagil

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I didn’t feel like doing much writing about favourite anything of 2016. It’s all become such an impenetrable mess of of basically egomaniacal fanatics going anal about the placing in so or so’s AOTY list as opposed to their own far superior tastes and list-compiling skills. Grown tired of that. Instead I made a randomized mix picking tracks from 20-odd of my favourite releases from last year. Podcasting is something I’ve been very much into over the last year and itseemed fitting to round up this annum that way. Then I realized I did forget one or two noteworthy records in said list.  Then I broke my leg and found myself couch-confined for the rest of the year. Then I started reading too many blogs’ and mags’ best of 2016 lists out of pure boredom. Then I started to go anal about some of MY faves showing up NOWHERE. Circle complete I guess. So here are some musings on a couple of records of 2016 that I liked a lot and that do not seem to be returning in most of the lists I’ve seen so far.

Fange - Purge

Out of the West of France comes the first full length of this monstruous sludge/DOOM combo. From the get go you are assaulted by the two-fanged pitchfork of their trademark sound: heavy HM-2 pedal distortion on the guitars and sickeningly insane vocals by Matthias Jungbluth (also Throatruiner label manager and Calvaiire’s front throat ruiner). This band is more than sound and volume though. All six of these tracks have been artisanally crafted for maximal combined impact. Tempo-changes, odd effects, feedback, samples, atmospheres everything is tightly dosed, perfectly placed and forcefully executed (when necessary but on a record like this a forceful execution is de rigueur on 90% of the running time). The band eschews meandering or milking riffs too much, just like it eschews being DOOM for DOOM’s sake or punk for punk’s sake, their goal is to pummel and to absorb you in their sound and they achieve that goal masterfully within the concise 38 minutes of this LP. I cannot understand that this album has been so badly overlooked, maybe because Sludge metal is going out of style again? Maybe because it is on a french label with French lyrics, anyway bollocks to hipsters check this out if you feel a little chirpy about the end of the year festivities or desperately need a sludge fix before the new Unearthly Trance album is released.

Plebeian Grandstand - False Highs, True Lows

Have all the people who are (rightfully, mind you) fawning over Oathbreaker’s Rheia heard this album? Why not? And why weren’t they paying attention? You see PG released their third album on Throatruiner records this year and they blew all of their past releases out of the water, together with much of their contemporary peers in this amalgamut style of black metal, drones and mutilated hardcore (the latter only recognizable by the ethics and the furor than by the distant echoes of the genre’s sound). PG simply raze you, blind you, scorch you with their immensely intense and well-construed barrage of sound fueled by an utter dystopian mindset. At least so much I presume, it’s hard to make out anything of the lyrics, the feeling speaks volumes though. And feeling is what hooks me onto a record first and foremost (followed by sound and musical expertise). You simply have to expose yourself to this to believe it.

by the way, Throatruiner records did release 2 more LP’s this year worth your time but maybe not as essential as the two above: Love Sex Machine’s Asexual Anger is another brutal slab of sludge, Verdun’s first full length is a weird DOOM-journey taking influences from the classic greats in the genre as much as from modern innovators.

Stangala - Klanv

We stay in France for what is undoubtedly my favourite album of the year. I can totally understand this one was left by the wayside by many a music critic and fan alike Stangala seem to deliberately make it difficult for anyone the get a grasp on them. They sing in a language understood by very few ( Breton, a Celtic language like Gaelic), rarely perform live, use butt-ugly artwork and prefer to be photographed in hooded robes, if at all. Although now that I think of it, if you’re from, say, Finland such demeanor is bound to get you attention from the press corps, Never mind, Stangala consist of very gifted and boundlessly creative musical spirits, so much is clear. Their previous outings (all good too) were more in the well known stoner/DOOM vein with added psychedelics and psychotics but this time they took a turn to a harsher overall sound. Quite a few extreme metal influences can be heard throughout, be it in the form of faster riffing, tremolo picks or the occasional haunted scream. What has stayed is the expert use of saxophone and traditional celtic instruments. Don’t expect anything humppa like some folk-metal bands do, these instruments are employed for added depth and atmosphere not as a gimmick. And it works, this album is a trip through a gloomy and treacherous land, not necessarily hostile but full of unexpected twists and turns and one where you can’t even trust your own senses. Ihsahn meets Alice In Wonderland or something like that. I haven’t heard that new Ihsahn album by the way, any good? It did show up in quite a few lists but that it was bound to do even before anybody reviewed it.

There was actually even more good stuff from France this year: Mercyless came back stomping with a first class Death Metal sans prefixes album and oh yeah Gojira. My old favourite dance metal band Sidilarsen released a new album too but that was a bit of a mixed bag, they seemed to have mellowed a bit over the years with extended touring and radio-airtime and so on, anyway, they’re still pretty solid.

I mentioned Finland earlier

Hebosagil - Lohtu

Emo-sludge does that make any sense to you? Indie-DOOM maybe? I’m having a fucking hard time describing Hebosagil’s sound on this new album. They used to be as brutal as the next sludge metal band but that was quite a couple of years ago. Then they took some major turns, lost me, and now seem to be re-connecting with their roots a little. Anyway what I am trying to say is that this is a sludge album created by open minded people who are more likely to pick 22, A Million as their favourite album of the year than anything on this list or Terrorizer’s for that matter. Still Lohtu is firmly (DOOM)metal and punk, it’s just not so much Black Sabbath and Black Flag that define the sound, probably more like Rush and Refused or so. So wipe that smirk of your face and dig in, you’re not as meat-headed as you pretend to be and you’ve been looking like forever for a good excuse to listen some of that indie-shit anyway.

Atomikylä - Keräily

Oranssi Pazuzu are bloggist’s darlings but all of them seem to have missed out on the weirder brother of that band. Me too actually until they totally ovewhelmed me at roadburn festival. I’ve purchased both their CD’s then and there and have been returning to them frequently. Take all the influences I’ve described for all of the above bands, add to that some free-jazz and heaps of psychotropic substances (probably sourced from the boreal Woods) and you are getting close. One of the most adventurous and unabashedly individualistic albums I’ve encountered this year. Confront yourself with this unfettered expression of creative primitive spirits.

Ripper - Experiments Of Existence

Unspeakable Axe and Dark Descent records have been going pretty strong over recent years. I can’t say I’ve listened to each and every of their releases nor that I’ve liked all that I’ve heard but generally speaking these are the labels that merit your support for their hard work and keen ear. And for picking up the Chilean band Ripper. They got some attention when the album was released in March but seemed to have been forgotten as soon as Vektor unleashed their AOTY blockbuster Terminal Redux. I can endorse the blockbusting part but the forgetting is frankly unfair. Experiments Of Existence remains a fantastically good thrash album. It’s not the kind of ‘pure’ thrash, with roots to California or West-Germany that people have (re)learned to love over the last ten years or so, this stuff is a bit meatier, a bit more brutal and the best references I can come up with are Arise and Beneath The Remains, yeah Sepultura’s classic on-the-brink-of-breakthrough LP’s. Actually, Experiments Of Existence is pretty much on par with those. Maybe some heavier Destruction is an influence in there as well. (Here’s a band I’ve learned to appreciate over 2016 although Destruction didn’t release anything by my knowledge, that happens too if you’re an explorative metal fanatic with a distorted satiation circuit in your brain)  Have I mentioned Expert Musicianship? Expert musicianship abounds with an especially star-rattling performance by the bass player and regardless of the pace (mostly ferocious) all instruments are played with intensity levels way up. There’s also a little VoiVoidan scifi concept loosely draped around the album. Not that it matters much but it reaffirms the link with both the old school as with Vektor of course. So if thrash is your thing and you still have appetite for something besides Vektor (or any of the legacy thrash acts’ 2016 releases, quite a few if I read the lists correctly) go for it ASAP.

Withdrawal - Never

I don’t remember where I read about Withdrawal’s ep ‘Faith Flesh & Blood’ (most likely Terrorizer though) but I do recall vividly that the scribent’s description of those four tracks convinced me on the spot that I needed that 7″ and that I’d probably like the band forever. I think it was also my introduction to a389 records, who have slowed things down drastically over the last year. Anyway, long story short ‘Faith, Flesh & Blood’ was followed up by a split 7″ and then by endless promises of an album. In the mean time Integrity dwindled into the irrelevancy of legacy act status , Rise and Fall went into the non status of indefinite hiatus, Rot in Hell connected with their status of inner campfire minstrel and Blind To Faith firmly retains a side project status. What was the devout Holy Terror adept to do? Despair is none of his capacities but you know, sometimes you want to be confirmed in your beliefs and your musical preferences alike. So finally the astutely titled ‘Never’ dropped, and got zilch critical acclaim ‘cause all the scribents were already busy paining their minds to come up with a balanced and fancy AOTY list. Bugger. Anyway you’ll have plenty of time left to discover this one on your own, it’s only 30 odd minutes long (in good Hardcore fashion). However, it bears condensed in its diminutive size such a weighty mass of experiences, frustrations therewith and lessons therefrom that you will be left panting on the brink of hyperventilation if you consume Never too avidly. Boy this is Holy Terror, this is what we needed more than another poorly recorded Integ-job or Gehenna-blurb. Although, I bet the former will be all over next year’s round of best of listing since they recently signed on to the Relapse Records rollercoaster. Okay that’s cynical, but this is Holy Terror fucking Hardcore, swallow it or GTFO.

I’ve been impressed by two great Pagan Records releases this year. That Polish label keeps doing their thing with a mostly Polish roster but plenty of quality relaeses on the edgier side of extreme metal.

Ragehammer - The Hammer Doctrine

I’m not going to say a lot about this one, it’s the kind of physical record you have to hear, you have to undergo even. It’s brutally fast demonical thrashing, actually nothing you may not have heard before. But so fervently executed and played so passionately that you can do nothing but succumb to the whirlwind and dance with the devil for as long as it continues.

Furia - Księżyc milczy luty

How do you say ‘bold’ in Polish? This record is as bold as Decibel mag simply dismissing a new Neurosis record, as bold as Blabbermouth not interviewing Ullrich nor Hetfield about the new Metallica, as bold as saying Kim Kelly is a stupid self-agrandizing corporate sell-out, with the difference that those three would be stupid and transient acts of misinformed activism instead of visionary expression. And that’s what Furia has been and still is about, bold visionary artistic expression. So they shifted quite a bit of their black metal away in favour of a more goth-rock sound, and on top of that they picked a rather silly moniker for their sound: ‘Nekrofolk’. Have you listened the album a couple of times already? It’s one of those absorbing listens that defies genres and styles, it defies its own creators’ legacy and careers its an entity of sound that expresses the vision of spirits that can’t be captured by the mundane stylings of whoever has a PR or marketing tangent to factor in.

Alkerdeel - Lede

Raw black metal that’s more raw than black metal actually but yeah fuck labelism. In their early days this band’s recordings have been so raw that ‘unlistenable’ would have been a better description but over the course of the last two albums a modicum of production values was introduced, to great effect one might say. The riffs are still not yet completely discernible from the drones and washes of noise but there’s a display of dynamic that has an evil draw-in power. Lede works some kind of evil magic that makes you forget you’re listening to some blokes that look like schoolteachers and bookkeepers who are producing music (we’ll let them have that much) that contains very little points of anchorage or recognition, save for the movie samples and the masterfully timed ‘oohs’ and ‘umphs’ of the singer.  Alkerdeel produces labyrinths of blackened sludge noise (we can let CVLT nation have that much) that in some wonderful way never achieves the feat of totally excising you out of this world. We must assume this is on purpose, Alkerdeel does not do escapism, they pummel, they deluge, they confront and they confuse but they also weave a mean strand of extreme metal like few others.

other stuff

I listened some hip-hop this year as well but for some reason a good hip-hop record usually gets its praise when it’s due so I’ll cut it short here. (listen my goddamn mix motherfuckers!)

Besides that I was really charmed by Josefin Ohrn + The Liberation both live at Desert Fest and in album form. It’s an obvious throwback to the krautrock that existed in that weird timeframe between purely analog and full-on digital (the same timeframe that produced the best reggae and disco music btw) but it’s very effective and tasty. I’ve also been totes crazy about Blood Ceremony for most of the year but that will easily get all the praise that’s due, let me just repeat one more time how much of a delight their set at Roadburn was. Fucking amazing. On topic of female fronted metal bands do check out Second Grave, please do, they were great. They called it quits upon releasing their first album, Blacken The Sky which is just such a well-executed exercise in traditional DOOM metal that all too few people will notice it.

My soft spot for psychedelic rock grows softer every year but that doesn’t mean I’m always looking for new releases, Baby Woodrose’s Freedom was one that was eagerly anticipated and listened a lot ever since it came out. I stick to the opinion that this is simply one of the most underrated bands in Europe. It’s true that they may not be overly innovative soundwise but the songcraft of Lorenzo Woodrose is unfuckwithable. In the same branche there was the excellent live album of Colour Haze, a much cherished specimen of Electrohasch Records quality standards!

Ethereal RIffian and Dead Congregation both released an extended two track EP that is for the first one DOOMy and psychedelic and for the second one DOOMy and deathly.

Junior Bruce’s second full length was one of the few releases on a389 records this year and I honestly revel in its swampy interpretation of High On Fire kind of metal.

I’m struggling to find some non-metal releases that really caught on with me this year, I could mention Therapy?’s acoustic CD but frankly the quality of that is nowhere near the greatness of the acoustic set experienced live nor the original versions. But there you have another top gig of 2016. Another great gig was the Ushti Baba set at Gitannekesfoor, they have a record on Bandcamp as well which I can recommend but in order to really appreciate their take on western-european folk music, Balkan traditionals and modern fusion you ought to see them live as well. Lovely people too as we could discover on the festival’s camp site.

What else, time to finish this wine and move my ass from the couch to the bed its almost three o’ clock in the morning goddamnit.

biggest WTF:  Tommy Victor using autotune

biggest let down: the persisting idea that ‘louder’ means ‘better’ I’m listening fewer and fewer new records

biggest bummer: all of the non-music related stuff 2016 will be remembered for. I’m living in Western Europe the ‘old continent’ the home of white privilege. We’re starting to feel the brunt here, but probably ain’t seen nothing yet.