It’s hard to complain when, this year, there were pretty good releases almost every month. And as the year came to a close, I was actually surprised to find that as I tried to cull a best-of list down to ten, I was left with about 20 fantastic albums from which to chose. I did manage to come up with what I saw as the best of the best, but before we get to the main attraction, let’s take a look at some of the year’s near-misses…
“***”
Firewind – The Premonition
Basically, this is a classic power-metal album—soaring vocals, nothing too loud with plenty of melody, and enough riffs, solos and other various guitar mastery to satiate any metal lover’s appetite.
Cradle to Grave – Texas Medicine
Chock-full of thick, meaty riffs, explosive drumming and antagonistic bass licks—not to mention some absolutely crushing groove—the band grabs the listener by the throat with the opening track and proceeds to toss them down eleven flights of stairs.
Seven Mary Three – Day&Nightdriving
The songwriting skills are exemplary: the lyrics are smart, the stories are captivating and the music casually drifts between solid rock and melodic dirges, all with a slight Southern twist.
Kate Voegele – Don‘t Look Away
This album shoots out of the gate with melody and catchy hooks, and never seems to let up. With a voice that betrays her 22 years, Voegele commands attention from the album opener and carries the rest of the album with authority through to the end.
Slipknot – All Hope Is Gone
From the meaty riffs to the thunderous drumming and accentuating added percussion, the turntable scratching to the gang vocals … just put the title track on and crank the volume to 10 to see all these various elements seamlessly merge together into something no other band on the metal scene has done.
In Flames – A Sense of Purpose
Working within the confines of melodic metal, the band takes more than enough chances and manages to craft such hook-laden tracks that it’s almost impossible to resist.
Marie Digby – Unfold
The singer/songwriter incorporates a variety of influences into her songs. There’s the usual smattering of pop-rock throughout, but Digby takes a chance or two over the course of the album’s journey.
With Dead Hands Rising – Expect Hell
The band sounds tight as hell, tearing through each track with a vengeance; drums and bass shake the listener to the core like a depth charge with a dueling guitar attack taking out anything left moving.
So, without further ado…
Best albums of 2008…
10.
Kingdom of Sorrow
Kingdom of Sorrow
(Relapse Records)
“I turned to stone, once I saw the reflection was my own.”
Each track off this self-titled effort spills forth like a avalanche of sludgy, thick sonic turmoil. Jamie Jasta’s (Hatebreed) guttural wails merge perfectly with Kirk Windstein’s (Crowbar, Down) more mournful howls. From “Free the Fallen” to the one-two opening of “Hear This Prayer for Her” and “Grieve a Lifetime”, whether the band tears through the songs or they unfold in a dirge, everything is a perfect melding of metal and mood, anger and harmony, and when they shift gears to a slower, more methodical and melodic approach, the results are equally as good.
9.
Taylor Swift
Fearless
(Big Machine Records)
“And we know it’s never simple, never easy. / Never a clean break / No one here to save me You’re the only thing I know, like the back of my hand.”
Part country, part pop, and catchy as hell. Taylor Swift followed up her smash debut album with the best-selling country album of the year. Sure, the songs still reflect Swift’s young mindset, but there’s a certain timeless element to them, too. It’s all the more impressive that Swift wrote more than half of the album, and co-wrote the rest, which not only puts her in a certain league in the country scene, but well above most of her teen brethren in the pop genre. Mostly love songs, or songs of lost love, there’s a song to suit any mood on this album, which makes it one of my favorite on this list.
8.
Candlebox
Into the Sun
(Silent Majority)
“I‘m in the need, of someone to confide. / Surrendering / ‘Cause I’m not as strong as you think.”
Into the Sun reminds listeners how missed frontman Kevin Martin’s soulful vocals have been in the rock scene. The album is immediately comfortable, and Candlebox manages to string together a collection of songs to rival its best effort. The band shifts from louder material (“Stand”) to a more laid-back rock-blues approach (“Bitches Brewin'”) but really shines the brightest when it gets melancholic (“Surrendering”, “Miss You” and the title-track). Managing to channel the ghost of Mother Love Bone, the band just rocks out in every way imaginable. The best part of this entire album is that Candlebox never sounds dated, and the band was never so huge that the effort might reek of a nostalgia trip. Instead, the group puts forth one of this year’s strongest rock releases.
7.
Eyes Set to Kill
Reach
(Break Silence Records)
“Don‘t mind me, I’m only dying.”
Eyes Set to Kill could easily draw comparisons to early Atreyu, From Autumn to Ashes or Avenged Sevenfold—but instead of hardcore vocals, the lead vocals are melodic and haunting. The band’s dual guitars offer a thick wall of riffs to pull everything together with hooks galore. The drumming is thunderous without being overpowering. The piano or synthesizer pops up at the most unexpected times for a welcome, added dimension of melody. There’s no screwing around on Reach, with the blistering metallic numbers (“Violent Kiss”), some epic tracks (“Young Blood Spills Tonight” and “Darling”) with plenty of style shifts, and some catchy songs, too (the title track or “Song 2”). Nothing comes across as filler. A fantastic debut full-length from a band on the rise.
6.
Guns N’ Roses
Chinese Democracy
(Geffen)
“So now I wander through my days / And try to find my ways / To the feelings that I felt / I saved for you and no one else / And though as long as this road seems / I know it’s called the street of dreams / But that’s not stardust on my feet / It leaves a taste that’s bittersweet / That’s called the blues.”
Chinese Democracy isn’t a head-banger like Appetite for Destruction, but was that really what fans were expecting? Instead, the album plays out like a compendium of modern-rock, pulling in elements from all corners of the rock/metal genre and really turning everything on its end. The harder material—the title-track, “Riad N’ the Bedouins”, “Better”, “Catcher in the Rye”, “Shackler’s Revenge”—is all heavy on the guitar. And there’s plenty of slower, more mood-oriented material to juxtapose those songs (“This I Love”, “Madagascar”, “Sorry”). Everything is beautifully over-produced, but in a good way; from the slick, layered guitar attack, to the layers upon layers of vocals, it all just seems to work. In the end, Chinese Democracy is one hell of a journey, with musical peaks and valleys that I doubt anyone was expecting. The guitars sound great, and Axl’s voice sounds fantastic; he truly has been one of rock’s most-missed vocalists. This album becomes more impressive with each spin. Maybe it will never quite live up to the hype, but it doesn’t have to.
5.
Trivium
Shogun
(Roadrunner Records)
“I will never be what they / Want me to / I live by my own path in life / No turning / Back now, I won’t be held down / Forced into a shallow grave built upon their empty ways / There’s no turning back.”
It seems like any album by Trivium will find a place on one of my year-end lists. What’s even more refreshing is that the band continues to grow and mature with each release. The band kicked off its career with a solid, straight-forward metal effort, followed it up with an even more intense release, then somehow managed to craft a follow-up to …And Justice for All (even though the band wasn’t named Metallica). With Shogun, Trivium crawled out from under the Metallica-wannabe label and crafted one hell of an epic. The songs are crushing and expansive, the lyrics and vocals stronger than any of the group’s previous efforts. And the melody infused throughout is so punishing that you can’t help but bang your head and then shake it as the solos spill from your speakers.
4.
Byzantine
Oblivion Beckons
(Prosthetic Records)
“It’s a long road out of hell when you refuse to do the devil’s work.”
With Oblivion Beckons, every aspect of Byzantine’s sound has been ratcheted up a notch (or 10)—the riffs are thicker and more complex, the drumming more frenetic, the bass meatier and the vocals either grittier, more horrific or melodically haunting. Apart from the band’s not-overly-progressive musical approach—there’s a nice blend of metal and the nuances of prog without taking it to a limit that would alienate fans of either sub-genre—it’s Chris “O.J.” Ojeda’s vocals that set Byzantine apart from similar acts in the metal scene. He can wail, he can sound like he’s screaming from the bowels of hell, and he can also do some fantastic clean vocals (with just enough of a hint of a Southern accent) and somehow marry the two styles into a third monster. Heavy groove permeates every track, and the band’s straight-ahead metal approach harkens to Lamb of God’s delivery, albeit a little less abrasive. That the band is able to incorporate a variety of metal approaches (hints of thrash, an obvious nod to progressive material, the thunderous chug of speed and plenty of tech-inspired riffing) and work it into a cohesive piece, not to mention all of the other elements it throws in for good measure, is a true testament to the talent each member brought to the table.
3.
Children of Bodom
Blooddrunk
(Fontana Universal Records)
“In this shell of life you left me hanging dry / With a smile on my face I’ll watch you cry.”
This album spills out of the speakers like a wall of sound. Everything is thick, compact and foreboding. The band has incorporated more thrash elements to its repertoire, and it gives the material more of an edge than on its previous album. The rest is vintage Children of Bodom, with killer solos, mind-bending riffs, plenty of keyboards, choking double-bass drumming and a lot of melody to temper the breakneck pacing. With each subsequent spin, the various layers of each song expand before the listener. They like to blend these slower, more melodic elements with a crushing assault (“Tie My Rope” is a good example) to create soundscapes that border on the more accessible orchestrated metal genre.
2.
Metallica
Death Magnetic
(Warner Bros. Records)
“Cause we hunt you down without mercy / Hunt you down all nightmare long / Feel us breathe upon your face / Feel us shift, every move we trace.”
This album has grown on me, spin after spin, since its release. Death Magnetic is a completely new monster, and die-hard fans can hear tiny elements from all of Metallica’s previous efforts this time around. From the raw (“All Nightmare Long”) to the thrash (“My Apocalypse”) to the mid-tempo rocker (“The Judas Kiss”), each former album seems represented in some capacity this time out. When Metallica is able to pull pieces from its entire career into one song (like on “The Day That Never Comes”) is not only a testament to the band and the album, but also producer Rick Rubin, who’s made a name for himself for not only historically bringing the best out of bands, but also for pushing them to explore directions they might not regularly take. There are some really strong elements on Death Magnetic: Kirk Hammett unleashed for the entirety of the album; the crazy groove on the aforementioned “All Nightmare Long”; and check out the spotlight on Robert Trujillo with plenty of bass riffing taking center stage on “Cyanide”. This is the “statement” album Metallica needed to make, and it shows why so many bands still point to them as a major influence. Sometimes there’s nothing quite as good as a legend out to prove something.
1.
Amon Amarth
Twilight of the Thunder God
(Metal Blade)
“Standing firm against all odds / guarding the most sacred home / we protect the realm of gods / our destiny is carved in stone.”
This album just came out of nowhere, grabbed me and just refused to let go. It’s punishing metal at its finest; on this album Amon Amarth dialed down the death-metal edge and turned up the epic feel of each song. There’s groove and melody and crushing solos… Sure, the title-track kills almost any other metal song to come out this year, but it’s the fist-pounding nature of “Guardians of Asgaard” that really captured my attention. And then those moments of pure brilliance, most notably the cello-bridge on “Live for the Kill”, that just blew my mind. Heavy metal detailing the life, trials and legends of the Vikings—it might sound ridiculous, but it results in my pick for album of the year.
Notable notables…
Most disappointing music news of the year: Marie Digby lays the foundation for her solo debut with a grassroots effort on YouTube, but after the album’s release it is revealed that may have just been a clever marketing ploy by the record company, leaving a lot of fans feeling betrayed with a bitter taste in their mouths.
Most impressive debut album: She & Him’s self-titled debut sees Zooey Deschanel’s voice instantly capturing the listener as the band takes a musical journey inspired by pop music of the ’50s and ’60s.
Most underwhelming album: After such high hopes for Ultra Beatdown, Dragonforce somehow managed to craft a solid yet underwhelming retread of Inhuman Rampage.
Best song from a soundtrack (movie or television): The middle-eastern flavor of Guns N’ Roses’ “If the World” was the perfect ending for Body of Lies.
Best cover song: Six Feet Under do a version of the Mötley Crüe classic “Bastard”, that sounds like it was recorded at the gates of Hell.
Best guest appearance on a song: Colbie Caillat writes and sings with Taylor Swift on “Breathe”.
And that’s that. As always, drop me a line. Until next time, I’ll be here at Machine Gun Funk/Inside Pulse making sure no metal news falls through the cracks.
Take it easy…
