I love music. Specifically all types of metal. Of course I listen to things like hip-hop, post rock, hard rock, soft rock, etc. but metal is the best. It whips you between angry and sad just like that *snaps fingers together*. It doesn’t care about whiplash.
Usually, while I do listen to new releases every year, I’m also just listening to older stuff and finding older stuff. For example, Intronaut is one of my favorite bands, and Habitual Levitations is one of my favorite albums ever. But in 2018, I decided to listen to the album before that one: Valley of Smoke. Never heard it before, but I instantly loved it. That would be #1 on this list, but this list is only for 2018!
Given the nature I listen to music, I barely have any new listens every year, but 2018 wasn’t bad. There were some incredible albums that came out that I highly recommend. There’s a huge range of emotions between them all. That regardless of where you stand on metal, there should be something for you even in this list.
5) Phanerozoic 1: Palaeozoic
by The Ocean
This is one I just started listening to at the end of the year. The Ocean is a band I’ve never heard of before. I found out about them through Sputnik Music. People were just loving them, so I checked out their single named “Cambrian II: Eternal Recurrence”. I gotta admit that it sounded generic as hell. Everything was well done, but it didn’t move me. The cleans didn’t make me weep. Nothing.
Luckily, I checked them out again. I think it’s YouTube’s fault because they played it for me again without me choosing it. Lucky me. Because I now see why everyone is heralding it.
It’s a great album. The single I listened to really gets to me now. The bass tone meshes great with the rest of the song while being audible, the cleans work super well, and there’s a bridge that really shows how good the band is. The song would’ve been great without that bridge, but it’s things like that bridge that show why this this album is so good.
4) Artificial Selection
by Dance Gavin Dance
I started listening to Dance Gavin Dance a couple years ago. I at first didn’t care too much for them. It was close to the screamo stuff I hated as a kid, but after listening to a single, its hooks gently laid into me. I eventually realized that while it may be similar, it’s completely different at the same time. Dance Gavin Dance injects a large amount of poppy goodness into their songs, and it works so well.
And this album capitalizes on all of their great qualities. The poppy, catchy riffs are back, Tilian’s buttery smooth vocals are back, and Mess’s harsh screams are back. Swan’s guitar writing in this album places him with some of my favorite guitar writers because he’s so damn creative. Something traditional in metal like a heavy br00tal breakdown is still pretty heavy in “Midnight Crusade”, but Swan strays from just doing the low chugs and instead adds shrieking high chords to contrast the traditional breakdown. Dance Gavin Dance is always putting their own spin on things. One thing that they put their own spin on that I really noticed during this album is that there’s usually a great funky bass line playing. A good pop song needs a catchy bass line, and this album has several of them.
Now, one of the most interesting things about this album is how it feels like this is their last album. When the last song of the album came on, it felt like they were wrapping everything up. Not just for the album but for the band. They alluded to all their previous stuff, and it just felt like this would be their swan song. And even though I wasn’t a fan of them in their earlier years, when they bring back their previous singer for the song “Evaporate”, the nod truly captivated me. It felt beautiful to be there at the end of something that I had just become a fan of in the past couple years. Alas, they’re not done, but the album would’ve been perfect as their last.
3) We Already Lost the Word
by Birds in Row
Birds in Row has been one of my favorite bands for years. But to me the thing is that it’s felt like they’ve only released EP’s before; it hasn’t felt like they’ve ever done a full length album yet, even though Napster is telling me otherwise. Me liking them so much with just what have felt like EP’s shows how good they are. This album to me is their first full length album, and with that extra time at hand, Birds in Row show off why they’re one of the best.
They’re one of the most raw bands I’ve listened to. The screams are just like the ones that your parents laid into each other when you grew up. There’s no growl to them at all. It just feels like pure anger being funneled. This album is no exception. Everything about this album is pure anger smashing into your ear drums. The punk like screams, the constant shredding, the loud bass, and the frantic drums make for one of the most satisfying albums to listen to while angry. But this album really shows the other side of Birds in Row. It loses its anger at times and picks up despair instead. This is shown through many different ways. The vocalists experiment with different types of singing. It’s not just pure yelling. They’ve done that in pretty much the entirety of the three albums before this one. They wanted to show something different with this album.
It’s this meshing of both versions of Birds in Row that makes this album so exceptional. We get the vulnerable side of the band while we also get the blistering side of them.
2) Applause of a Distant Crowd
by Vola
This band right here. You took Birds in Row’s spot! That was a sure in for #2 best album of the year. Who do you think you are?
Vola is a band I had never heard of until Sputnik. I went on the YouTubes to check out a song from their newest release called “Smartfriend”. Right off the bat, I was super into it. It opened up with some whirling synths then it went full djent on my ass. The guitar and bass kicked in for that nice chug that I’ve grown so fond of. But then after that, the chorus eventually pops up. The soft cleans come out, the guitar and bass are turned down, and the synths are turned up. It’s an incredibly catchy song that really spoke to the side of me that likes heavy and soft interwoven.
And it’s good I started with that song because that’s a very straight forward song compared to the rest of the album. There are only a few spots on the album that really make your head bang; instead, there are way more sweet spots. The album is incredibly light and fluffy at times. A lot of this has to do with the beautiful cleans the singer delivers, but a huge part of what makes it is the band’s weird synths.
“We Are Thin Air” is a great opener. It’s a delicate song with such a beautiful chorus infused with elements of djent, but the djent is really turned down here. They don’t want it to overwhelm the listener; instead, they want to embrace the listener. After I listened to this song, the second song on the album started playing.
“Ghosts” opens up with these super vibrant synths that threw me completely off base. They were so gay and joyful; I was really thrown off guard based on the two songs that I heard before. But I’ve really grown to love the song and all the other songs. Djent is one of my favorite genres of metal. I love that chugging sound. But it can be tiring listening to bands that just djent 24/7. That’s why Applause of a Distant Crowd is so special. Vola knows that making the bass and guitar be the stars of the show the whole time would be dull. That’s why they have intricate synth sections and beautiful cleans take over at certain parts. It’s that combination that makes this album such a treasure.
1) Where Owls Know my Name
by Rivers of Nihil
Cali is always trying to show me music in the bathroom while we take a shower. The phone speaker is fine, but with the water running, there’s no way I’ll be able to appreciate the music. So when she showed me Where Owls Know My Name I told her, “Get that generic metal shit away from me.” This album is anything but generic though. I was very wrong about that.
I mess around with technical death metal a bit. The Faceless is the biggest example as they used to be one of my favorite bands when I was a teenager. Traditional death metal doesn’t get me off though. There’s just a lot happening at once for no reason, and the vocals are usually shit. For this album though, it shows why technical death metal is superior to death metal. It also shows why Rivers of Nihil is so talented.
“The Silent Life” is a great track to have after the prelude. It hits hard and shows you what this album has to offer. The screams are great—somewhere between a bit of a growl and a scream. The riffs are just chugs, but they’re delicious. There’s a lot of that in the album to come though, but what really makes the song special and shows why this band is special is the solo part. It’s tasteful! It’s not overtly complicated, the incredibly talented bassist gets a spot, and there’s a freaking sax solo. If Altered State taught me anything, it’s that sax solos in a metal song can elevate the song to truly masterpiece levels.
All of these elements present in “The Silent Life” pop up in the rest of the album—even the sax solos. The band shows how talented they are at writing hammering riffs, but then they switch it up and show you that they can do melodic stuff. Even some clean stuff shows up in this album. This just shows that this album won’t bore you. The band members are having fun writing stuff that is different and interesting to them, and it shows when you listen because your ear is always interested.
When I look at the album cover, and then I listen to a song, the album cover makes sense. That name font is undeniably death metal. And the art representing some fantastical land checks up with what other bands are doing too. But the art style is different. All the green surrounding the character is dark, jagged, and desolate, but it’s still a shade of green, which represents life. The character himself is empty inside. He seems alive but barely. There’s no anger in his eyes. Just nothingness.
This is not your traditional art cover because it’s not angry or dark enough. That makes sense because this isn’t a dark album. While it’s definitely nowhere near airy, there is a certain lightness to the album. It’s beautiful at many times until it decays back into something darker, something close to anger. That’s what’s cool about the cover. Without even knowing any of the lyrics for this album, I know it’s all about the man on the cover. You can tell that the man has gone through some shit. Something epic like his whole world decaying around him, which makes sense because this album is as epic as they come.