Top 40 Metal Albums of 2012: 30-21

30.  WINTERSUN: TIME I
It has been a very long time coming for this release.  The band released its first album way back in 2004 and there have long been promises of a new one coming soon.  I myself have known about this for about four or five years now and anxiously awaiting it.  Of course it did not quite live up to the hype, but it is still an extremely impressive release all the same.  An incredible blend of a variety of metal styles into a surprisingly beautiful final product.

29.  CRADLE OF FILTH: THE MANTICORE AND OTHER HORRORS
Everyone's favorite gothic metal nutballs, Cradle of Filth have once again released an album in October of this year.  Just like clockwork.  The sound is a little different this time around with more of an emphasis on aggressive riffwork than on albums past.  Cradle of Filth has also focused on decreasing their song lengths making this a much tighter and punchier release than some of their more long-winded efforts to date.  It is easily one of the band's best albums in years.

28.  ENSLAVED: RIITIIR
Enslaved has received a surprising amount of criticism on this release.  I do not personally buy into all that much as this album has once again strongly impressed me.  It is not as dynamic as some of their other more recent releases, which is why it is in this position instead of closer to the top, but it is impressive in its own way.  Enslaved is a band that continually puts out terrific album after terrific album, and this one is no different.

27.  NAPALM DEATH: UTILITARIAN
Napalm Death has built one hell of a long career out of simply making eardrums bleed.  Their politically charged lyrics are sometimes lost in the cacophony of noise that they make but their anger is plain and obvious.  I have not always been the biggest fan of Napalm Death, but over the last couple of years they have become one of my favorite groups.  This release certainly shows why it is that the band has been able to last as long as they have.

26.  ABORTED: GLOBAL FLATLINE
Simply put, this is the best album that Aborted has put out, likely ever.  The Belgian bashers have long been attempting to add some measure of experimentation and more mainstream-influenced sounds into their brutal style.  On this release, Aborted abandon all of that and simply play to their strengths.  This is brutal and unrelenting grinding death metal the way that it should be.

25.  SATAN'S WRATH: GALLOPING BLASPHEMY
Departed Electric Wizard bassist Tas Donazoglou wasted no time in putting together his next musical project.  Fans of his former band will likely not find a whole lot to compare it to as this is a band looking towards other metal influences to guide his style.  Satan's Wrath is built upon the legacy of early Slayer, Bathory, Hellhammer, Possessed and other band at the forefront of extreme metal.  This is a tribute album with original material and it is one of the most impressive debuts of the year.

24.  NACHTMYSTIUM: SILENCING MACHINE
Nachtmystium lost me for a little while.  Their last album was far too progressive without enough of their prior black metal style for my tastes.  This album saw a return to their original black metal sound while also working to mix in the progressiveness that the band had been experimenting with.  What resulted was one of the band's best albums in their discography.  This album even saw a return of the band's black metal logo.

23.  ARKHAM WITCH: LEGIONS OF THE DEEP
This will not be the only traditional metal release that will be seen on this Top 40 release.  There were a number of terrific albums released this year dedicated to the early heavy metal masters.  Arkham Witch utilize a variety of styles on this album from doom metal to thrash metal to hard rock.  One thing stays the same throughout though, their ability to write damn catchy songs.

22.  SINISTER: THE CARNAGE ENDING
Sinister was once one of the most brutal death metal bands going.  They emerged from the Netherlands in the late 1980's and put out a couple of terrific and powerful death metal classics early on.  They faded a bit over the years but apparently never really lost their edge.  This is the best album Sinister has released in a number of years.  The brutality and power that once coursed through the band's veins is back with a vengeance.

21.  CHAOS INCEPTION: THE ABROGATION
There have been a lot of great death metal albums released this year from unexpected bands.  Chaos Inception is a recent project of Quinta Essentia guitarist Matt Barnes.  Just like his other band, Chaos Inception's biggest strength is the highly original and impressive riffwork.  It is a masterful death metal release that proves that there is still a lot of life left in the genre that many have believed has grown stale.

Initial Impressions: Cradle of Filth: The Manticore and Other Horrors

Just like clockwork.  Every two years or so around the end of October (Halloween time kiddies), English gothic extreme metal mavens Cradle of Filth drop a new album of horror stories upon us.  And every time, I feel absolutely compelled to pick it up.  Let's face it, I am a Cradle of Filth fan.  I know they have their detractors, but I cannot help but love what they are doing every time.  It's a sickness I know.

This one is a little bit different sounding than the band's typical fare.  For one thing, the sound has been stripped down a little bit.  And this even effects the run-time of the release.  There are no ridiculously long songs, everything is tightened up and a lot of the musical meanderings have been cut out.  The riffs have become much more prominent on this release, replacing a lot of the keyboard melodies.  This is the most aggressive Cradle of Filth has sounded in years.  The riffs frequently resemble punk and thrash metal riffs.  Again, this is something that has been missing from Cradle's sound for a long time.  It is a welcome change.  After so many albums of the band doing basically the same thing, it was time to change up the formula a little bit.

No review of Cradle of Filth's new record would be complete without discussing Dani Filth, the only constant element in the band.  Dani's vocals are not as strong as they used to be, that is an unfortunate inevitability when a band has been around as long as Cradle of Filth has been.  But that is not to say that he does not have anything left, he certainly does.  His high-pitched shrieks and low grumbles still do the trick.  And of course, his songwriting has always been very impressive.  His ability to weave stories of gothic horror into the darkly melodic, atmospheric music of which Cradle of Filth specializes.

This is not one of Cradle of Filth's greatest albums, but it is one of their best in years.  It does not touch the levels of Dusk...and Her Embrace, Midian, or Cruelty and the Beast, but I would stack it up against anything from Nymphetamine onward and it would hold its own.  The riffwork definitely stands out as a welcome change from their previous albums and the stripped-down songs make this a slightly easier listening experience.

My 100 Favorite Metal Bands Pt. 23: Cradle of Filth

Not everyone is going to like this choice. But I really do not care. This is my blog and I get to say what makes this list. So there. I have made my feelings about this band pretty well-known on here. I absolutely love the atmosphere Cradle of Filth creates, the gothic horror style of the music, and of course, Dani Filth's lyrics. Dani is one hell of a good lyricist, influenced by Poe, Lovecraft, Barker, and every other noteworthy horror writer. And of course Cradle of Filth has some damn catchy music. I thoroughly enjoy every single album I have heard from the band, which is almost all of them. They are something of a gateway into true black metal, but I was able to begin to appreciate them for what they really are. And that is a surprisingly catchy and original extreme gothic metal band.

FAVORITE ALBUM: DUSK AND HER EMBRACE

Year in Metal: 2004

2004 was a big year for me. It was the year I first started dating the girl who would years later become my fiancee. We had known each other for a little while prior to that, but not real well. We started dating in June. It was also the year my older brother got married and it was the year the Boston Red Sox, my favorite sports team, finally won the World Series after an 86 year drought.

3 INCHES OF BLOOD: ADVANCE AND VANQUISH
Probably an odd choice, but again, these are not necessarily my favorite albums from the year, just some that I feel like discussing. I was really impressed with this album though. 3IOB got lumped in with the metalcore genre for some reason. The music here is decent traditional-style metal with modern influences. There are two vocalists, one with a falsetto scream and the other more of a hardcore style. The songs are fast and aggressive. None of their subsequent albums have come close to matching this one.

AMON AMARTH: FATE OF NORNS
I keep forgetting Amon Amarth in this series even though they are one of my favorite bands. Any release could have been considered for this, since they do pretty much release the same album over and over again. This album has the classics "The Pursuit of Vikings" and "Valkyries Ride". Other than that, if you have heard anything by Amon Amarth, you know what to expect, heavy melodeath riffs and Johan Hegg's deep guttural growls, and of course, some damn catchy songs. Amon Amarth is NOT a viking metal band, just thought I would clear that up.

CRADLE OF FILTH: NYPHETAMINE
Similar to 2003's Dimmu Borgir in that this was an album I found at Target of all places, while I was working there. This was another album that served as a gateway into harsher black metal, not to say Cradle of Filth was really a black metal band at this time. Their dark, gothic sound and impressive horror-filled lyrics captivated me at the time. Dani Filth's vocals take some getting used to, but the music and everything else was so interesting that I kept picking up more and more releases by the band.

MASTODON: LEVIATHAN
Metalsucks listed this as their Album of the Decade recently. I was somewhat familiar with Mastodon. The song "Blood and Thunder" was on some soundtrack that I got as well as being a featured video on the Target sampler video that was played in electronics for hours on end. I had to be back there quite a bit, that's where most of the shoplifters were. Anyway, this is my favorite Mastodon release, although I only have two, because they are not really a favorite of mine, but this one is quite good and is probably the best overall representation of their sound.

ORPHANED LAND: MABOOL
This is probably my favorite release from 2004. It is an absolutely beautiful and majestic album. It tells an amazing story as well. The progressive metal band from Israel blends elements of Middle Eastern folk music seemlessly into their metal foundation. At times, the music is definitely not metallic, but the music is so impressive and awe-inspiring that that does not matter in the least. The vocals are delivered in a variety of styles to symbolize different characters, going a long way toward helping the story along. This is a very impressive album and is the band's masterpiece.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: BEHEMOTH: DEMIGOD; DREAM EVIL: THE BOOK OF HEAVY METAL; ENSLAVED: ISA; LAMB OF GOD: ASHES OF THE WAKE; MEGADETH: THE SYSTEM HAS FAILED; NIGHTWISH: ONCE; SHADOWS FALL: THE WAR WITHIN; TAD MOROSE: MODUS VIVENDI.

BANDS THAT FORMED IN 2004: Scar Symmetry, Vreid, Wintersun

Year in Metal: 2000

CRADLE OF FILTH: MIDIAN
Being a bit of a Clive Barker fan, I was interested in checking out an album inspired by his short story Cabal and the film version of said story, Nightbreed. This was the first album that brought Cradle of Filth widespread acclaim, and it abandons some of the more black metal leanings of the band in exchange for more of an extreme gothic metal sound. It also features some of the better songs by the band, including "Her Ghost in the Fog".

DESTROYER 666: PHOENIX RISING
Destroyer 666's second album incorporated more thrash metal elements, but still possessing all of the chaotic elements that made their first album so great. This still is not my favorite album from the band, their next one gets that distinction, but this is absolutely an amazing album from the Australian "war metal" scene. The best track is the absolutely epic "I am the Wargod (Ode to the Battle Slain)." It remains one of the band's best tracks ever.

HALFORD: RESURRECTION
After the groove/thrash band Fight and the gothic/industrial project 2wo, original metal god Rob Halford decided to form a new project getting back to his metal roots. Hiring a band of metal mercenaries helped Halford reach back into the past. This is the closest thing to the album Painkiller that Halford has been involved with. There are some great tracks and some awesome riffs on this album. It's unfortunate that so few really noticed it.

IRON MAIDEN: BRAVE NEW WORLD
Bruce Dickinson rejoined Iron Maiden for the recording of this album, named after the Aldous Huxley novel that is one of my favorites of all time. This was a terrific comeback album from the great metal band. Dickinson did not have a lot left vocally, his operatic vocals were gone, but he still sounds decent enough. Also returning to the band was guitarist Adrian Smith, giving the band three guitarists. Unfortunately, the band would not be able to replicate the success of this album in the three subsequent albums.

PANZERCHRIST: SOUL COLLECTOR
The Danish blackened death metal band with a penchant for songs about warfare released their third album in 2000. Despite the English language title, the lyrics all appear to be in German. Drummer Reno Killerich was in the Guinness Book of World Records for speed drumming and he does do a fantastic job behind the kit on this release. This is a massively brutal slice of death metal.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: In Flames: Clayman, Macabre: Dahmer, Pantera: Reinventing the Steel, Sentenced: Crimson.

BANDS THAT FORMED IN 2000: 3 Inches of Blood, Arsis, Nachtmystium, Swallow the Sun.

Initial Impressions: Cradle of Filth: Darkly, Darkly Venus Aversa

I mentioned before that Cradle of Filth is something of a guilty pleasure of mine. I do not mean that in the strictest sense, as I am more than willing to discuss the fact that I enjoy the band. I have most of their albums, and a couple of their other miscellaneous releases. There's just something about the songwriting, lyrics, and overall atmosphere of the band that attracts me.

So, this is their latest album. Like some of their previous albums, the concept of this one is biographical. Covering the story of Lilith, the original woman scorned by Adam in Jewish folklore.

As usual, the music is impressive, CoF have always had a flair for the epic. The album is quite long, and there is always a lot going on musically. Symphonic passages weave eloquently through the blackened-thrash riffing. Nevertheless, unlike Dimmu Borgir's recent output, CoF accomplish this without sounding too bloated or losing the metallic base of their music.

As usual, Dani Filth's vocals range from a snarl to a high-pitched shriek. He is joined frequently by a female vocalist playing the part of Lilith. With these vocal parts and the bombastic, epic music, the album has the feel of a metal opera. That is not an unheard of concept in metal, but CoF pulls it off quite well on this release.

I know Cradle of Filth is not for everyone out there, but this is a pretty damn good album, one of the band's best recent releases. If you do like Cradle of Filth, then I highly recommend it. If not, this probably is not going to win you over.

Halloween Playlist

I am heading to my hometown for the weekend, so this is the last post before Halloween. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, and being that heavy metal can sound pretty spooky, it's the right season for the music. So here's what I am listening to this weekend:

Cradle of Filth
King Diamond
Mercyful Fate
Incantation

I know Cradle of Filth is not a particularly well-respected band amongst the true metalheads out there, but I find this particular season particularly appropriate for listening to them. The band blends gothic metal, thrash metal, and black metal and mixes that with a very dark atmosphere. Lyrically, Cradle of Filth covers morbid sexuality, supernatural events, and basic gothic horror. Dani Filth is a hell of a lyricist and possesses a vocal style all his own. I have been listening to all of the band's albums.

King Diamond and Mercyful Fate really need no introduction and I have covered them both extensively in the past.

I will also be listening to Incantation's Onward to Golgotha, a favorite album of mine that I have just not had an opportunity to hear for some time. The grimy riffs and spellbinding songs are just the kind of thing I am looking for this season. Excellent New York death metal.

In Honor of Halloween: Metal Horror Music Videos

Here are some fun music videos to watch in honor of Halloween tomorrow.

KREATOR: ENEMY OF GOD

CRADLE OF FILTH: SCORCHED EARTH EROTICA

MORBID ANGEL: GOD OF EMPTINESS

WHITE ZOMBIE: BLUR THE TECHNICOLOR

CANNIBAL CORPSE: MAKE THEM SUFFER

BLEEDING THROUGH: LOVE IN SLOW MOTION

In Honor of Halloween: Horror Concept Albums

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have never been able to fully explain why, perhaps it is my fascination with things that are dark and disturbing (witness: my love of heavy metal and horror movies). Indeed, I believe it started with my fascination with horror movies as a kid. Of course, around Halloween, horror movies are shown all the time. I spent most of the weekend flipping channels between SyFy (Flu Bird Horror, Splinter, Snakehead Terror (which my fiancee lovingly recorded for me, thanks baby) and other atrocious films) and AMC's Fearfest (Return of the Living Dead, Alien movies, Dracula, etc.). I will probably watch over a dozen horror movies over the course of the week leading up to Halloween. Not all of them will be good, in fact the majority will not. Bad horror movies are almost as much fun as good horror movies I have found.

Where does that leave us here? Well, heavy metal has often found a way to deal with horror in its lyrical themes. Death metal is sometimes about slashers or zombies or some other such thing, black metal deals with the occult, even groups like Metallica and Iron Maiden have fashioned songs about horror subject matter. Sometimes, bands will choose to record entire albums devoted to horror. As seen yesterday, this may take the form of a tribute album to horror movie monsters. Other times, in a far more creative way, bands will formulate their album ideas around one central theme and essentially write their own horror story in the form of an album.

These concept albums are the topic of discussion here. I'm going to look at several such albums and explain what the storyline is. I will not look at the master of concept horror albums, King Diamond, choosing instead to devote an entire post to him alone.

CRADLE OF FILTH: DUSK...AND HER EMBRACE

Cradle of Filth probably deserve their own post as well, but I decided to not drag this out too much. The topic of discussion this time around is vampires, although they are often not mentioned by name. Most of the references are heavily inspired by gothic literature, a staple in Cradle of Filth's lyrics.

CRADLE OF FILTH: CRUELTY AND THE BEAST

The band's sound is a little closer to gothic metal than the black metal that was heavily present on their previous works. This album deals mostly with the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, even featuring guest narration by Ingrid Pitt who portrayed the Countess in an old horror movie by Hammer films about her. Bathory, it is said, bathed in the blood of young virgin girls to remain youthful and was convicted for the murder of 80 people, with some estimates closer to 600. She is one of the inspirations for Dracula.

CRADLE OF FILTH: MIDIAN

See what I mean? I am not even discussing a couple of the concept albums by this band. Midian is inspired by Clive Barker's novella Cabal, in which a man seeks answers to why he is drawn to a mythical city beneath a cemetary and the dark creatures that inhabit it. It's complicated, but it's typical for Barker stories.

IRON MAIDEN: SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON

Not a concept album per se, but all of the songs revolve around the theme of being able to see into the future and other psychic abilities.

MACABRE: DAHMER

This should be self-explanatory. Macabre, an early death metal/goregrind band, created this album based entirely around the life of Jeffrey Dahmer, noted serial murderer. It begins when Dahmer is a young man and extends to the controversy about what to do with the deceased Dahmer's brain. It's strange, unnerving, occasionally humorous, and utterly in bad taste. It's perfect for Macabre.

NEVERMORE: DREAMING NEON BLACK

This album by progressive power/thrash metal band Nevermore is supposedly based on Warrel Dane's own experiences. Supposedly, Dane had a girlfriend who left to join a religious cult, who he never heard from again. However, Dane had dreams of her reaching out and screaming for help from him as she drowned. The album takes this backdrop and features a man descending into insanity after his girlfriend dies.

OPETH: MY ARMS, YOUR HEARSE

Opeth is another band that has made a career out of doing elaborate concept albums. The storyline of this album revolves around a man who has died and become a ghost. The ghost becomes agitated when he starts to believe that his girlfriend did not genuinely grieve when he died. The girlfriend feels his presence and refuses to accept that he actually has passed.

OPETH: GHOST REVERIES

This is a rather simple concept album. Opeth depicts a man in constant turmoil after he killed his own mother.

YYRKOON: OCCULT MEDICINE

This album is based on the movie Re-Animator starring the immortal Jeffrey Combs, in which a young doctor has discovered how to raise the dead. The movie is loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story along the same storyline. The album sticks closer to the cheesy movie, although it is significantly more serious.

5 Important Bands, 1 Genre Pt. 2: Black Metal

I've been thinking a lot about black metal of late. It's a genre that I enjoy, but I really do not listen to all that often. My problem with black metal lately seems to be that it has become a little trendy and a bunch of bands have been coming out of the woodwork that sound the same and/or really are not that good.

I started getting into black metal in high school actually, but it was not until after I finished law school that I really began exploring the genre. So, similar to the earlier post on power metal, here are five bands that were instrumental in me becoming a fan of black metal. Some of them may be a little less on the black metal side of things than others, but nevertheless, here they are in no particular order, the bands that lead me over to the dark side.

CELTIC FROST

I have discussed Celtic Frost at length in other parts of this blog. To be put simply, Celtic Frost was hugely influential on the early black metal scene. The band itself really was not a black metal band, but so many bands from the early black metal scenes took influence from this band that it really does not matter. For me in particular, I checked out the Celtic Frost tribute album which featured songs from black metal bands such as Emperor and Mayhem. This lead me into checking out the albums by those bands. Later on, I started checking out the band's actual music. Celtic Frost was so far ahead of its time, it's shocking. At the time, there was only Celtic Frost, several years later, other bands started to try to adapt their sound, but Celtic Frost stood alone at the time.

DISSECTION

I love Dissection. I have also discussed this band in other places on this blog, but they deserve mention here as well. I ordered Storm of the Light's Bane through a bookstore of all places, but immediately took to the album. It is still one of the coldest, most evil sounding albums I have ever heard. As dark as it is though, The Somberlain is perhaps even darker. At the time I heard the band, I had not heard anything else like it, it was fast, evil-sounding, and terrifying. It was amazing. Dissection was on hiatus for several years while Jon Nodtveidt was in prison for murder, but they came back upon his release. Unfortunately, their comeback album did not have any of the atmosphere that the earlier releases did. Soon thereafter, Nodtveidt committed suicide and Dissection was no more.

EMPEROR

Emperor was one of the earliest true Norwegian black metal bands I got into. I started with Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, one of the more melodic, keyboard-driven albums by the band. I was impressed by the dark atmosphere and the riffs, but the vocals couldn't be heard very well. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the album a lot and looked back into their earlier catalog, but avoided their newer stuff. The band's leader Ihsahn has released two amazing solo albums since the band broke up, and the other members of the band are doing their own projects. Emperor is one of the most well-known bands from the Norwegian scene.

DIMMU BORGIR

Another group from the Norwegian scene, however Dimmu Borgir has been mostly dismissed from black metal circles due to the declining quality of their music and their mainstream successes. Dimmu Borgir has incorporated more and more keyboard flourishes, to the point where some have accused the band of sounding like circus musicians. At the time that I heard Death Cult Armageddon though, it was one of the most evil-sounding albums I had heard to date. I still go back to that album on occasion, but it does not hold the same high place in my listening hierarchy. Dimmu Borgir though was something of a gateway at the time to get into other black metal bands from the area.

CRADLE OF FILTH

Cradle of Filth is another band like Dimmu Borgir who has been blacklisted as a black metal band. The band is more of an extreme gothic metal band with some early black metal influences. Nevertheless, their mainstream nature makes them a suitable gateway band for those that are unfamiliar with the genre. I am a big fan of Cradle of Filth though, for their amazing lyrics and incredible storytelling talents. The band creates a impressive dark atmosphere combining elements of gothic horror and lust and depravity. The vocals can be a little grating at times, but to my ears, it just adds to the effect of the band.

From these gateway bands, I started getting into groups like Bathory, Mayhem, Satyricon, and several bands that cross several different genres.