Earliest I've ever been with the Beast of List. Just couldn't bear to keep this wonderful year of muzak under wraps.

10. Mandroïd of Krypton - Cosmic Sarcophagus

The Mandroids return after nearly a decade with another blast of idiosyncratic prog/black thrash from way out there in the noosphere.

Mandroiding

9. Biomorphic Engulfment - Infinite Universes of Creation and Annihilation

Batshit crazy vortexed blastfest...from Thailand so you know it’s nice and unhinged.

Vortexing

8. Axis of Perdition - Apertures

I didn’t have a nu AoP album on the ol bingo card, but I’ll take it. Harrowing black metal freak out with incredibly strong riffing…let’s hope the next full length doesn’t take another 13 years.

Perditioning

7. Sarnuthian BorgStorm - Cybernetic Dawn

Extremely strong Hardware from Mexico vibes whilst being played through that dude from Portal’s glumurphone. Also my favorite cover art of the year, especially with those cool hologram cards.

Borgstorming

6. Rostorchester - Der Zinnen Sang vom Niedergang

I am a complete sucker for this style of twisting harmonically adventurous jangly black metal that I vapidly refer to as “evil” Husker Du (or Husker Don’t if your feeling obliquely obtuse). Like Flaming Ouroboros’s “Anthems for Brotherhood” from last year, Rostorchester tickles all of my buttons with these spidery sinewy riffs and a punk energy that keeps the feet stomping.

Niederganging

5. Wormed - OMEGON

Nearly 10 years between full lengths and I think the time was well spent. This is just crazy advanced stuff that has interesting things going on all over the place. Wormed (as well as someone else on this list) are still the gold standard of sci-fi death metal insanity.

Woiming

4. Stagnant Waters - Rifts

Like a more psycotropically damaged DHG. Makes sense since both Zweizz from Fleurety and Camille from DHG are involved…the Gonad Waltz (both A and C) are right up there battling for top cuts of the year.

Stagnating

3. d'Eon - Leviathan

I’m not always much for uplifting music, but d’Eon just hits me in some real good places. Improbably baroque + new age and undeniably pop, but with a charming mysticism that keeps it all a bit mysterious…in other words, it’s fucking great.

d'Eoning

2. Gigan - Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus

This along with Wormed are god-tier abstract sci-fi death. Absolute surrealism and chaos. Just please Professor Horseman….don’t make us wait another seven years!

Anomalousing

1. Old Wainds - Stormheart

There seems to be a clear theme in this year’s list: bands returning from long hiatuses and absolutely knocking it out of the park! It’s been 10 years since Murmansk’s finest delivered Nordraum, and while decade-long obumbrations aren’t my favorite, I can’t complain when the music is this good.

Old Wainds have always excelled at riff-crafting, and here they strike the perfect balance between the majestic and the dissonant. Stormheart delivers cruel, misanthropic, frozen black metal of the highest order, and is a masterful return.

Stormhearting

Other Enjoyable Offerings

t
Krallice - Inorganic Rites
Upright Forms - Blurred Wires
Mortal Wound - The Anus of the World
Cephalotripsy - Epigenetic Neurogenesis
Odd Nosdam - Falsehood
The Flying Luttenbachers - Losing the War Inside Our Heads
Inquisition - Veneration of Medieval Mysticism and Cosmological Violence
Possession of the Polar Shaman - Fenrir dau þ uz bringandiz

2023's mass of muzak

10. Hypomanic Daydream - Image

Namechecked in the band camp description "Voivod, Confessor, weird death metal and 16bit video games". If there was a band made discretely for my sensibilities, this would be it…and this ep lives up to these crazy influences, managing to meld everything together into some sort of strange catchy weirdo metal.

Daydreaming

9. OWDWYR - Receptor

Sooo much interesting shit going on in this one. I’m reminded of a lucid dream collab between the sadly defunct Scrambled Defuncts and the not quite defunct Duobetic Homunkulus. There’s also plenty of proggy djent mechanical hallucinatory riffage & shredding leadwork also has a say. A reviewer on bc had this to say ”Kinda like Human Remains resurrected and started to play modern avantgarde tech death with Allan Holdsworth on lead guitar.” Mind bending, future altering stuff!

Supplicating

8. toiret status - He

Skittering, Scattering, Shimmering playfully plunderphonic bliss music with an absolutely euphoric production.

Also features my fav cover art of the year by Seth Graham.

toireting

7. Fleshvessel - Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed

“sounds like the absurd cross between PHLEBOTOMIZED, KAYO DOT and VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR.”

Ummmm….yes please!!!

Yearning

6. Siege Golem - Desecration

Ballz-out, No holds barred, Raw-As-Stink “Keller synth” par excellence. Siege Golem have yet to let me down with their increasingly “out there” discography.

Goleming

5. Laster - Andermans mijne

The ghouls in Laster have struck gold once again with a groovy, dare I say jaunty, post-punk black metal booty shaker.

Lasting

4. Bríi - Último Ancestral Comum

Caio Lemos, mastermind of multiple phenomenally progressive black metal projects (Kaatayra, Vauruvã et al…) proves once again he is top tier at the art of mashing together expansive psychedelic trance and raw black metal.

Ancestrating

3. Void - Jadjow

Theatrical, technical and inventive avant-garde black metal with that DGH and DotD pedigree. Iniquitous Owl is destined to be a real crowd pleaser out on the dance floor.

Also my 2nd fav cover art of the year by Laura Weston.

Jadjowing

2. Afterbirth - In But Not Of

Alienworlds of Slam viewed through a Kaleidoscope of Synergistic NuWave Jamz. This satisfies all of my musical itches and leaves me completely fulfilled…what a time to be alive!

Afterbirthing

1. Flaming Ouroboros - Anthems for Brotherhood

A last minute addition for FO’s long awaited full-length….anthemic rockin’ black metal with melody for days. I haven’t been this blown away by this style of Husker Du influenced black metal since the last Rostorchester album. Glorious, triumphant, and elegant in its own compact simplicity, both Anthems and FO's Blood EP are bound to be in constant rotation during the new year!

Ouroborosing

Beast of the Reast

Onkos - Vascular Labyrinth
Ménage à un - Now Everybody
Necrocock - Tafelmusik
Forteana - Overload
Baazlvaat - Incredible World
Circle of Ouroborus - Lumi Vaientaa Kysymykset
Krallice - Mass Cathexis 2 - The Kinetic Infinite
Albionic Hermeticism - Nova Nativitas Mundi
Phlebotomized - Clouds of Confusion
Univers Zero - Lueur
Tetragrammacide - Typho-Tantric Aphorisms From The Arachneophidian Qur'an
Christian Cosentino / Winterquilt - Portals to Perdition
Lightbreaker - The Annihilation of the Annealids
Esoctrilihum - Astraal Constellations of the Majickal Zodiac
Reverorum ib Malacht - Kyrie Eleison
KNOWER - KNOWER FOREVER
Mortuary Drape - Black Mirror
Varathron - The Crimson Temple
Cunabula - The Weight of Sleep
Yellow Eyes - Master’s Murmur
Ὁπλίτης - Ψ ε υ δ ο μ έ ν η
Soft Kill - Metta World Peace
I.C.E. - Ancient Glacial Resurgence
Moosegut - From The Deepening Gloom
SUP - Octa
Bryophyta - Plantae, Fungi
Raekogg - Hail Enki
Dodheimsgard - Black Medium Current
Calderum - Lord Cramridor
Quest Master - Sword & Circuitry
Majesties - Vast Reaches Unclaimed
Passéisme - Alternance
Lunar Chamber - Shambhallic Vibrations
Vaurien - L’esprit et le béton
Yat-Kha - Khan Party 23
Flaming Ouroboros - Blood
Troller - Drain
Bestial Mouths - R . O . T . T.
Ynkleudherhenavogyon - Honan Bleydh II
Fabricant - Drudge to the Thicket
Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium
Prong - State of Emergency
Wagner Ödegård - Kiäpter
R23X - Mist Continent
Malfet - Dolorous Gard
Fortíð - Narkissos
Furia - Huta Lune
Eyemaster - Conjuration of Flesh
Stinking Lizaveta - Anthems and Phantoms
Malokarpatan – Vertumnus Caesar
Internal Suffering - Rituals
Murlo - Puckle
Iravu - A Fate Worse Than Home

Monday, December 16, 2024

Beast of 2024

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Beast of 2023

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