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The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - #2

Finished in the Golden Hall of Asgard we descend into the long darkness - into the Spiral Shadow...

#2
Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
I went to Georgia. I met the devil down there. Luckily, I escaped with my sanity and balls in tact - just. It's like another world - a world I'm lucky to escape from. Nevertheless, I'm still able to enjoy what the state has to offer - namely the seductive insanity that Kylesa produce each time they commit their sound to tape (or hard drive.) 

It does feel like this record is from another world. It's like a metal album that's slipped up through the portal depicted on the cover, landing in your hand from a parallel universe. If they want to beat both their drumsets to dervish-like guitar patterns, they will. If they want to pen browbeaten marches with an oozing Celtic black magic jig through the middle like Crowded Road, then it's a case of "fuck you" - they will. It's metal that feels scary because it's so alien yet wonderful. It's not done ironically like The Sword (thanks for nothing, guys) or as pretentious, pompous "art" a la Isis; it's a criminally enjoyable fusion of unadulterated brutality and jammin' sludge melody.

The track Don't Look Back was lent a considerable portion of my initial review just dedicated to its deconstruction:

Don’t Look Back is a true original. It’s in a league of its own. Imagine if Weezer made good on their promise to bring “Death to False Metal.” This is what it would sound like. Cascading, bright power-pop riffs abound this track, the right amount of despondent longing in the vocals with “oohing” and “aahing” female harmonies bubbling underneath; it’s some of the slickest songwriting you’ll hear all year without a doubt.
It stretches the limit to what metalheads will find acceptable - sludge metal, grunge and psychedelica heard on the same record? Are you shitting me? No - I'm not. That's why this record is so damn good. Crushing, wicked and brilliant.





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The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - #3

Emerging out of frosty isolation we fall through a portal to fight a battle with the ancients in a Sacred World...

#3
 Blind Guardian - At the Edge of Time
When I first put on At the Edge of Time, I felt an all-powerful stirring in the room. As military-style drums pounded below bombastic orchestral hits punctuating the air, Hansi Kursch took the reins of the musical juggernaut from the mass of choral voices. By the chorus took hold, I had risen out of my chair, my fist raised to the sky in triumph. Seldom do records compel the body into what the heart desires but this one did many times over.

Though power metal has been in an almost irrevocable decline in recent years, ever since A Night at the Opera in 2002, Blind Guardian has emerged as the Byzantium to a crumbling Rome. Their command of melody and rhythm as metal musicians writing pieces for symphonies and choirs is simply unsurpassed.

In Ride into Obsession, it sounds as if the band sweeps itself up in the music, scarcely keeping pace with the colt-like rhythm. Tanelorn (Into the Void) is a welcome return to their earlier speed metal sound while the epic closer Wheel of Time outclasses their contemporaries with a Middle Eastern inspired marsala, replete with Arabic instrumentation and exotic melody.

Of course, Andre Olbrich's vibrant fret runs in tandem with Mr. Marcus Siepen sound invigorating as ever. Mr. Frederik Ehmke provides the percussion assault with the requisite expertise we've come to expect. They haven't shed the propensity for gravitas they cultivated on Nightfall in Middle-Earth nor have they forsaken the blistering, visceral thrashiness perfected on Imaginations From the Other Side - it's a synthesis of all of their work, impeccably polished with new and intricate touches.


Speaking to Mr. Kursch earlier this year, he believed that music spoke a magical language and they were just one of its many interpreters. If this is the case, Blind Guardian are like the men of letters of old - to be revered with awe.





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The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - #4

From the world of sin we retreat to the Carpathian mountains in quiet meditation...

#4
Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
Fading in with a solitary violin, we hear the sound of water babbling as trees rustle through the breeze. Thus begins a journey through the pained hearts of men - Agalloch's oblique and antagonistic Marrow of the Spirit.

Written in the isolation of the Romanian mountains and recorded on all analog equipment under the tutelage of Faust (USA) guitarist Steven Wray Lobdell, the effort is certainly opaque, imbued with a quiescent melancholy and in a way, transcendental. Taking even more inspiration from neo-folk and pagan bands such as Sol Invictus they steadfastly return to nature, eschewing their brief flirtation with the more artificial drone and post-rock sounds. At the end of a track we hear the guitars dissolve into insects chirping during night time as a piano solemnly plays - the great strength about this disc is taking ambient and found sounds, pairing them with minimalistic black metal all the while making them feel compelling.
Raw and earnest acoustic guitars dominate in tandem with a stream of consciousness style guitar melody. Trance-like, lumbering rhythms are like the marrow; haunting, aspirated growls and pained shrieks with atmospheric synth textures are the undoubted and ephemeral spirit that seems to speak like ghostly apparitions from the heart of the Earth.

It's a very sensual and natural expression of metal that's difficult to capture. Where others have cautiously ventured and failed, Agalloch have overwhelmingly triumphed.


The Top 10




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“The universe is change, life is what our thoughts make it.”
— Marcus Aurelius