Thursday 18 December 2014

The Best of 2014 (Albums & Gigs)

TOP 50 of 2014



*highlighted in red: reviewed albums, click the title*

Opeth is my favorite band and their quality transcends lists but to be fair, my favorite record of 2014 is the next one on the list! Pale Communion managed to be a great prog rock album, something that their previous one Heritage failed at.

1. Interpol - El Pintor
Probably my favorite alternative rock band, their 2 previous albums were flat compared to the usual quality they were used to with their classic debut and their excellent sophomore Antics. With El Pintor (anagram for Interpol), they're back with their best album since a while. I was pretty sad when their Montréal gig got reported due to the band being stucked in Buffalo due to the big snowstorm there.

2. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
Tom G. Warrior is back with the second Triptykon and he's as mighty as ever. I probably like his new project more than his classic days of Celtic Frost if that's even possible. Crushing doom extreme metal with a real somber atmosphere.

3. Horrendous - Ecdysis 
2014's best death metal album, a great mix of old school death, melodic death, prog and technical death in a very potent formula.

4. Primordial - Where Great Men Have Fallen
Another great album from the Irish boys, they just can't write bad songs. 

5. Wovenhand - Refractory Obdurate
David Eugene Edwards' (formerly of 16 Horsepower) newest album, his alternative dark country/neo folk country is as good as ever and even includes some slight metallic influences.
6. Mastodon - Once 'Round the Sun
7. Domains – Sinister Ceremonies
8. Young and in the Way - When Life Comes to Death
9. Prajna - The Summer Eclipse
10. Swallowed – Lunarterial

12. Giant Squid - Minoans
13. Opium Warlords - Taste my Sword of Understanding
14. Mausoleum Gate – Mausoleum Gate
15. Ningen Isu - Burai Houjou
16. Gridlink - Longhena
17. Ogre - The Last Neanderthal
18. Lucifer's Fall - Lucifer's Fall
19. Emptiness – Nothing but the Whole
20. Teitanblood - Death
21. Mansion - 
The Mansion Congregation Hymns Vol​.​1
23. Zaum - Oracles
24. Martyrdöd - Elddop
25. Sons of Crom – Riddle of Steel
26. Aureole - Alunar
27. Phillipe Katerine - Magnum
28. StarGazer - A Merging to the Boundless
29. Mac DeMarco – Salad Days
30. Cretin - Stranger
31. Hail Spirit Noir – Oi Magoi
32. Barrabas - Messe pour un chien
33. ZOM  - Flesh Assimilation
34. Cannibal Corpse - A Skeletal Domain
35. Mantar – Death by Burning
36. Portrait – Crossroads
38. Incantation – Dirges of Elysium
39. Murmur - Murmur
40. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell - Check 'em before you wreck 'em
41. Bloodbath – Grand Morbid Funeral
42. The Great Old Ones – Tekeli-Li
43. L'Ira del Baccano - Terra 42
45. Basalte- Vestige
46. Yob - Clearing The Path To Ascend
47. Phobocosm - Deprived
48. Thantifaxath – Sacred White Noise
49. Slough Feg – Digital Resistance

Albums I haven't heard enough yet:
Spectral Lore - III
Furia - Nocel
Orange Goblin - Back from the Abyss
Mare Cognitum – Phobos Monolith
Dawnbringer – Night of the Hammer
Godflesh - World Lit Only by Fire
Morbus Chron - Sweven
Mansion - Uncreation

Disappointing albums of 2014 :Dead Congregation -Promulgation of the Fall
-A samey mess of tired old school death metal, a bitter disappointment after the genius approach of Graves of the Archangels.

Slough Feg – Digital Resistance
-
One of my favorite bands of all time released their weakest album to date. It's a confused unfocused album trying to mix their folky hard hittin' heavy metal with their sci fi progressive rock and their Thin Lizzy approach on the same album. While still good, it doesn't quite work.

Most anticipated albums of 2015 :

Enslaved – In Times
New Leeches of Lore
Aktor - Paranoia
Melechesh – Enki
Lord Fist - Green Eyleen

Chthe'ilist's debut full length







TOP 10 GIGS OF 2014

Blasphemy @RRROAAARRR 


1) Hooded Menace Read the review
2) Loop
3) RRROOOAAARRRR festival with Incantation, Blasphemy... Read the review
4) Wings of Metal with Holocaust, Blood Ceremony, Bolzer Read my review
5) Uncle Acid with Danava Read the review
6) Subrosa Read the review
7) The Ocean with The Atlas Moth 
8) Ulcerate with Phobocosm and Chthe'ilist Read the review
9) Amnesia Rockfest with Alice in Chains, Weezer, Meshuggah...
10) Zaum with Dopethrone Read the review
11) Mac Demarco with The Besnard Lakes and Solids

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