Greatest Metal According to Gowi/LedZep/Repo/Rocky and I!

[Mercury]

(Started writing this on new year's day, but stopped. I'll just post it now so I don't forget. Hope y'all have a great start to 2022)


Year In Review

Well, happy new year, everyone. And what a year its been. Musically I have heard a lot. Per my Apple Music thing that goes over year stats, I heard a whopping 1,340 albums. (It should be noted that I checked out that many albums... maybe finished 70-80% i would guess.). 1,105 Apple music hours comes out to a ridiculous and concerning 12.6% of my hours (awake and asleep) listening to music on this app. Some music from YouTube and a small amount on bandcamp and soundcloud probably brings this percetage to what 13-13.5%.... geez.

As far as albums and artists I listened to the most last year: My top 10 most listened to albums last year were
1. songs by Adrianne Lenker (2020)
2. Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast (2021)
3. Interstice by Knoll (2021
4. By The Time I Get To Phoenix by Injury Reserve (2021)
5. Prowler In The Yard by Pig Destroyer (2001)
6. Old Chestnut by Ned Collette (2018)
7. Through Silver In Blood by Neurosis (1996)
8. Reign In Blood by Slayer (1986)
9. Cavalcade by black midi (2021)
10. For the First Time by Black Country New Road (2021)

The top 10 artists in terms of hours were:
1. Neurosis
2. Kanye West
3. Japanese Breakfast
4. Adrianne Lenker
5. Ichiko Aoba
6. Iron Maiden (lol this makes me laugh because I don't love Maiden but boy I spent a lot of time with them last year)
7. Injury Reserve
8. Ned Collette
9. Sonic Youth
10. Slayer

Top songs is boring because, outside of Jesus Lord by Kanye which i love and listened to alone over, its just songs from songs, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Interstice, Jubilee and Cavalcade... those albums I heard a billion times.

-----------------

Okay, so I ended up LOGGING 224 albums I heard in 2021 released in 2021 that is. I heard another 100-200 or so that I just didn't like or finish or just didn't log or review. Some of them got tacked on my 2021 chart. This thing where I write a somewhat lengthy review or comment for every album added to my 2021 chart makes those albums I REALLY like that don't have comments stick out lol. I just don't have the energy or interest at this time in writing reviews of those albums. But this chart is up to date I think in terms of the albums I like the most and in relative order. So feel free to look at it if you want to see what I liked best musically last year: Top 100 Music Albums of 2021 by Mercury

--------------

As some of you know who have been reading this diary all year, I have a never ending file of major albums I just neeeeed to listen to and also not-so-major albums that I was interested in. This list was almost always hovering at 120-180 or so. Then sometimes I'd prune it. Get it down to 50 lowest. This current list is what I have on my list.

2021 albums specifically to-do list
Album Artist
Talk Memory BADBADNOTGOOD
Child's Play Alice Phoebe Lou
De doorn Amenra
Purifying Blade Antichrist Siege Machine
Pierres brulees Aorlhac
KicK I-V Arca
Cull Ficle Asian Glow
pt. 2345678andstill EP Asian Glow
Once Twice Melody EP Beach House
Once Twice Melody Chapter 2 Beach House
Waysides Bedouine
Coherance Be'lakor
Colors II Between The Buried and Me
The Myth of the Happily Ever After Biffy Clyro
Songs for the Enamol Queen Black Sheep Wall
The Color Blu Blu
Super Tecmo Bo Boldy James and the Alchemist
Highs in the Minuses Charlotte Cornfield
Vanishing Act I: No Nouns EP Clarence Clarity
If Words Were Flowers Curtis Harding
The Nearer the Mountain, More Pure the Stream Flows Damon Albarn
Faith in Persona Death's Dynamic Shroud.wmv
Absolutely Dijon
Psychocephalic Spawning Effluence
Ballistic Bloodspray EP Effluence
American Siren Emily Scott Robinson
Welcome to the Garden Emily Steinwall
Engine of Hell Emma Ruth Rundle
Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath Esoctrilihum
Trisagion Ethereal Shroud
Radical Every Time I Die
Palais d'argile Feu! Chatterton
God's Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess Fievel is Glauque
Demo '21 EP Filth Chasm
Gloire eternelle First Fragment
A Very Lonely Solstice Fleet Foxes
Oxidized Frontierer
Projector Geese
Shade Grouper
Far In Helado Negro
Mood Valiant Hiatus Kaiyote
The Walls Are Way Too Thin Holly Humberstone
"Windswept Adan" Concert at Bunkamura Orchard Hall Ichiko Aoba
Crawler Idles
Liminal Space Ill Considered
Let Me Do One More Illuminati Hotties
Any Shape You Take Indigo D'Souza
Friends that Break your Heart James Blake
The Horses and the Hounds James McMurtry
Dear Love Jazzmeia Horn
Skin Joy Crookes
LP! JPEGMAFIA
Pushing Daisies EP Julie
Inpariquipe Kaatayra
Moss Grew On The Swords and Plowshares Alike Kayo Dot
Nowhere Is Sterile Kidnapped
Live at Levitation Kikagaku Moyo
A Tear in the Fabric of Life EP Knocked Loose
Leftovers La Ren
Submission and Slavery Lamp of Murmuur
Blue Banisters Lana Del Rey
Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern Lil Ugly mane
Lower Forms of Life Logistic Slaughter
Fatigue L'Rain
To Enjoy Is The Only Thing Maple Glider
Clamor Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés
De primeira Marina Sena
The Path of the Clouds Marissa Nadler
Hushed and Grim Mastodon
Pittsburgh Matthew Stevens
King's Disease II Nas
Magic Nas
Un Canto Por Mexico, Vol 2 Natalia Lafourcade
Young Shakespeare Neil Young
Way Down In The Rust Bucket Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Lonely Place of Dyin nouns
Woman On The Internet Orla Gartland
冥冥 (Míng Míng) Otay:onii
Jade Pan Daijing
Downfall of the Neon Youth Parannoul/Asian Glow/sohnos…
Day/Night Parcels
Sympathy for Life Parquet Courts
In The Blossom of Their Shade Pokey LaFarge
Flux Poppy
Kid A Mnesiac Radiohead
Henki Richard Dawson & Circle
Play With the Changes Rochelle Jordan
No Medium Rosali
Big Colors Ryan Adams
Seventeen Going Under Sam Fender
The Romance of Affliction SeeYouSpaceCowboy
Prioritise Pleasure Self Esteem
Phantom Indigo Seputus
Katartisis EP Serpent Column
Wrapped In Darkness Serpent of the Abyss
Year of the Spider Shannon and the Clams
Valentine Snail Mail
None But A Perfect Heart Can Sing So Hideous
STOMACH BOOK Stomach Book
The Ballad of Dood and Juanita Sturgill Simpson
The Cyclic Reckoning Suffering Hour
Red (Taylor's Version) Taylor Swift
The Raging River EP The Cult of Luna
Pressure Machine The Killers
Dark in Here The Mountain Goats
Good Woman The Staves
Illusory Walls The World is a Beautiful Place…
Thirstier Torres
The Violence of Spring Trauma Bond
Endlhetoneg Trha
Jodeki tricot
Uneasy Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh and Tyshawn Sorey
Breaking the Trauma Bond Voices
Hitler Wears Hermes 1 and 2 Westside Gunn
Julius Eastman Vol 1: Femenine Wild Up
Foreverglade Worm
Dawn Yebba
Stand For Myself Yola

Sorry for how that list looks. lol. I just don't know how to make my excel spreadsheet look great.

---------------------
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[Mercury]

Its a new year and I have still been listening to a good amount of new and old music. But I admit it has dropped off compared to the insane pace to start 2021. Still, there are a few albums upcoming which I am much much MUCH more excited about than ANY album at the beginning of 2021. Namely, I am fully ready and waiting to have my life taken over by the new Big Thief album slated to drop on Feb 4 2022. That will be a beast I can feel it. Of the 8(!!!) previewed tracks avaialble to hear from this big album, I would say I LOVE 6 of them. This is going to be great.

I am also excited about the new Black Country, New Road album despite not really loving the singles as much as many have seemed to love them. That strange style on display with those singles are just not remotely getting me. We shall see, maybe as a whole it will be a brilliant experience.

New Mitski, much like the new upcoming Big Thief, features for me almost nothing but INCREDIBLE singles so far. I have yet to really have that moment when I got hooked to Mitski. None of her albums yet has blown me away, but Laurel Hell is shaping up to be that album that gets me in to her music. I have known she is a brilliant songwriter and one of the best of her generation for years.

Otherwise the new Charli XCX album with the sexy and amazing album cover is sure to kick ass as well.

Of course I am as excited as the next nerd for the full unified roll out of the 4 sides of the new Beach House project. Should be quite good and beautiful.

Other ones I am excited about are the new Sevdaliza album ( I really really like her 2020 album), and I am sure there are many more that I am silly for not noticing are coming (Ned Collette and The Tallest Man On Earth are the main ones that the second I get a whif that a new project is coming, I will lose my shit.)

anyway, I don't know what I will do here next. I kind of want to do an individual artoists discog deep dive. Maybe Big Thief and affiliated artists solo stuff, or maybe Mastodon, or maybe PJ Harvey, or maybe... I don't know.
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[Repo]

[Mercury]

Mastodon through the years!

originally this was full glowing comment about Mastodon's debut. I managed to stupidly delete it and replace it with my comment on their 3rd album. I went in to steal and copy/paste the formatting for this original debut album post and forgot I had done that and posted and now my love and words about REMISSION is lost for ever. fuck fuck fuck fuck fduck i am fucking annoyed. sorry. Like, really really annoyed.

well, remission... my main point initaially was it was great and it got the following grade: (3 twisted and 2 evil) and a grade of 9.1 and I love it and its a heavy album and blah blah blah the time is gone and i am moving on.

RIP COHESIVENESS OF THIS PROJECT.

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Remission by Mastodon.

Actually, this is a great enough album to listen a couple more times and write a little more about it. So, although the following comment isn't the original comment, the one I made as I actually discovered this album for the first time about a week ago, this will cover some similar opinions.

Coming back to this now, after having heard newly their next 3 albums as part of this generally quite revered opening 4 album run, is all the more amazing. Just got done listening to Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye and man it is wild how much changed in a few years. As with so many classic and legendary metal groups' debut albums this album is a massive flex, a balls to the way aggressive outburst, a way of storming into the room and pronouncing your might and intent in music form. This album absolutely wrecks shop. Its so heavy, so gnarly, nasty, sludgy and yet breakneck. I saw someone mention that the sludge here is as heavy as Neurosis but at about 3 times the pace. And that is about right. This is sludge in heaviness and nastiness but, like, Thrash in terms of speed and pace.

The drummer, Brann Dailor, is a god. Perhaps outside of the immortal Dave Lombardo of Slayer, he is my favorite metal drummer and up there all time and any genre. The hyper active and almost jazzy sound of his drums is what initially caught my ear when I fell in love with Leviathan. And it is great to hear that from the jump Mastodon's drum work was forefront and incredible. He is just a master.

The rest of the band is good too... the vocals here, actually, may be my favorite of the first 4 Mastodon albums. Some may deisagree because they certainly got more varied and more clean and more professional or whatever in later albums, but the vocals here are the perfect mix of cookie monster deep rumble and post hardcore enriched raging roaring aggression. Never clean, never pretty, just pure aggression. Stunning.

Ad for the guitars, well, they filthy and they sound sooo fucking great. Muddy, absolutely mean, sickeningly heavy and rumbling, the riffs here are good as is, but when combined with the tone of the guitars and bass and those ever changing, mercurial drums underneath, make these riffs all the better.

In my original commenton this album before I stupidly deleted it from history, i did a full track by track breakdown of each track. I don't wanna replicate that ebcause that style of comment is annoying for me to do and I also tend to not like reading them. Suffice it to say, there are 3-4 moments and songs here that are so heavy that they manage to stick out on this record - an album that is set at a default setting of heaviness that would shame most death metal and sludge bvands in the world. So these moments that stick out as particularly memorably heavy are just that much more achingly brutal. These are the moments that would make Sleep or Electric Wizard or Nails fans even nod their heads appreciatively. I'm talking mostly "Workhorse", "Where Strides the Behemoth" and "Mother Puncher". Man those songs rumble. "Workhorse" in particular is not only brilliantly and overwhelmingly heavy, it also is just about the best extreme metal song I've ever heard. Its a godsend of hateful energy fit for the whole family.

It is also cool that while, yes, this album is 90% sheer raging intensityu, there was already a trace of what was to come. There are several truly beautifully and slowly building proto-blood mountain/crack the skye mastodon doing prog metal examples here. They are not yet perhaps as chiseled and perfect as they would later be, but shit they are beautiful (talking specifically "Ol'e Nessie" and "March of the Fire Ants" and "Trainwreck" and a couple others when I talk of some prog foreshadowing).

All in all, perhaps just maybe the fact that i deleted my earlier original comment on their debut was a good thing (but probably not) because it gave me a chance to listen to this again and realize as much as I loved and praised it earlier, this is even better than I gave it credit for. This is a toweringly great debut. Up there with Kill Em All and Streetcleaner in terms of classic and overwhelming 'new kids on the block" opening statements go. Doesn't get enough love (but really who am I kidding this does get a lot of love, but it feels like it isn't given nearly enough in comparison to their next 3 albums - which admittedly are also quite stunning.)

The only critique (not really a critique but maybe something that holds it back from Leviathan heights) is that it is mostly 2 note. 2 notes being sludge of the purest and fastest kind and then some occasional slow building somewhat prog metal stuff. Leviathan and Blood Mountain and certainly Crack the skye perhaps can be considered more accomplished albums in terms of variety and detail and flow and songcraft etc. But this is easily the album of theirs that I have heard so far that MOST hypes me up and makes me wanna run through a wall. Absolutely classic.
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[Mercury]

Leviathan, Mastodon's classic second LP!

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Leviathan by Mastodon

Okay, so this was the album that I heard that kind of blew my mind and start thinking this Mastodon band were special. This album was, infact, largely responsible for my relatively recent renewed love and interest in Metal meusic more broadly. For a long time I was apathetic about metal post, say, 1992. As a teen I loved it but was mostly obsessed with 80s thrash and Sabbath and to a degree 90s industrial hard rock and metal and so forth. Then I moved away from metal for a long time and especially was not interested in Extreme metal and its trends and bands probably from when I was about 18 to 30. Then, one day, I was on RYM and I was wanting to see if there were any classic “modern” metal albums that I should give a shot. I ended up checking out Leviathan and ….oooooo boy….. this was just what I needed. It was so overwhelmingly great in every single thing it did. The drumming was so absurdly sharp, crisp, active, enticing, beautiful and just so cool. The riffs were so varied, with many hard charging almost old school hard rock/metal riffs and gobs and gobs of heavier than hell sludge riffs, as well as some really tricky and beautiful proggy riffs. It was all so much and all so fitting for the tracks. The vocals were also a major selling point. I didn’t know at the time it was 3 different members of the band taking turns with vocals duty, so when I heard this album the first few times I thought it was one VERY talented vocalist who could do the (relatively) clean vocals for the soaring bits as well as also do the deep growling roaring sludge-fitting bits and the more hardcore-influenced shouted vocals etc. Well, when I learned it was different people, that made sense to me and made me even more impressed with the talent and versatility of this damn band.

Listening to this yet again now…. Its fabulous. The album is much more complete, wholistic, varied than the debut. There are still some truly intimidating in your face sludge BEASTS present here. But there are just as many moments when the speed is amped to 11 while the melodic riffs intertwine and the solos come in all soarin g and gorgeous, and these moments don’t sound like really anything on their debut. Like I said in my Remission comment, there are INDICATIONS of where the band was headed or could head, but with this album they managed to take those hints and expand them into some truly brilliant songs.

Obviously, this is still their sludge phase, they are still heavy as shit and if you compare this to Crack The Skye, its clear that they hadn’t reached their final form in terms of complex, deep, progressive metal inclinations. But I think that I love this album more than any others of theirs I have heard (so far and as of now) because I generally am more drawn to the almost animalistic furious primal elements of metal. As for why I love this more than the debut (considering that Remission is MORE animalistically primal and intense) well I think a side serving of melody and epic prog headiness and just a bit more chiseling and directing and perfecting is nice to hem in the otherwise unbridled maelstrom of what we get on the debut. It’s a fine razor’s edge, if you go too far into the cleaner and more constructed and bridled side of this sound, it could relatively easily start sounding de-fanged and watered-down. Somehow with this absolutely classic second Mastodon album they retain the overwhelming, almost impossible energy of the debut while perfectly integrating it into highs and lows, slower parts and faster parts, quiet and loud, complex and primal, etc… and the result is an LP with no blemishes and an LP that feels like a 47 minute fucking voyage.

I am told and I have heard there is somewhat a theme here. I am sure there is. I have never read the lyrics closely. So no comment from me on that. The album cover is dope and if this is a whole album that is about Moby Dick, well that is cool and I can hear it. There is an epic, literary arc to this record. Maybe someday and in future listens I will do a more detailed reading and researching into what the album is about. For now, even without understanding all that, this is just about the perfect metal album. This can appeal to people who love Metallica of both the early and latter day sound, it can appeal to slayer fans and sludge fans and I would assume rock fans. It seems like a good gateway to a lot of cool stuff. It was for me anyway. Getting into this album and band directly lead me to searching out and discovering so many other great albums. Such a classic.

(5 twisted! I am not sure if I have ever given a perfect 5 for 5 yet. But surely this deserves it.)
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[LedZep]

[Mercury]

[Repo]

Great write-ups, brother!!! You know what band would make a lot of sense to do concurrently with Mastodon? Isis!!!

Starting with their debut...

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Celestial by Isis

[Mercury]

[Mercury]

Mastodon through the years! (part 3)

Blood Mountain, Mastodon's third album

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Blood Mountain by Mastodon

In a few words I can pigeonhole 3 of the first 4 classic Mastodon albums. Remission: its their sludgiest album, their insane breakneck album. Leviathan: it’s their first level-up, their first masterpiece and their second heaviest album and yet perhaps the most cohesive one. Crack the Skye: it’s the full realization of their Progressive Metal development, its when they put all their budding songwriting chops to the test and made yet another masterpiece. (and yes I realize the only way those statements were one sentence was because I broke the rules of grammar).

And yet, Blood Mountain, this album, their third… I don’t really know what to succinctly name this in their early album run. Its kind of a tweener. At least, before listening to it several times the last few days, I would have described it as a tweener album between the 2 MONOLOITHIC masterpieces released in ’04 and ’09. Its still quite heavy, and already quite insanely complex and detailed. So, again, I would label it a tweener. But… there’s more. This album, I have also come to realize, is WEIRD. And… I love it. For real, this Band can do no fucking wrong! How were/are they so damn powerful and great and consistent?!!

This album starts off with an incredible, if not particularly weird, 3-song run that absolutely kicks ass while showing a distinct transformation in the sound and what the band is going for. The opener, “The Wolf Is Loose” is classic Mastodon if less ear-ache-inducingly heavy, its got that same power and passion while being a bit less breakneck as well. It feels almost anthemic and classic and has a slight prog metal sound. Then “Crystal Skull” is where you can see that the intensity-to-11 sound of Leviathan or certainly Remission is gone. Track 2 is a brilliantly composed almost elegant metal gem with cool Prog structures and builds. And, of course, the end of this opening 3-song-run is maybe the coolest of the bunch. Track 3, “Sleeping Giant” shows the band at their, as of yet, top mark in terms of gorgeous songwriting and melody-making and just everything about the opening 3 or 4 minutes or instrumental, with its overlaying guitar harmonizing is sublime and perfect. Its truly incredible. The vocals and all are fine, and the song certainly doesn’t lose its luster later on, as this may be the best song here.

That is when… shit gets wild and strange and very, very, very different than anything I remember hearing on their first couple LPs or even their next 2. The next 3 or 4 tracks are just indescribably all over the place. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they are still firmly in the Prog Metal zone. But man the weirdly affected robot vocal bits, the impossibly intricate full band interplay, the utter tonal shift into some weird abstract realm, the whole thing is more wanky than anything else I’ve heard from Mastodon. I’m talking mostly about the tracks “Capillarian Crest”, “Circle of Cysquatch”, “Bladecatcher” and somewhat “Colony of Birchmen”. Like … wow. That portion is a mind melt.

After this they get a bit more into charted territory and they do it well. The more direct heaviness, the ever-mesmerizing drumming, the crunchy and gorgeous guitar work, everything, its all so great. In “Siberian Divide” – the second to last track – in particular there is this blissful few minutes when the guitars are so groovy and the breakdown is so excellently executed it blows me away.

The band continues their tradition in their early albums of closing the album with a softer and somewhat out-of-place ballad. But damn, the closer “Pendulous Skin” features a stunning woozy atmosphere and some god-tier emotive pitch perfect soloing. Stunning closer

The cool drum intro of this album should be just as revered as the drum opener of Painkiller. Okay, I said it and I am not even sure I believe it. I am being hyperbolic to point out how crisp and great that album opener is. Other random notes I will jam into this paragraph, the opener of “Sleeping Giant” before the vox come in is only 90 seconds and earlier I said it was 3-4 minutes, well I guess that was a mistake. The instrumental is so other-worldly I got lost and lost track of time. I'm Listening to that song now and I believe it’s the best song on this album (a great album with only good songs) and maybe the best song yet in their discog. Next note: outside of the general (well-done) wankery of “Bladecatcher”, it should be noted that the guitar tones and riffs here are out of this fucking world. Next note: I didn’t give enough of a spotlight to “The Colony of Birchmen”. That song has some cool vocals, tasty riffs, and an epicness and a building feeling that I really, really love.

In closing, as I have been listening to this I have felt both a longing to hear their earlier and more extreme sludge stuff as well as a fascination and respect for what they managed to do and how much they changed on this album. I prefer generally, and on general principle, their first 2 album’s STYLES, but this is some of the coolest and heaviest progressive metal I have heard. The band seems to be more fully formed here. In earlier albums (including the essentially perfect Leviathan) it seemed to me the star was always the drums – those jazzy, proggy, hyperactive, detailed, roaring, immaculate, miraculous drums – but here the drums, while still being transcendently excellent, take a slight step back in terms of showiness and the rest of the sound and the band and the songs and their structures take a big step forward. As a result it feels like everyone and every aspect of this record has ample time to shine and fits in with everything else. This is yet another 5 evil emoji album. Mastodon were on fire all throughout the 2000s it seems!

(3 twisted evil and 2 evil... great score)

My ranking of Mastodon's albums so far:

#1 - Leviathan - 9.6/10
#2 - Remission - 9.2/10
#3 - Blood Mountain - 9/10

all classic-level shit so far. And next on the list is yet another album I am sure will get a 9+ score. This next album, while being an all time favorite of mine now, took me a looooong time to get into. See you on the other side with Crack The Skye words and maybe some Isis talk as well.
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!