Albums Of The Year - 10 to 1

 

 10. Läjä Äijälä & Albert Witchfinder - Centuries of Youth

Downbeat power electronic

9. Squid - Bright Green Field

Krautpop post-punk

8. Sonic Demon - Vendetta

Fuzzed out distorted stoner

7. Black Spell - The Purple Skull

Scuzzy occult doom

6. God Is An Astronaut - Ghost Tapes #10

Post-rock played over a sonic soundscape

5. Mother Iron Horse - Under The Blood Moon

Sludge doom, heavy and fuzzed

4. Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I

Metal and post-hardcore never sounded so brutal or haunting

3. Fucked Up - Year Of The Horse

An ambitious four 20 min tracks of psychedelic hardcore punk

2. Iron Lizards - Hungry For Action

Rock'n'roll garage punk that makes me want to break things

1. Idles - Crawler

Post-punk masterpiece

That's it. This is what plays through my head when I am trying to survive just existing.

Albums Of The Year - 20 to 11

 

20. Muriel Grossman - Union

Spiritual jazz

19. Kowloon Walled City - Piecework

Sparse post-hardcore

18. Tropical Fuck Storm - Deep States

Experimental post-punk

17. Jointhugger - Surrounded By Vultures

Psychosonic doom rock

16. Blasting Rod - III

Heavy psych with Brass!

15. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs

Post-punk spoken ranting

14. Rostro Del Sol - S/T

Psych space rock

13. Haaz - Andra

Enthralling noise-rock

12. Part Chimp - Drool

Noise-rock with tunes

11. Melvins - Working With God

You know what is sounds like!

Albums Of The Year - 30 to 21

 

30. Mythic Sunship - Wildfire

Bluesy psychedelic prog 

29. ILL Considered - Liminal Space

Free jazz in a tribal style!

28. Cerce - Cowboy Music

Becca spits out her venom over a post punk hardcore racket.

27. Cha Wa - My People

New Orleans funk

26. Domkraft - Seeds

Groovy freaky sludge

25. 2 Headed Dogs - The Engine Is On

Nebula meets The Hellacopters

24. Leon III - Antlers In Velvet

Psychedelic indie folk

23. Junkbreed - Music For Cool Kids

Punk post-hardcore

22. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime

Sub-Sahara fuzz rock

21. Death From Above 1979 - Is 4 Lovers

Post-punk you can dance to.

No bandcamp link???

Albums Of The Year - 40 to 31

 

40. Chihuahua - Violent Architecture

Noise rock, post punk, no wave

39. Heavy Temple - Lupi Amoris

Stoner/doom riff machines

38. Watchman - Doom Of Babylon

A doom soundtrack for the apocalypse

36. The Lords Of Altamont - Tune In, Turn On, Electrify

Garage psych punk

35. A Better Tomorrow - Spiritual Crossing

Jazz, soul and metal groove

34. Stomatopod - Completing With Hindsight

Noisy post punk mathy rock

33. Dinosaur Jr - Sweep It Into Space

Hey, you either like 'em or don't.

32. Kills Birds - Married

Grungey post-punk

31. 10,000 Years - II

Feral doom/sludge fuzz fest

Albums of the Year - 50 to 41

50. Irreversible Entanglements - Open The Gate

Free jazz groove

49. TV Priest - Uppers

Terse post-punk

48. The Pop Group - Y in Dub

Dennis Bovell remix

47. Monolord - Your Time To Shine

Fuzzed haunting doom

46. Mono - Pilgrimage Of The Soul

Mesmerising post-rock

45. Fere - Visceral

Experimental punk hardcore

 

44. X'ed Out - We All Do Wrong

Noise rock with bursts of brass

43. Duel - In Carne Persona

Heavy psych stoner

42. God Damn - Coward

Hardcore stoner metal

41. Uranus Space Club - Another Planet, Another Love

Funk jazz space rock

Black Spell - The Purple Skull

                           Black Spell play a superb mix of doom-tainted sludge that

threatens to obliterate everything in its path. Despairing, bleak

vocals echo out a litany of fury that are always fighting to be

heard above the fat, heavy guitar tones that are crashing out

gargantuan riffs.

 

This album is made up of  tracks that take you to a dark swamp,

cut your eyes with razors and leave you to slowly sink into the mire.

Passages within the songs do pick up the pace at times before descending

back into the thick, bad-drug vibe that pervades the Black Spell sound.

 

The crowning glory as far as I am concerned, are the outrageously

fuzzed guitar solos that forge the psychedelic with the heavy - kinda

like Vanilla Fudge crossed with Electric Wizard. At times I find this

genre sometimes suffers from a generic template but in my eyes,

Black Spell have produced one of the Doom albums of the year.

Released on Forbidden Place Records.

                                

Stomatopod - Competing With Hindsight

Stomatopod play the sort of music that sounds one chorus 

 away from musically exploding into chaos but somehow they 

manage to keep things flowing into nagging songs that lodge 

into your brain.

Straddling the void between noise/art/punk/math, these songs are full of

spastic rhythms, staccato time changes and sprawling passages that wind

up as aggressive bursts of frustration.

The sound has a lot of empty space which gives the Tom Verlaine type

soloing room to explore before getting trashed into basic riffs. This is

very good shit ......... the vocals veers between plantive, demented,

crooning and shouting which in this day and age of roared, aggressive

shouting manages to bring a lot more tension into proceedings.

Sounding like Sonic Youths bratty younger brothers, Stomatopod

also have the same knack for inventing a new musical language that you

don't quite get but want to understand better. Oh yeah and it is mixed

and recorded by Steve Albini.

Haaz - Andra

 

Haaz play noise rock/post-hardcore - their own tag

of "indie noise rock" does not do justice to the explosion of power,

aggression and raw slabs of sonic destruction that emerge when

the play button is pressed.

 

Dark rumbling bass which sounds like it is played through a

distortion pedal or just turned up fucking loud mixes with the

pounding drums to produce the platform from which the fuzzed up,

on the edge-of-constant-feedback guitars can riff off. Ah man,

the riffs in the songs are groove ridden monsters that make me want

to break things while laughing like a maniac. Such evil joy and

wanton glee are in the tunes - they lodge deep in your brain and

make other music seem dull and insipid.

 

Crooning, shouting, yelling - the vocals sound like David Yow

performing under the influence of un-tested drugs, ranting about

self loathing with the world and maybe oneself.

 

The entire sound is deep, sludgey but with the uncomplicated

song passages that contains all I love about noise rock. So

much denseness is contained in these 10 tracks that when this

album stops, the silence seems almost deafening.

Cerce - Cowboy

 

                    

Razor clear vocals from Becca, sludge/hardcore riffs and fuzzed

out guitars that sound like they are on verge of constant

feedback is the touchstone from which Cerce inflict on

you. Think Jesus Lizard jamming with the Melvins

and you will begin to see the warped path

which you are required to walk through when

the music starts.

This is noise-rock distilled through a vortex of insanity
and chaos that only the strong will emerge from.
Quicksilver guitar solos and riffs are sprayed over
the tracks with reckless abandon but always with a
thrilling payoff - to misquote - " It's rock Jim but
not as we know it"!

The Pop Group - Y In Dub

 The classic album “Y” was a post-punk taster of what 

could be done with stripped down sounds and rhythm. 

Add dub master Dennis Bovell to the mix and a thing 

of strange beauty was born. 40 years later and 

Bovell has returned, tearing the songs apart and 

putting them back together like a mutant creation 

coming to life. If you have not played this album 

for a while, jump aboard this head fuck and get 

taken to the outer reaches of dub.