| 4.0 excellent |
| A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step |
| Ad Nauseam Imperative Imperceptible Impulse |
| All Them Witches Nothing as the Ideal |
| All Them Witches Dying Surfer Meets His Maker |
| Amenra Mass V |
| And So I Watch You From Afar The Endless Shimmering |
| Anekdoten A Time of Day |
| Anekdoten Gravity |
| Animals As Leaders The Joy of Motion |
| Artificial Brain Labyrinth Constellation |
| Atheist Piece of Time |
| Author and Punisher Kruller |
| Ayreon The Human Equation |
Proper prog with flutes and synthesizers and whatnot. A wonderous trip for fans of Haken and
Steven Wilson and all of the other musical extravaganza specialists. Guest spots by Akerfeldt and
Towsend bump the experience from playful to required. |
| Barishi Old Smoke |
| Like a blackened Leviathan with the post grandeur of Sulphur English. Just so fucking rad. |
| Baroness Blue Record |
| Be'lakor Vessels |
| Between the Buried and Me The Great Misdirect |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax II: Future Sequence |
| Between the Buried and Me Automata I |
| Between the Buried and Me Alaska |
| Blindfolded and Led to the Woods Nightmare Withdrawals |
| Blonde Redhead Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons |
| Blotted Science The Machinations of Dementia |
| Blut Aus Nord Hallucinogen |
I'm not even hugely into black metal but I think this rules. There's genuinely beautiful riff
composition happening here. It's drenched in gaze-y spacey distortion, but it's there. The
vocals are mostly humming mysteriously behind the guitars, giving it that stoner vibe rather than
the classic abrasive BM shriek. Brilliantly executed. Will revisit often. |
| Blut Aus Nord Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses |
| Bongripper Miserable |
| Bongripper Terminal |
| Bossk I II |
| Centaur In Streams |
| Chapel of Disease ...And as We Have Seen the Storm |
| Control Denied The Fragile Art of Existence |
| Cranial Dark Towers, Bright Lights |
| Blistering if derivative. The sound is massive and gnarly and I love it, so derivatize away boys. You earned it. |
| Crowbar Crowbar |
| Crowbar Broken Glass |
| Crowbar Odd Fellows Rest |
| Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas Mariner |
| Dark Tranquillity The Gallery |
| Deadbird III: The Forest Within The Tree |
| Death Scream Bloody Gore |
| Deftones Koi No Yokan |
| Deftones Diamond Eyes |
| Deftones White Pony |
| Demonic Death Judge Seaweed |
| Demonic Death Judge The Trail |
| Devin Townsend Terria |
| Dream Theater Train of Thought |
| Dream Unending/Worm Starpath |
| Dvne Asheran |
| E-an-na Nesfârşite |
| Electric Wizard Come My Fanatics... |
| Elephant Tree Habits |
| Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou May Our Chambers Be Full |
| Enslaved In Times |
| Enslaved Axioma Ethica Odini |
| Enslaved Vertebrae |
| Eremit Bearer of Many Names |
What a burly wallop. Tasteful funeral doom with that satisfying rumble. The vocalist goes all in on fucking wolf
howls and shit. |
| Every Time I Die Radical |
| Extol Extol |
| Failure Wild Type Droid |
| Failure Magnified |
| Fange Pantocrator |
| Floor Floor |
| Full of Hell Coagulated Bliss |
| Generation of Vipers Coffin Wisdom |
| Genesis Foxtrot |
| Genesis Nursery Cryme |
| Genghis Tron Board Up the House |
| Glassing Twin Dream |
| Goes Cube Shadows Swallowed The Flood |
| Gojira L'Enfant Sauvage |
| Gojira The Way of All Flesh |
| Good Tiger Raised in a Doomsday Cult |
| Hail the Sun New Age Filth |
| Haken Virus |
| Haken Visions |
| Hark Crystalline |
| Hath Of Rot And Ruin |
| Herod Sombre Dessein |
| Horrendous Ecdysis |
| Horrendous Ontological Mysterium |
| Horsehunter Horsehunter |
| Humanotone A Flourishing Fall in a Grain of Sand |
| In the Company of Serpents Of The Flock |
| This is a good ol fashion plunge into the muck puddle. Some real sticky icky. |
| Incubus (USA-CA) Make Yourself |
| Incubus (USA-CA) Morning View |
| Inter Arma Sky Burial |
| Intronaut Valley of Smoke |
| Intronaut Habitual Levitations |
| ISIS In the Absence of Truth |
| ISIS Wavering Radiant |
| When compared with their earlier soundscapes, this one comes off as a more measured affair. A quieter aesthetic gives the songs room to breathe before unleashing their staple roar of distortion. I will never say this reaches the absolute heights of Panopticon or Oceanic, but the band puts forth a mature effort that proves epic enough to close out their career on a high note. |
| ISIS Celestial |
| ISIS Temporal |
| Johnny The Boy You |
| Joliette Luz Devora |
| K'mono Mind Out of Mind |
| K'mono Return To The 'E' |
| Killing Joke Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell |
| Killing Joke Killing Joke (2003) |
| King Buffalo Dead Star |
| King Buffalo Longing To Be The Mountain |
| King Buffalo Orion |
| King Buffalo The Burden of Restlessness |
| King Buffalo Regenerator |
| King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of... |
| Konvent Call Down The Sun |
| Konvent Demo |
| Kosmodome Kosmodome |
| Latitudes Individuation |
| Lesbian Hallucinogenesis |
| LLNN Loss |
| LLNN Deads |
| Love Sex Machine Love Sex Machine |
| Love Sex Machine Asexual Anger |
| Made Out of Babies The Ruiner |
| Magnatar Crushed |
| Mastodon The Hunter |
| Melvins A Senile Animal |
| Melvins Stoner Witch |
| Melvins Tarantula Heart |
| Meshuggah Chaosphere |
| Meshuggah Destroy Erase Improve |
| Messa Close |
| MGMT Little Dark Age |
| Miava The Fall of Public Man |
Phenomenal instrumental post-metal! The influence of TOOL is strong but the minimalist approach keeps this
sounding fresh. Absolute banger of an EP. |
| Mizmor and Thou Myopia |
| Monolord No Comfort |
| Monolord Your Time to Shine |
| Moon Tooth Crux |
| Moon Tooth Phototroph |
| Moon Tooth Violent Grief: Acoustic Selections |
| Moral Collapse Moral Collapse |
| Motorpsycho Heavy Metal Fruit |
| Motorpsycho Kingdom of Oblivion |
| Mouth Of The Architect Quietly |
| Necrophagist Epitaph |
| Nero di Marte Immoto |
| Neurosis Times of Grace |
| Neurosis The Eye of Every Storm |
| Neurosis Fires Within Fires |
| New Keepers of the Water Towers Cosmic Child |
| O'Brother You and I |
| O'Brother Garden Window |
| Old Man Gloom Christmas |
| Old Man Gloom Seminar VIII: Light Of Meaning |
| Opeth Deliverance |
| Opeth Morningrise |
| Opeth Still Life |
| Orbs Past Life Regression |
| Pallbearer Forgotten Days |
| Palms Palms |
| Periphery Periphery IV: Hail Stan |
| Pink Floyd Relics |
| Pink Floyd Meddle |
| Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets |
| Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn |
| Porcupine Tree Closure/Continuation |
| Portal Avow |
| Woke up from a nightmare only to enter another nightmare. Twisted terrifying shit. Is it good? Seems like a stupid question. A sight to behold. |
| Protest the Hero Palimpsest |
| Psychonaut & Saver Emerald |
| Pull Down the Sun Of Valleys and Mountains |
| Pyrithe Monuments to Impermanence |
| Queens of the Stone Age Era Vulgaris |
| Queens of the Stone Age Queens of the Stone Age |
| Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool |
| Revocation Deathless |
| REZN Calm Black Water |
| REZN Solace |
| Rosetta The Galilean Satellites |
| Russian Circles Gnosis |
| Rwake A Stone, a Leaf, an Unfound Door |
| Saver They Came with Sunlight |
| She Said Destroy Succession |
| Sheev Mind Conductor |
| Skeletonwitch Devouring Radiant Light |
| Sleep Sleep's Holy Mountain |
| Slift Ilion |
| Slugdge Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms |
| Slugdge Born of Slime |
| Somali Yacht Club The Sun |
| Spirit Adrift Curse of Conception |
| Spotlights Alchemy for the Dead |
| Stake Kosmokoma |
| Such a diverse, exciting, and addictive metal album. Atmospheric but hooky at the same time. Every track is an adventure. Shades of Mastodon, converge, and fellow Belgians Amenra, but those are only surface level comparisons to convey the genres in play. These guys have a sound all their own. |
| Stake The Hutch |
| Stake Critical Method |
| Steven Wilson The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) |
| Stone Healer Conquistador |
| Suffering Hour The Cyclic Reckoning |
| A mildly psychedelic blackened death metal odyssey. Groovy at times and just the right amount of crunchy production to give it that black metal flavor without overdoing it. |
| SUMAC Two Beasts |
Avant-garde brutalism. Tasteful and measured. The EP format is a wonderful venue for Sumac?s brand of
heavy. |
| Sun of Grey Outerworld |
| Sweven (SWE) The Eternal Resonance |
| Tame Impala Lonerism |
| Thank You Scientist Stranger Heads Prevail |
| Thank You Scientist Maps of Non-Existent Places |
| Blood on the Radio is a stunning display. This album doesn't quite reach heights as often as the two that followed, but it's still a borderline classic. This band has no peers. |
| The Armed Perfect Saviors |
| The Dear Hunter Antimai |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer |
| The Fall of Troy Phantom on the Horizon |
| The Mercury Tree Self Similar |
| The Ocean Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic |
| The Ocean Pelagial |
| The Ocean Aeolian |
| The Ocean Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic |
| The Strokes First Impressions of Earth |
| The Sword Gods of the Earth |
| Thou Heathen |
Heathen is a standout in Thou's stacked discography. Heavy and bleak, it's theme seems to address
the curse of civilization and it's poisonous effect on the human spirit. This album rages,
kicking and screaming until it's dying breath can be heard echoing off the cracked cement of our
self-constructed ruin. |
| Thou Rendon |
| Thou Magus |
| Thou Summit |
| thoughtcrimes Altered Pasts |
| Tombs Under Sullen Skies |
| A fucking savage mix of post black metal and deathdoom. Grooves and chops in equal measure. A headbanger through and through. Their best yet. |
| Tool Opiate |
| Tool 10,000 Days |
| Tropical Fuck Storm A Laughing Death in Meatspace |
| Urne A Feast On Sorrow |
| Voivod Phobos |
| Weedpecker III |
| Wilderun Veil of Imagination |
An epic symphonic prog metal album that calls to mind the greats. It's like old school Opeth and
Dream Theater's offspring got stoned with Devin Townsend on a cliff in Scotland. The riff that
explodes into life about a minute into The Tyranny of Imagination is sexy beyond reason. They are
skilled musicians but they temper the technicality in favor of the overall aesthetic and
atmosphere. |
| Wilderun Epigone |
| Windhand Eternal Return |
| Wobbler Dwellers of the Deep |
| Wobbler Rites at Dawn |
| Classic prog revival that earns it's place at the big kid's table. Rites at Dawn is a dreamy journey through a dimly lit Tolkien forest. The instrumentation is engaging and technically mature. It feels as though the 70s giants were given access to modern production tools, because the record sounds immaculate. |
| Wobbler Afterglow |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Diadem of 12 Stars |
Immersive atmospheres and crushing heaviness. Doesn't suffer from the screeching oppressiveness I
experience with other records sporting the black metal tag. A fantastic post rock album with
black metal and folk ornamentation. |
| Worm Bluenothing |
| Worry Wisdom Through Shame |
| Yautja The Lurch |
| Holy shit the drums. Sludge production perfected right here. It's kinda like the progeny of Inter Arma and Remission-era Mastodon with even more of a hardcore edge. Fuckin massive stuff. |
| YOB The Illusion Of Motion |
| YOB The Unreal Never Lived |
| YOB Elaborations Of Carbon |
| Zozobra Harmonic Tremors |
| 3.5 great |
| 16 Into Dust |
| Absent In Body Plague God |
| Agusa En Annan Värld |
| Alcest Kodama |
| All Them Witches ATW |
| Altin Gun Aşk |
| Anekdoten Vemod |
| Animals As Leaders Parrhesia |
| Archspire Relentless Mutation |
| Archspire Bleed the Future |
| Artificial Brain Infrared Horizon |
| Artificial Brain Artificial Brain |
| Aseitas False Peace |
| A gargantuan slab of core-tinged brutal death metal. It flicks the experimental switch with peripheral electronics and clean soaring guitar solos that weave themselves throughout the swampy Meshuggah-isms. Easily one of the heaviest albums I've heard from 2020, and among those it is probably the most refreshing. Gorguts worship abound, but there isn't a death metal band around creating djanky dissonant music who doesn't owe those Canadians a massive debt. On the negative side it is a tad overlong for how aggressive it is, but that's only a passing phase as the final track throws a curve ball that reinvigorates the experience |
| Azusa Loop of Yesterdays |
| Baring Teeth The Path Narrows |
| Black Crown Initiate Selves We Cannot Forgive |
| Black Crown Initiate Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape |
| Black Sheep Wall Songs for the Enamel Queen |
| Cave In Heavy Pendulum |
| Chelsea Wolfe She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She |
| Chrome Ghost House of Falling Ash |
| Cobalt War Metal |
| Cough Still They Pray |
| Cranial Alternate Endings |
| Daeva (USA-PA) Through Sheer Will And Black Magic… |
| Darkthrone Old Star |
| Day Without Dawn Understanding Consequences |
| Deftones Ohms |
| Devin Townsend Physicist |
| Domkraft Seeds |
| Dorthia Cottrell Dorthia Cottrell |
| Dream Theater Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory |
| Dvne Etemen Ænka |
| Dvne Voidkind |
| East of the Wall A Neutral Second |
| Edge of Sanity Unorthodox |
| Elder (USA-MA) Elder |
| Elephant Tree Theia |
| Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou The Helm of Sorrow |
| 80% Thou + 20% ERR this time around. Still rules. Crone Dance is already on the 2021 playlist. |
| Empire State Bastard Rivers Of Heresy |
| Enslaved RIITIIR |
| Enslaved Heimdal |
| Erdve Savigaila |
| Eternal Rot Putridarium |
| A glorious march through the plaguelands. Angled somewhere in the stoner and doom realm with a smattering of death growls, this is headbanger with big gruesome noises. Production on point. Album cover on point. Hell yea. |
| Failure Comfort |
| Fange Pudeur |
| Fange Privation |
| Gatherers " ( mutilator. ) " |
| Gaupa Myriad |
| Genghis Tron Dream Weapon |
| Glassing From the Other Side of the Mirror |
| God Mother Vilseledd |
| Godless (IND) States of Chaos |
| Gojira Fortitude |
A fun bopper top to bottom. It fails to reach the heights of previous releases, but that shouldn?t count against
them. |
| Gorod Neurotripsicks |
| Green Druid At the Maw of Ruin |
| Green Lung Woodland Rites |
| Green Lung This Heathen Land |
| Hail Spirit Noir Eden In Reverse |
| Accessible black-tinged psychedelic prog metal. Mastodon post OMRTS hook-ness meets the Scandanavian edge of In Times era Enslaved. |
| Haken Fauna |
| Hamferd Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk |
| Hath All That Was Promised |
| Heavy Temple Lupi Amoris |
| Hellripper The Affair of the Poisons |
| Hercules and Lernaean Hydra Σε Άλλους Κόσμους (In Other Worlds) |
| Hermann Szobel Szobel |
| Herod Iconoclast |
| Herod They Were None |
| High on Fire Cometh the Storm |
| Matt Pike goes from underground metal deity to global diabetes icon. |
| Holy Fawn Dimensional Bleed |
| Hymn Breach Us |
| A proper sledgehammer to the lung. Hardcore-tinged vocals screech out amidst doomy sludge. No light to be found whatsoever. Dismal fucking thing. |
| IDLES Ultra Mono |
| Immolation Acts of God |
| Inanimate Existence Clockwork |
| Incubus (USA-CA) A Crow Left of the Murder... |
| Incubus (USA-CA) Fungus Amongus |
| Inter Arma Sundown |
| Inter Arma New Heaven |
| Intronaut The Direction of Last Things |
| Intronaut Prehistoricisms |
| Iron Monkey Spleen & Goad |
| ISIS The Red Sea |
| Johnny Booth Firsthand Accounts |
| Of course it sounds likes Every Time I Die but in all the best ways possible. Go so hard in the gym you fuckin pop a vein. |
| Kadavar and Elder Eldovar - A Story of Darkness & Light |
| KEN mode Null |
| Killer Be Killed Killer Be Killed |
| King Buffalo Acheron |
| King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Infest the Rats' Nest |
| Kowloon Walled City Piecework |
| Kowloon Walled City Container Ships |
| Kowloon Walled City Grievances |
| L'uovo di Colombo L'uovo di Colombo |
| Latitudes Agonist |
| Limp Bizkit Still Sucks |
| Lo! The Gleaners |
| Lunar Chamber Shambhallic Vibrations |
| Mahumodo Waves |
| Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard Noeth ac Noeth |
| Mastodon Call of the Mastodon |
| Melody's Echo Chamber Emotional Eternal |
| Melvins Hostile Ambient Takeover |
| Melvins Bullhead |
| Meshuggah Koloss |
| Meshuggah obZen |
| Monobody Comma |
| Morbid Evils Supernaturals |
| Motorpsycho The Crucible |
| Motorpsycho Ancient Astronauts |
| Motorpsycho Yay! |
| Necrot Mortal |
| Necrot Lifeless Birth |
| Needlepoint Walking Up That Valley |
| Nektar Remember the Future |
| Nektar A Tab in the Ocean |
| Nero di Marte Nero di Marte |
| Neurosis Honor Found in Decay |
| Nile Annihilation of the Wicked |
| Novarupta Disillusioned Fire |
| Old Man Gloom Seminar IX: Darkness of Being |
| Omega (ITA) Nebra |
| Opeth Pale Communion |
| Opeth Sorceress |
| Opeth Heritage |
| Opeth In Cauda Venenum |
| Orbs Asleep Next to Science |
| Orphaned Land Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons...) |
| Phobophilic Enveloping Absurdity |
| Pike vs The Automaton Pike Vs. The Automaton |
| Pink Floyd The Final Cut |
| Pink Floyd The Wall |
| Porcupine Tree The Sky Moves Sideways |
| Porcupine Tree Stupid Dream |
| Psychonaut Violate Consensus Reality |
| Queens of the Stone Age Villains |
| Queens of the Stone Age Lullabies to Paralyze |
| Rannoch Reflections Upon Darkness |
| Regarde Les Hommes Tomber Ascension |
Stellar Cross is a really sweet mid tempo changeup that circles around a dreamy repetitious riff.
The chanting type vocals add a creepy element that elevates the drama and the whole things boils
over to a violent crescendo. Probably my favorite track on this album. I find that these guys
have the ability to craft consistently interesting experimental stuff with their sludgy
Mastodonian diversions, but they go back to the meat and potatoes BM barrage more than I like. |
| Restless Spirit Afterimage |
| REZN Chaotic Divine |
| REZN Let It Burn |
| Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol Burger Babes...FROM OUTER SPACE! |
| Rosy Finch Scarlet |
| Scientist (USA) Barbelith |
| Seputus Phantom Indigo |
| Like getting dragged dick first through a thorny wormhole. |
| Sigh Shiki |
| Sleep Volume One |
| Slift Ummon |
| This might be a little too long for its own good, but I spend much of it in awe. They have the sonic palette of Elder but infuse it with the wackiness of King Gizzard and just let it ride out for however long it takes to hit all of their weird ideas. It's really impressive and eclectic, if overlong. A band to watch out for if they can edit down to only the best weirdest bits. |
| Smokey Mirror Smokey Mirror |
| Snail Feral |
| Somali Yacht Club The Space |
| Somali Yacht Club The Sea |
| Somnuri Nefarious Wave |
| Somnuri Desiderium |
| Spectral Voice Sparagmos |
| Spirit Adrift Ghost At The Gallows |
| Spirit Adrift Enlightened In Eternity |
| Spirit Adrift Divided by Darkness |
| SpiritWorld Deathwestern |
| Stake Love , Death and Decay |
| Stengah Soma Sema |
| Steven Wilson The Harmony Codex |
| Sumokem Prajnaparadha |
| Sun Crow Quest for Oblivion |
| Sunface Observatory |
| There?s some real massive spacey jams on this thing. It?s held back only by the vocals, which are mediocre at best. These powerful grooves deserve more, but it?s easy enough to ignore as the album takes hold. Production is excellent with the bass coming through in the mix. |
| Swarmer Brutalist |
| Tallah The Generation of Danger |
| Tame Impala Innerspeaker |
| Tame Impala Currents |
| Tantra Holocausto |
| Temples Sun Structures |
| Temples Volcano |
| The Budos Band Frontier's Edge |
| The Contortionist Exoplanet |
| The Fall of Troy Mukiltearth |
| The Lemon Twigs Everything Harmony |
| The Mars Volta The Mars Volta |
| The Ruins of Beverast The Thule Grimoires |
| The Silver (US) Ward of Roses |
| The Strokes The New Abnormal |
| Tomb Mold The Enduring Spirit |
| Tomb Mold Planetary Clairvoyance |
| Tropical Fuck Storm Braindrops |
| A pensive and eerie affair. I prefer the punk bombast of the first but this is still a really cool listen. Awesome band. |
| Valkyrie (USA-VA) Fear |
| Like a way cooler version of The Sword post High Country. Rad. |
| Venom Prison Primeval |
| Venom Prison Erebos |
Venom prison trading blast beats for groove is a big fuck yes for me. This has a classic era metalcore vibe but in no way
compromises their identity. Slammmmms. |
| Vildhjarta Måsstaden Under Vatten |
| Vile Creature Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! |
| VoidCeremony Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional... |
| A pretty adventurous helping of progressive death metal in the vein of Horrendous (whose guitarist/vocalist did mastering and mixing). The fretless bass noodling here is top tier. It?s the right kind of weird. |
| Voivod Synchro Anarchy |
| Vokonis Odyssey |
| Wayfarer A Romance with Violence |
| White Stones Dancing Into Oblivion |
Spicy progressive blackened death metal. Opeth-isms aside, there are some absolutely killer grooves on the
latter half. The guitar work is phenomenal, though the Mendez bass seems to garner much of the mixing
spotlight. The resulting aesthetic brings to mind a raw osbm vibe while still retaining enough tweedly-tweedly
punch to feel the sprawling solos. These dudes are improving. |
| White Ward Love Exchange Failure |
| The songwriting is unexpectedly mature for something that should largely be considered an experimental mashup of sub-genres. I will admit that while I'm not a tremendous fan of black metal yet, the jazzy interludes really work to elevate the aesthetic here. The mellowed out sections work better in some places than others, creating a bit of an uneven listen. |
| Wilderun Sleep at the Edge of the Earth |
Maintaining a healthy dose of the folk/viking metal motif that dominated the first album, this one
begins to incorporate dramatic melodeath. It comes across as a bit of an Opeth-light here, but
they would later weave that influence into its own unique thing on the amazing follow-up. It's
still a wonderful journey that has the feel of an epic movie soundtrack. |
| Windhand Grief's Infernal Flower |
| Witching Vernal |
| Wobbler Hinterland |
| Woods of Ypres Woods 5: Grey Skies and Electric Light |
| Yashira Fail To Be |
Stands on the shoulders of some truly great things. Through Silver in Blood era Neurosis vibes
abound. The ferocity displayed from the jump is impressive and the album rarely lets up. Heavy
as fuck with some sprinkles of post-metal abstraction as a welcome reprieve from the sludgecore
pummeling. |
