Beardo's Top 40 Metal Albums of 2011

Every December I hear people say the same things regarding the releases that came out over the preceding 11 months; "This was a shitty year for metal *cry cry cry*" Well fuck you. Every year is a good year for metal if you know where to look. To all the haters who are more content bitching about the fact that the new Wintersun album still hasn't dropped, shut your goddamn maws! 2011 was a great year for metal, and the following list proves it.

40. Mitochondrion – Parasignosis

39. Agoraphobic Nosebleed/Despise You – And on, and on… Split 12”

38. Primordial – Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand

37. Ulcerate – The Destroyers of All

36. Blut Aus Nord – 777 Sect(s)/The Desanctification

35. Drainland - …And So Our Troubles

34. Ravencult – Morbid Blood

33. Morne – Asylum

32. Trap Them – Darker Handcraft

31. Seidr – For Winter Fire

30. Wolvhammer – The Obsidian Plains

29. Today is the Day – Pain is a Warning

28. Fyrnask – Bluostar

27. Antediluvian – Through the Cervix of Hawwah

26. Thou – The Archer and the Owle

25. Batillus - Furnace

24. Heartless – Hell is Other People

23. All Pigs Must Die – God is War

22. Negative Plane – Stained Glass Revelations

21. Circle of Ouroborus  - Eleven Fingers

20. SubRosa – No Help For The Mighty Ones

19. Trash Talk – Awake

18. Hammers of Misfortune – 17^th Street

17. Atriarch – Forever the End

16. Corrupted - Garten der Ubewussthelt

15. Mournful Congregation – The Book of Kings

14. Lycus – Demo 2011

13. Bell Witch – Demo 2011

12. Wreck of the Hesperus – Light Rotting Out

11. Aosoth - III

10. Disma – Towards the Megalith - Disma dropped a modern death metal classic on our asses this year. Towards the Megalith is a cavernous slice of primal death that makes all of your Black Dahlia Murder albums sound like the soundtrack to Love Actually. 

9. YOB – Atma - The masters of doom delivered the goods in 2011. A strong follow-up to 2009's monolithic The Great Cessation, Atma sees YOB channeling Hawkwind a little more than usual and to great effect.

8. Blasphemophagher – The Ill Command of the Absolute Chaos - Pummeling black death from my favorite Nuclear War Now! band. Words don't do this level of chaos justice. 

7. False – False - 2 twelve minute tracks? Fuck yeah. False accomplished more in two tracks than most black metal bands (Liturgy) could accomplish writing a dissertation. 

6. Indian – Guiltless - Crusty, doomy, noisy, and oh so satisfying. Indian put all the pieces together to form the perfect representation of their sound. Guiltless is a crusher from start to finish. 

5. Ash Borer – Ash Borer - Cascadian black metal done right. Hollow, dark, and beautiful. Ash Borer deserved way more attention than they got in 2011.

4. Barghest – Barghest - Containing members of Thou, Barghest play second wave inspired black metal. The debut album from this NOLA collective is addictive as fuck.

3. Gridlink - Orphan - John Chang rules. Gridlink rules. Grindcore rules. Orphan rules. 

2. Bosse de Nage - II - Post black metal that doesn't play by the rules. Bosse de Nage destroyed the confines of their genre and created something completely new. II is a force to be reckoned with.

1. Wolves in the Throne Room – Celestial Lineage - WITTR finally delivered their masterpiece. Celestial Lineage is the culmination of everything WITTR have ever done right. This album is truly transcendental, and deserves your undivided attention.

 

So there you have it, a great year for metal as illustrated by my spot on list.  

Impressions: Lantlôs' Agape

Lantlos exist as the exception to the current wave of post black metal spewing forth from the underground. Consisting of Neige (Alcest, Forgotten Woods, Peste Noire) and Herbst (Epitaph, Impavida), Lantlos exists as a post black metal band that doesn't necessarily need the genre tag. They have always forged their own path within the world of black metal, and have done their best not to repeat themselves. Recently the duo released their new album Agape, via Lupus Lounge.

Being a fan of the last two Lantlos albums gave me some pretty high expectations for Agape and while I think this album fits into the band's discography thematically and sonically, I don't consider this their best output. Let me break it down like this; the last two Lantlos albums (Lantlos and .Neon) were black metal at its most expansive, vast, and fragile. Neige and Herbst injected so much tortured beauty into those two albums, and after listening to Agape four or fives times it seems as though they might have run out of gas.

This is not to say that Agape is a waste of time, not in the slightest. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Agape sounds a little confused. There are moments of genius peppered throughout Agape, but they are short glimpses at what the album could have been, and ultimately they left me feeling a little short changed. The biggest problem with this new material is its pacing; the whole record suffers from an odd pacing that interrupts the flow of  its tracks. This is also a pretty short album, running only 35 minutes (pretty short for a bm album), that is largely ambient.

Overall I would only suggest grabbing a copy of Agape if you understand what you are going to get. This is not the best bm album of 2011, but it is far from the worst. Worthy of your time? Yes. Worthy of your money? Probably not.

Lantlos - Bliss

DL