2013 metal top 10

My 2013 metal-only top 10 is live now, appended to Brandon Stosuy's year-end Show No Mercy countdown at Pitchfork. Several of these records overlap with my overall top 10 and a 2013 death-metal round-up I recently put together for Noisey, so I'll link inward/outward where applicable.

Here's a Spotify playlist including all the records below, including the honorable mentions, aside from the Pentagram Chile and the Six Feet Under.

1. Carcass Surgical Steel

See 2013 top 10.

2. Suffocation Pinnacle of Bedlam
See 2013 top 10.

3. Black Sabbath 13 
See 2013 top 10.

4. Gorguts Colored Sands
See 2013 top 10. Incidentally, seeing Gorguts perform this entire album live at Saint Vitus—see here or here—was thrilling. What an incredible group of songs, and… this.

5. Sorcery Arrival at Six
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal.

6. In Solitude Sister
I have been a huge Danzig fan for the majority of my life. There's not a lot of other music that gets me anywhere close to that place—that lair, more like it—that is the Danzig soundworld. That place where rock is shirtless, sensual, musty, musky, snarling, evil, shamelessly bountiful. This record goes there, folks. The term "gothic" is just a genre tag these days, but this record is dripping with the atmosphere of the occult—red candle wax, black robes, pallid skin. This is rock at once mournful and beefy, forlorn and savage. If all of Sister were as stupefyingly great as the first half, this would've been a serious contender for my all-genres-in-play top 10. I dig the whole thing, but I do feel there's a bit of a drop-off after track 4. That said, I think this record is very nearly a masterpiece, the kind of album you plunge into, anoint yourself with. Such crafty, manly music, like Danzig III infused with Thin Lizzy and the Cult. Terrifying and awesome, and a great companion to my No. 1 album of 2012, Christian Mistress's Possession, another record so earthy, it sounds like it has moss growing on it.

7. Voivod Target Earth
As I've suggested before, Voivod is all about total aesthetic immersion. It takes a while to get on this band's weird, flamboyantly proggy wavelength. But while some past Voivod records only make sense in context, this one seems to stand unusually strong on its own merits. It almost seems like blasphemy to say so, given that Target Earth is the first Voivod record not to include any contributions from the band's late guitarist and co-mastermind, Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, but this record really oozes that weird Voivodian flavor, summed up perfectly by the garish color scheme of the album cover. As he did with Gorguts on the way-underrated From Wisdom to Hate album, Daniel Mongrain, Piggy's replacement, really takes charge on Target Earth. As Mongrain discusses here, this is one of those situations of being so steeped in a band's musical grammar as a fan and disciple that one is able to join up with their heroes and actually compose fluently in that style. (For more on this phenomenon, see Justina Villanueva's crucial "Join Your Idols" interview series.) It's a pretty impressive feat, and it's resulted in a total re-energization of this deservedly legendary band. Voivod is still an acquired taste, and may they always be so, but I can think of few of their records that distill their appeal so potently as Target Earth does. Fun and weird and epic and quirky and shredding and geeky as hell, just like Voivod should be.

8. Immolation Kingdom of Conspiracy 
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal. See also my Pitchfork review.

9. Pentagram Chile The Malefice
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal. I strongly suggest getting your hands on the 2-CD version of this if at all possible. The bonus disc, containing re-recorded versions of Pentagram's early cult-favorite demo tracks, is an excellent addition to the package. Heck, there's even a great extra track on disc 1, "King Pest."

10. Six Feet Under Unborn
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal.

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A trio of honorable mentions:

Convulse Evil Prevails
Evil Prevails was on the main list above until a late-inning rally from In Solitude unseated it. Was bummed not to be able to find a place for this record, because I love it. But I was happy to be able to throw a bit of ink Convulse's way via 2013: A Year in Death Metal, not to mention my Maryland Deathfest recap and subsequent post on the brilliance of World Without God (which also touches on the Sorcery record cited above). Evil Prevails isn't quite as gruff and relentless as WWG, but it's a super-satisfying return to that general ballpark, with some nifty enhancements here and there.

Vista Chino Peace
You'll recall …Like Clockwork, the latest Queens of the Stone Age disc, ranking among my general ’13 top 10. Well, this is what some of Josh Homme's old Kyuss bandmates have been up to. They were originally operating under the name Kyuss Lives! but had to drop that moniker following a lawsuit from Homme. Honestly, that was probably the best thing that ever happened to them. They got down to business and wrote a great set of songs in the old Kyuss mode, which should satisfy longtime fans while at the same time vaulting the band out of the nostalgia bracket. Such grit and soul in this music, thanks mainly to vocalist John Garcia and godly drummer Brant Bjork. A very worthy addition to a killer body of work that also includes Blues for the Red Sun and Sky Valley, both adolescent faves of mine that have held up well. This is one to crank and savor.

Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals Walk Through Exits Only
Another old friend, listening-wise. Haven't been so into the various Anselmo projects—most prominently Down, but also Superjoint Ritual and a bunch of others—that have come down the pike since the demise of Pantera, whom I consider to be one of the greatest metal bands of all time. But Jesus, this is a hell of a corrective. This music is super nasty and caustic but also blackly funny and bizarrely introspective, almost like Anselmo had gone Woody Allen, or something. I really admire what an extreme statement this project represents—this is exactly the kind of thing you'd hope to hear from a lifer who can basically do whatever he wants at this point. Anselmo is indulging his sickest musical fantasies with the Illegals, and it sounds fucking great. His constant repping for metal's cult underground is no mere lip service; he actually goes there with this band. See also my TONY preview and Ben Ratliff's excellent live review. I missed that show, but I really hope to see them live soon. I should also add that the band's follow-up Scion single is every bit as good as the LP, with "Pigs Kissing Pigs" maybe even topping anything on that release. Can't wait to see what happens next with this project.

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Metal shows of the year:

3.30
Incantation at Saint Vitus
I previewed the mighty -tion trio for TONY back in March and was very happy to see all three of these bands live in 2013. John McEntee and Co. were the rawest and nastiest. Was great to hear a few of the Vanquish in Vengeance songs live. Video.

4.5
Suffocation at Saint Vitus
See also the aforementioned -tion preview. They completely owned, of course. Amazing to see them in a small room. Frank Mullen was in a particularly goofy mood. Dug the Exhumed opening set, but not as much as I've been digging the badass, bar-raising Necrocracy. Video.

5.24, 5.25
Maryland Deathfest
See my recap.

6.5
Cannibal Corpse + Napalm Death + Immolation at Music Hall of Williamsburg
The Corpse seemed a hair less ferocious / more perfunctory than at previous shows I've caught. Napalm Death were their usual mayhem-sowing selves, and it was great to finally see Immolation bring it (-tion preview). Love that they're leaning hard on Kingdom of Conspiracy in the current live set.

8.4
Black Sabbath at PNC Bank Arts Center
Don't listen to anyone who tells you that the current Sabbath incarnation is an embarrassment, either  on record or onstage. Seeing Ozzy, Geezer and Tony live was an amazing experience, period. I loved hearing 13 tracks like "Age of Reason" interspersed with the old warhorses. Do I wish I had seen Bill? Of course I do. But to sit out on this would've been a really bad idea.

9.25
Carcass + Immolation at Saint Vitus 
As discussed in the Deathfest lineup, Carcass circa now are scarily pro. So insanely crisp and powerful, and again, seeing them in a room this size isn't an experience I'll soon forget. Another raging Immolation set was the icing. Video.

10.6
Deicide + Broken Hope + Disgorge at Gramercy Theatre
I've been a Deicide fan for roughly 20 years but had never seen them live until this show. Their live sound is super-weighty and punishing, and man, do those songs from the first couple albums hold up. As with Carcass, very, very pro. Broken Hope didn't impress me here *quite as much as they did at Deathfest, but I still consider myself an overnight fan thanks to the D-fest set and the awesome Omen of Disease. Disgorge, meanwhile, were downright scary.

10.9, 10.10
Obituary at Saint Vitus
The stompingest, most rifftastic show I saw this year, so much so that I went back for seconds the next night. Video.

11/12
Morbid Angel at Irving Plaza
Morbid Angel is friendlier and campier now than they were two decades ago, when they were my chief musical obsession. (Or at least, that's how I imagine their early-’90s incarnation stacking up against their present selves, since I didn't see the band live till after their mid-aughts reunion with David Vincent.) But the playing is still dead-on, and my God, those songs! Covenant in its entirety + one song apiece from every other album, including the non-Vincent ones + typical Azagthoth insanity = a very satisfied fan. Again, the drummer issue: Wish it had been Pete, but what can you do?

11/14
Eyehategod at Saint Vitus
And yet again, drummers: Rest in peace, Joey LaCaze. I felt weird about seeing an EHG show so soon after his passing, but Mike Williams and the rest gave him a very loving tribute at this gig, complete with "Jo-ey! Jo-ey!" chant. I was skeptical about anyone ably filling LaCaze's shoes, but Aaron Hill is the right man for this job. The sludge is intact. Video.

11/15
Kvelertak at Irving Plaza
There were two other bands on this bill, but the boys from Norway towered above them, making rubble out of the stage.

12.7
Revenge + Mausoleum at Saint Vitus
The closest I've ever been to one of the most unhinged musicians on the planet. Seeing Revenge at Deathfest was cool, but this was total lunacy. Had no idea I'd be seeing the masterful Jim Roe live as well, with Mausoleum.

12.21
Gorguts at Saint Vitus
See Colored Sands entry in albums list above.

Recently

*NYC Metal package at Time Out New York. This one's been gestating a long time; I'm really happy with how it turned out. Don't miss the portrait gallery—featuring exclusive shots of Immolation, Ross the Boss, Colin Marston, the dudes of Saint Vitus and many more—and the equally wide-ranging Spotify playlist.

*Black Host review at Pitchfork. This is a fascinating record and a very worthy follow-up to Gerald Cleaver's prior bandleading date, Be It As I See It, discussed in brief here. As a point of comparison, here are some thoughts on a Black Host live gig I caught in December of 2011.

*The 100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music at Spin. This one's close to my heart. I came of age, both as a listener and as a drummer, during the ’90s "alternative" era; I learned to play drums, and appreciate them, from people like John Stanier, one of 16 artists I blurbed for this list. (Others I wrote about include Greg Saunier, Brian Chippendale, Blake Fleming, Drumbo, Tomas Haake, Bill Ward, Han Bennink, etc.) I was part of the nomination process, but I didn't have final say re: who was included—three names you'd see on there if the latter had been the case: Tony Williams, Bill Bruford, Mac McNeilly. Still, I can always get behind a good rethink of a given canon. Among the drummers I didn't blurb, the ones that mean the most to me here are: Dale Crover (likely my personal No. 1 among this field; balletic brontosaurus), Chuck Biscuits (the punisher; Black Flag, sure, but my God, his Danzig work…), Britt Walford (a beautifully weighty and creative player whose talents are too often overlooked), Lombardo (beast), Che (mythical creature), Copeland (ultimate style-ist), Canty (post-hardcore poet), Stevenson (prog-punk champion).

*Giorgio Moroder interview at Red Bull. I had a pleasure speaking with this wise and charming man. Didn't know his work so well going in; relished the chance to study up. For the uninitiated, I highly recommend this comprehensive Moroder mixtape.

Here come the -tions: Incantation & Co.

Via Time Out New York, a report on a noteworthy death-metal serendipity. Namely, Incantation, Suffocation and Immolation are all playing NYC shows soon. The fact that each "-tion" has a killer new (well, technically "recent" and "imminent" in the respective cases of Incan and Immo) album out sweetens the deal considerably.

You might recall me gushing over Suffocation and Immolation. I'm currently in the throes of an Incantation obsession. As with those others, they have a discography stretching back more than two decades. The Incantation catalog differs from those of Suffocation and Immolation in a couple important ways: First, the band has shuffled key members (specifically vocalists and drummers) many times over the years. While Suffocation and Immolation have both cycled through a few drummers, I'm pretty sure each has retained the same frontman for their entire duration: Frank Mullen and Ross Dolan, respectively. In Incantation's case, though, you get a very different sound depending on whether, e.g., Jim Roe or Kyle Severn is behind the kit, or whether, e.g., Craig Pillard or Daniel Corchado is at the mic. I used to feel like the band's early-’90s line-up (which featured Roe and Pillard, along with Incantation's sole constant member, guitarist and now-vocalist John McEntee) was by far their strongest. Studying the discography over the past couple months, though, I can say that all of the Incantation full-lengths are, in their own ways, great death-metal records.

It sounds obvious, but it's important to note: Maybe more so than the other two groups discussed here, this band's stock-in-trade is the riff—they seem to never tire of the fundamental joy found in rocking out on some trilly uptempo or lumbering downtempo motif, cycling through it relentlessly, trancing out on the statement and re-statement, snowballing intensity. And the way you know that Incantation's records are all good—I can vouch for seven out of the eight of them; I haven't yet heard 2002's Blasphemy—is that the quality of their riffcraft simply doesn't waver. They remain as devoted to this dark art, the heartbeat of metal as far as I'm concerned, on 2012's Vanquish in Vengeance as they were on their first LP, 1992's absolutely monstrous Onward to Golgotha. That latter record represents another key distinction separating Incantation from Suffocation and Immolation: McEntee & Co. emerged more or less fully formed. Effigy of the Forgotten and and Dawn of Possession, the respective debuts by Suffocation and Immolation, are good records, but both bands would go on to blow them out of the water as their discographies progressed. Onward, on the other hand, remains the Incantation gold standard. It's a disgustingly heavy record, a quality stemming both from its often-praised (and justly so) production, which sounds both enormous and strangely muffled, and its stunning confidence. Right from that point, this band has known exactly what it wanted to be. I haven't heard the early Incantation demos, which I'd imagine demonstrate some sort of progression that leads logically to Onward, but by the time of LP No. 1, the band had their proverbial shit entirely together.

That said, Vanquish in Vengeance, the latest Incantation dispatch, just might be my favorite album of theirs. As many reviewers have noted, it lacks that thick, suffocating atmosphere of the early records, but to me, sonic qualities like that are important yet ultimately beside the point; i.e., they're to be appreciated but not fetishized. In other words, criticizing a band for going after a clearer production style, a truer representation of what they actually sound like, rather than deliberately hiding behind some sort of illusory veil, strikes me as b.s. I generally want to hear extreme-metal bands sounding as big and full as possible—as long as that size/girth doesn't come at the expense of all organic-ness—and as far as Incantation is concerned, Vanquish in Vengeance represents a new pinnacle in those areas. It sounds like a band playing in a room together at top volume, something you can't say of very many death-metal records. It also happens to feature some of the catchiest, most memorable songs the band has written. (I'm especially partial to "Invoked Infinity," "Ascend Into the Eternal" and "Profound Loathing," but I highly recommend the entire album.) Overall, there's a vigor to Vanquish that can't be faked, a sense of a band proudly reaffirming its seniority in the scene, really owning its authority and longevity. Despite all the member changes, the Incantation b(r)and name—much like those of Suffocation and Immolation, as well as Cannibal Corpse, Obituary and, in a different but related style, Napalm Death and Brutal Truth—remains a mark of top quality, of honorable, undiluted old-school death-metal values. It's this sustained commitment that keeps me coming back to the -tions and various other legacy acts. As long as they're playing, I won't stop caring.

Rolling up their sleeves: Suffocation and the pleasures of death-metal conservatism

One of the chief constants throughout my listening life has been death metal. I first got into the style in roughly 1993, via Morbid Angel, whose masterpiece, Covenant, turns 20 in a few months. For a long time, I maintained a sort of mental hierarchy re: death metal as a whole, which went something like: "There's Morbid, and then there's everyone else." While I still adore that band, and worship their inspired, wildly erratic take on the subgenre, my perspective on death metal has changed a lot throughout the past two decades. These days, I seem to be more interested in consistency and longevity, a kind of dogged devotion to craft, than anything else. Bands that once seemed workmanlike now appear remarkable. Several times over the past few years, I've found myself off on one of my extreme listening jags, so immersed in, enamored of and acclimated to the work of a single death-metal band that I can barely stand to hear a note of anything else. In late 2011, it was all about first Obituary, then Immolation; last summer, it was Cannibal Corpse; currently, it's Suffocation.

I'm pretty sure I first heard this band on the 1993 Roadrunner comp At Death's Door II, a landmark purchase for me at the time, the album that introduced me to staples of my extreme-metal listening diet both then (Disincarnate, Fear Factory) and more recently (Cynic, Gorguts). I'm pretty sure, as well, that the Suffocation track in question ("Prelude to Repulsion," from their 1993 sophomore LP, Breeding the Spawn) didn't make much of an impression. It's only in recent years that I've developed an obsession with Suffocation. Blood Oath, from 2009, piqued my interest in a major way, but it's the brand-new Pinnacle of Bedlam that's really sent me over the top.

The MetalSucks review of this album is dead-on and highly recommended. I can definitely relate to the initial skepticism that Sammy O'Hagar cops to in that write-up. For those not up to speed, here's the gist: There's been a bit of drama/upheaval in the Suffocation camp over the past year or so. Drummer Mike Smith, a staple of the Long Island band's lineup since their 1990 demo (and a musician whom Heavy Metal Be-Bop readers might remember from the Damión Reid installment), left the band on bad terms last year. Then, the news dropped that vocalist Frank Mullen, a charter member and one of death metal's most charismatic frontmen, would no longer be a permanent part of the band's touring incarnation. (Suffocation played with a fill-in growler at last summer's Obscene Extreme fest.)

That Pinnacle of Bedlam is extraordinarily good—one of the finest LPs, and maybe even the finest LP, that Suffocation has released—tells you something about the way this band operates, and tangentially about the M.O. shared by the truly great veteran death metal acts, including the aforementioned Immolation, Cannibal Corpse and Obituary. With help from Spotify, I've been binging on the Suffocation discography over the past week or so—seven full-lengths (including Pinnacle) and two EPs—and what really stands out is the steadiness, the determination with which this band has progressed. As with, say, Immolation, you won't find any wild departures in the Suffocation discography; you'll find a band laying out a primitive yet competent blueprint on its early releases—compare these two bands' seminal releases, Dawn of Possession and Human Waste, respectively, which came out within a few months of one another in 1991—and slowly but surely honing that into something truly fearsome, absolutely airtight. There are no accidents in the Suffocation discography, just a gradual perfection of a craft, namely death metal marked by fiendishly complex yet ever-headbangable riffage, assaultively growl-barked vocals and the juxtaposition of jackhammer blastbeats and churning, mosh-commanding breakdowns. It's a style so iconic that if one is showing up late to the Suffocation party, as I did, it can be easy to mistake them for a generic death-metal band. In reality, they wrote much of the blueprint for a certain subcategory of the genre and have proceeded to cling to that blueprint like Super Glue. Pinnacle of Bedlam is, then, simply their latest, greatest dispatch. There's no real need to play-by-play it (though, for those that might be concerned, I will specify that Smith's replacement, Dave Culross, absolutely smokes here); it's an effing Suffocation record, and it's worthy of their legacy, which is saying a ton. Overall, it feels a bit speedier, more technical, more straight-up overwhelming than its predecessor, Blood Oath, for those keeping track. From a more general perspective, though, this is the key takeaway: If you enjoy Suffocation as much as I do, Pinnacle of Bedlam will make you ridiculously happy, as it has me.

I mentioned Morbid Angel above, and they're relevant to this discussion mainly as a counterexample. In 1989's Altars of Madness, they released one of death metal's indisputable early benchmarks. The next two records saw the band straining against the style's essential underground-ness, seeing how far they could push the, for lack of a better term, professionalism of the style, and in the process, arriving at what I consider to be the single greatest death-metal album of all time (not to mention my favorite metal album, full stop): 1993's Covenant. But as anyone who read their interviews around that time could tell you, Morbid Angel was never content to be just a death metal band. They spoke with arrogant indifference re: "the scene," and in a way, they had earned the right to. Band mastermind Trey Azagthoth was, and as far as I'm concerned, still is, one of the great oddball visionaries of contemporary rock-based artistry, a guy who has seemed to draw more inspiration over the years from video games and motivational speakers than he has from other music, let alone from a narrowly defined subgenre such as death metal. It's that kind of outside-the-box thinking that makes possible a masterpiece like Covenant—and its flawed but still excellent follow-up, 1995's Domination—but that also breeds a kind of precarious eclecticism. Longtime DFSBP readers might recall me tying myself in knots trying to defend Morbid Angel's widely reviled, industrial-leaning 2011 comeback LP. As with any gonzo departure of that nature, the true test of its value is whether or not the record's allure outlasts the controversy that it incites, and the truth of the matter is that, for me, the record in question (Illud Divinum Insanus) has not measured up in that regard. After my initial flurry of probably meta-contrarian interest—i.e., born more out of hating on the haters than out of my own genuine positive feeling toward what I was hearing—I haven't felt the desire to spin the thing a single time.

I've meandered way off course here, but I promise there's a Suffocation-related point mixed in with all this. And that point is this: There is no Covenant in the Suffocation discography—no genre-transcending ultra-masterpiece—but by the same token, there is also no Illud Divinum Insanus—no pointlessly baffling head-scratcher. As with the Immolation catalog, what you get listening to the Suffocation oeuvre front-to-back is a respectable but not-quite-there early phase followed by an unbroken string of staggering rippers. In other words, once these bands have found their respective zones, they've stayed right dead in the center of them, making small tweaks but not seeming to feel any great need to change up the formula, to attempt experiments or departures—hence what I said above re: workmanlike-ness, a certain humble craftsmanship that, in my listening experience anyway, seems to thrive as strongly in death metal as it does anywhere else in contemporary music. (To my ears, Suffocation really hit its stride, which persists to this day, on its third LP, 1995's Pierced from Within; my recall of the Immolation catalog isn't super-fresh at the moment, but I seem to remember that their own third LP, 1999's Failures for Gods, marked the beginning of their all-killer phase.)

Sure, there's deviation within the Suffocation catalog from 1995 until now. Some of that has to do with personnel. Much like Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation has shuffled members frequently over a 25-year existence. Among the current lineup, Mullen is the only consistent original member, with guitarist Terrance Hobbs coming in a close second; as far as I know, only these two have appeared on every Suffocation release. Guitarist Guy Marchais apparently cofounded the band, but he had departed by the time of the demo and wouldn't record with them until 2004's Souls to Deny (an LP that marked the band's return after a five-year hiatus); Smith, meanwhile, didn't play on Pierced from Within or the next Suffocation release, ’98's Despise the Sun EP. All this is inside baseball, though. For the non–nerdily obsessive, the point is that Suffocation has maintained a certain monolithic quality level for the better part of the past two decades. To these ears, the Cannibal Corpse discography has been spottier—I'd maintain that they peaked on 1994's The Bleeding and then again with 2006's Kill, and haven't looked back—but the principle is the same: In a sense these bands are tried-and-true brands as much as they are artistic entities. Personnel changes; production styles change (you can especially hear that in the Suffocation discography; spin Pierced from Within alongside Suffocation's absolutely massive-sounding self-titled 2006 record for a quick lesson in how drastically the recorded presentation of extreme metal has shifted over time). But the core aesthetic is unwavering. Fans of bands like Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse and Immolation don't need to worry about their heroes fancying a surprise, an experiment, a departure. Sure, you'll get the odd quasi-curveball: an instrumental track from Cannibal, the occasional clean-toned guitar passage / whispered-not-growled vocal from Immolation, a ballad-like intro from Suffocation (e.g., on the mindblowingly good "Sullen Days" from Pinnacle of Bedlam). But what you won't get is the album-length WTF moment.

On paper, this might seem tedious, but in practice, speaking from a fan's perspective, it's actually pretty damn delightful. You know these bands are going to slay, both on record and onstage. (I haven't caught Immolation yet—can't wait for this in June—though I can vouch for the live awesomeness of both Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation, the latter of whom I saw at Maryland Deathfest last year.) In that sense, they're critic-proof. An outsider might roll their eyes at yet another Cannibal Corpse, Immolation or Suffocation record, but as long as these bands are recording, there will never come a time when the die-hards will not rabidly swarm one of these releases, record-industry downfall be damned. It seems like a silly stat to point out, but I couldn't help but be impressed by the whopping 56 Amazon reviews, most of them raves, for Suffocation's Souls to Deny. What that number tells you is that there is a real audience for this stuff, that fans appreciate consistency, that so-called artistic evolution can sometimes be overrated. Sometimes, you just want a band that delivers. There's something touching about this sort of closed-circuit artist-audience relationship. I'm sure it exists in other subgenres too—perhaps in the jam-band scene, another sphere regarded by "the outside world" with indifference or outright scorn, but one that enjoys serious, unwavering fan support.

It's this relationship, upheld year-in, year-out—and in the case of veteran bands like Suffocation, decade-in, decade-out—that keeps me coming back to death metal, 20 years after I first discovered it. The kind of longevity these bands embody isn't an empty one; it isn't mere "hanging around." Sure, just like any other genre, death metal has its wild aberrances—those acts like, say, Gorguts or Death, who successfully attempt some insanely ambitious stylistic makeover, as well as your Morbid Angels, who clip the hurdle as they're attempting to leap over it—much as it has its sticks-in-the-mud. I won't name names, but I can think of a handful of death-metal bands who have been around just about as long as Suffocation and who don't interest me in the slightest. Yes, Suffocation may be reading from a recipe at this point, but the recipe yields something absolutely delicious—it's no longer novel, but nor, if you have a taste for it, does it ever really get old. Death metal may not embody the media-friendly sexiness of black metal—the latter's often tedious trappings of supposed real-life anguish, its absurd/enthralling pageantry, its deliberately taxing lo-fi-ness/experimentalism; as is probably clear, I've never really warmed up to that subgenre. But what death metal offers, at its best, is the rolling up of sleeves. Vein-popping virtuosity applied to pure baroque artistry. Hyper-ambitiousness within a formally conservative framework. Craft. Sweat. Head-down devotion. It makes me so happy.

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Here's a quick Suffocation sampler, touching on all five albums from the new Pinnacle of Bedlam back through 1995's Pierced from Within. If you like what you hear, I recommend giving each of these records a good, concerted listen. Effigy of the Forgotten and Breeding the Spawn—from ’91 and ’93, respectively—have their primitive charms as well. (Interestingly, the band has made a habit of re-recording tracks from the subpar-sounding Breeding throughout their later career, a practice that seems to tie into my impression of them as perfectionist craftsmen; Pinnacle concludes with one of these: "Beginning of Sorrow.")

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P.S. Here's a great new interview with Terrance Hobbs, via Phil Freeman at Burning Ambulance.

Playing the tortoise: 20-plus years of Unsanity

Via Pitchfork, here's my review of the new Unsane album, Wreck.

My current thoughts on Unsane tie into a post I wrote last November on the veteran death-metal band Obituary. I enjoyed both of these groups in high school, but my enthusiasm for each was lukewarm; back then I was looking for something more ambitious, and neither quite fit the bill. Unsane was up against craw, Dazzling Killmen and other purveyors of extreme post-hardcore, while Obituary competed against the mighty Morbid Angel.

It's telling that none of that competition really exists anymore. Craw and Dazzling Killmen have broken up, and while Morbid Angel persists, I feel okay admitting that none of their future releases are likely to affect me as much as Covenant did back in '93. In the Unsane review, I referred to them as the tortoises of the NYC noise-rock scene, and Obituary have played a similar role in the Florida death-metal movement. Each has barely progressed since the early '90s; instead they've both chosen to simply dig in and micro-refine over a steady stream of albums.

This is the kind of achievement that's easy to overlook. (It's also the kind of achievement that's not always praiseworthy: A "tortoise" band only seems continually respectable if their current work feels as true and from-the-gut as their vintage material.) What I've realized recently is that, for me, unchanging-ness is no longer a knock in and of itself. And Unsane has certainly endured its share of knocks on just that count; Pitchfork's reviews of its previous two records, Visqueen and Blood Run, were not kind. If I feel that a band continues to mean what they're doing over time, and if what they're doing sounds good to me, I'm completely okay with that essentially anti-evolutionary approach. This flies in the face of that whole "Better to burn out than it is to rust" concept. There's a third alternative there: Keep driving the same car, but make sure it stays polished. I'm not an expert on, say, Motörhead, but I think they've followed the same principle.

What I'm saying in short is that I still believe Unsane. They don't surprise me, but I like the feeling they give me. The dire-ness does not feel forced. Not every band has to "progress." Sometimes progression really means diffusion. Take, say, Mastodon. I enjoy their latest record just fine, but it doesn't have that "Holy shit…" quality. It feels almost casual, in comparison with a back catalog (Remission, e.g.) that at its best has felt deadly serious. That's the risk of evolving, I guess. (And it's worth keeping in mind that records are not always these sacred texts, removed from reality; sometimes they're just a collection of songs to play live. Another thing Unsane and Obituary have in common is that they're both hard-touring bands who continue to kick ass live precisely because they don't mess with the formula onstage or in the studio.)

For me, the real takeaway is that there's no one right way to play it. Longevity is the first priority, and if a band can hang around and still make vital, enjoyable records 20-odd years after it started, I have no problem with the fact that those records sound pretty much exactly the same in the macro sense. (Nor, I should make clear, do I have a problem with progression and evolution; the trick, though, is how to accomplish that without forsaking intensity and conviction.) I've listened to the entire Unsane discography over the past week or so, and while I was barely surprised at all, I rocked out pretty much nonstop. Now, later in life, that means more to me than it did. I don't think it's that my aesthetic palate has dulled; I think it's that I appreciate the raw craftsmanship of rock more. Pick a style and churn it out. That's good enough for me.

P.S. For more on these themes, see last December's Immolation post.

Immolation: a b(r)and I can trust

Over the past three days, I've run down my favorite new releases of 2011. I've come up with a pretty exhaustive catalog, but it's still incomplete—reason being that I haven't taken into account music that isn't new, but that's new to me.

While I'm at the office, I'm often listening in work mode, i.e., doing background research for a piece or simply rummaging through the mail (or e-mail), sampling the many records I receive each week. But when I'm at home or commuting, I'm usually listening for pure pleasure, and a fair amount of the time, that means schooling myself on older music.

In 2011, especially the latter part of the year, "older music" almost invariably meant death metal, typically by veteran bands who have been around more or less since the genre's late-’80s inception, or at least its early-’90s heyday. I've had a blast reacquainting myself with Obituary, a band I loved in high school but hadn't paid much mind to since. Incantation is another band that's magnetized me this year. I started delving into their catalog after falling under the spell of Disma (see No. 8 here), whose frontman, Craig Pillard, made his name in Incantation in the early-to-mid ’90s. I can't recommend their second full-length, 1994's Mortal Throne of Nazarene, highly enough. It's one of the most enveloping, dread-filled metal releases I know, with beautifully ornate riffage hidden under a layer of pure seething chaos—a true classic. (Check out "Emaciated Holy Figure" for a taste.) But the band that's held my attention longest, and most unwaveringly, is definitely Immolation.

I didn't know much about these guys before 2011. I knew they were from New York (Yonkers, to be exact) and that they'd been around forever (since 1986 or 1988, depending on which source you trust), but I'd always taken them for a capable yet second-rate death-metal band. For a long time, my fanaticism re: Morbid Angel, specifically my fixation on their fascinating idiosyncrasies, blinded me to a lot of what was going on in the trenches, i.e., those bands who were executing death metal in less blatantly progressive or convention-flouting ways. Now, for whatever reason, I'm more attracted by these types of bands, the ones who dig in, mark their territory and just produce and produce and produce. As I discussed in my tribute to Obituary, I'm realizing that evolution isn't always what I want out of music, or out of art in general; sometimes I just want a brand I can trust, and Immolation is exactly that.

After flipping (way late) for the band's 2010 LP, Majesty and Decay, I began a backward chronological trip through their discography. Over the past few weeks, amid various sidetrackings and mini tangents, I've worked my way (so far) through the five prior Immolation full-lengths (from 2007's Shadows in the Light through 1999's Failures for Gods). I've noted subtle differences along the way (the departure of drummer Alex Hernandez, and his replacement by current kit man Steve Shalaty, after 2002's Unholy Cult, brought about a significant shift), but overall, I've been awed by this band's consistent greatness, the way they've established clear parameters for their art—the linchpin elements being (1) Ross Dolan's sub-(or super-?)human growl, (2) chief songwriter Bob Vigna's tirelessly inventive guitar concept, which places equal weight on gnarled, chunky riffs as it does on spidery, floating texture, with constant sudden flashes of pure, out-of-the-blue derangement and (3) a staunchly diverse approach to tempo and rhythmic feel, wherein power-drill blast beats alternate with perversely lurching asymmetrical grooves—and reveled in that tightly defined creative space over so many years. You'll often hear people praise, say, Slayer for their brute single-mindedness, their refusal to stray from what works for them—I remember reading a variation of this in D.X. Ferris's 33 1/3 book on Reign in Blood—but even given my spotty knowledge of Slayer's stranger, more unrepresentative works (1998's Diabolus in Musica, e.g.), I can say that no other metal catalog I could name rivals Immolation's for this quality of head-down, "don't mess with the formula but somehow manage to avoid stagnation" persistence. This band is simply a machine.

Maybe you could say the same for an outfit like Motörhead, but what I'm guessing you couldn't say for Lemmy & Co. is that their current work is arguably their best. I'd argue that Immolation was at their most intense on Unholy Cult; the precision and power of that record is awe-inspiring, bordering on psychotic, owing plenty to the performances but also to a production job that's among the finest I've ever heard in death metal. Unholy Cult's immediate predecessor, 2000's Close to a World Below, is nearly as deadly. After the arrival of Shalaty, a less pummeling, virtuosic drummer than Hernandez—who deserves to be inducted into the Death Metal Hall of Fame (when/if it's built, it's gotta be in Tampa, FL) for his performances on Unholy Cult and Close to a World Below—the band struggled a bit to maintain quite the same intensity level (cases in point: Shadows in the Light and 2005's Harnessing Ruin, both fine records—especially the latter, which contains some of Vigna's most brilliantly demented inventions—but not quite as juggernaut-ish as the Hernandez discs).

Something clicked into place on Majesty and Decay, though. The production job isn't stellar—to me, the drums sound particularly weak, lacking any real bottom or punch—but the songwriting took a quantum leap. This record is absolutely crammed with memorable riffs, compositions that loop incessantly in your brain. At this stage, Immolation's writing is as catchy as it is admirably unrelenting; if I had to choose a favorite album of theirs (and bear in mind, I haven't spent good time with the first two, 1991's Dawn of Possession and 1996's Here in After), I'd have to choose Majesty. Before this record, it would've been hard to imagine Immolation releasing a bona fide single, complete with video, but they did just that this past July ("A Glorious Epoch" is the track in question), and it makes perfect sense. And with the help of that "No one can quite figure out exactly why they're doing it, but what's the use in complaining when the results are this awesome?" car company/metal patron Scion, Dolan, Vigna & Co. have continued to roll forward, recently issuing Providence, a free-on-the-internet EP of brand new material that's as strong as what you hear on Majesty.

Two-plus decades into its existence, Immolation is still adding meaningfully to its rock-solid legacy, and not by tweaking the formula, but, in a way, by becoming more and more itself, drawing ever nearer to its most essential statement yet—without rendering its back catalog obsolete. Each version of Immolation we've heard, over so many albums, has represented its own kind of state-of-the-art; despite the little inconsistencies, there's not really a true transitional album among them. Each one is confident, complete. The highest compliment I could pay each of these records is that it's fit to stand beside all the other ones; it's hard to name an apex, but it's downright impossible to name a nadir. There simply isn't one, and that's why Immolation means so much to me. As much as I've loved getting to know all the new sounds of 2011, I'm not sure another listening experience has meant more to me this year than waking up to this sturdiest, most trustworthy of extreme-metal brands.

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Here's half a dozen tracks to get you started. (I'm really starting to loathe the sound quality of YouTube streams, so if you like what you hear, go buy the records in question.)


"A Glorious Epoch" from Majesty and Decay (2010)


"The Rapture of Ghosts" from Majesty and Decay


"Our Savior Sleeps" from Harnessing Ruin (2005)


"Unholy Cult" from Unholy Cult (2002)


"Unpardonable Sin" from Close to a World Below (2000)


"Your Angel Died" from Failures for Gods (1999)