Best of 2007 - from #35 to #31

35. iron and wine - 'the shepherd's dog'
It's been rather hard for those of us who fell in love with Sam Beam's first couple of softly hushed, minimalist guitar-picking albums, the unforgettable 'The Creek Drank The Cradle' and 'Our Endless Numbered Days', to follow his inevitable evolution into a more arranged, structured kind of composition, with more instruments and a few people around him colouring the songs. The 'Woman King' EP was okay, but it sort of passed you by, which raised my fears a bit for this album, but in the end Sam has been able to prove that no matter what the form is, the essence of his music can and will touch hearts regardless. Truth be told, there was little else to do with his old style anyway, and in this album he has thrown the doors of experimentation wide open. It's not wild "avantgarde" experimentation, but it's stuff like the fabulous dimension of 'Boy With A Coin', a song that is at the same time creepy and jolly, the little beat of 'House By The Sea' that propels Sam into his most adventurous vocal performance so far and the groovy undertones of 'Wolves (Song Of The Shepherd's Dog)', for example. Even a song like 'Resurrection Fern', which could be lifted straight off the first albums, is given a new shade by the quiet but present arrangements. Above all, this album must feel like a sort of liberation for Sam, who has now a hundred ways in which to explore his typical small-town, rural heartbreak stories in the next releases. I'll await them eagerly.

Iron And Wine - 'Boy With A Coin'



34. big business - 'here come the waterworks'
Big Business sure got their overdue spotlight this year, since both of the musicians that constitute the band are now also members of the Melvins line-up (and recorded an album I was quite excited about). However, that can also be a slight drawback for Jared Warren (vocals and bass) and drummer Coady Willis, since everything they do will now be looked at under the big shade of King Buzzo's crown. Which is unfair, especially since 'Here Come The Waterworks' is such a great record. Sure, there's hints of the Melvins here, but mostly in their approach to things, in that vaguely mocking-indie way that the Melvins do things, the same warped sense of humour. Apart from that, the album lives on a strange contrast that manages, somehow, to work - it's tremendously heavy but also surprisingly clean and uplifting, this both in music and in lyrics too. Take 'I'll Give You Something To Cry About', with riffs that weigh a ton and could have come from any doom album but also with twinkling guitar harmonies and sort of silly oh ohs, which happen right when Jared is singing about vultures. It's weird stuff, but it all comes together into a huge mass of pure rock. Go figure.

Big Business - 'I'll Give You Something To Cry About'



33. melt-banana - 'bambi's dilemma'
Play a random Melt-Banana album to anyone with a "conventional" music taste and the reactions are usually wonderful. From "are those yelping monkeys?" to "oh, those must be the South Park dolls!", I've had all sorts of reactions. At their core, however, these nutty Japanese girls are one of the coolest bands ever, mixing typical Japan weirdness with shit-heavy Godflesh-isms with go-ahead punk. All their albums have gone one step ahead in finding the perfect balance for all these apparently incompatible influences, and it's in 'Bambi's Dilemma' that they come closer than ever to the motherload. It's the album that goes to more extremes, in both directions - while it's the one with the most insane vocal acrobatics (the dog impression in 'Dog Song' is, well, hard to explain without listening), the harshest noise moments and the most unexpected bits of electronics, but it's also the one with the closest thing to hit singles that they've ever had and with the hugest metal riffs you could ever wish for in the middle of all this cacophony. Just when you've listened to the whole thing, rocked and punked out and think you're finally making sense of it all, they throw a mega-curveball on you with the ambient (?) industrial of closer “Last Target On The Last Day". Genius.

Melt-Banana - 'Cracked Plaster Cast'



32. marduk - 'rom 5:12'
Rarely has a vocalist change produced so many good things. When Legion left Marduk, the band felt kind of washed-up, repeating the same thing over and over. Since then, the former vocalist has gone on to do a wonderful blackthrash album with his new band Devian, and Marduk have been totally revitalized with the arrival of the creepy Mortuus, known for his ravishing work in Funeral Mist. Naturally fitting in the role as if it has been his for decades, his demented and from-the-gut-of-satan vocals helped make 'Plague Angel' a pulverising return to form, and now with the unholy 'Rom 5:12' he steps those up even a bit more and Marduk is definitely back on the christgrinding map. Finally, guitarist and main man Morgan has realized that evil does not only lie in speed, and Marduk are able to slow down to a grinding (that's the word) halt right off from 'The Levelling Dust', a thick miasma of black riffing from which you can almost smell the putrefaction. This haunting feel is intelligently built in the songs, so you don't get slow-song-fast-song like they have tried to do before on 'Nightwing' for example, but a varied and very uncomfortable overall experience. 'Imago Mortis' is one of the top black metal songs of the year, 'Cold Mouth Prayer' returns briefly to the warp-speed mode, which works much better because now you're not expecting it all the time anymore. then there's a little surprise that's the final piece to lift the album to amazing status - the authoritarian, menacing 'Accuser / Opposer', in which Primordial's vocalist Nemtheanga delivers a guest vocal performance worthy of all the brilliance that his band have delivered us recently.

Marduk - 'Imago Mortis'



31. impaled nazarene - 'manifest'
[review published on issue #164 of Terrorizer magazine]
If there is a band that embodies non-compromise, it’s Impaled Nazarene. Sure, throughout all the albums they have released so far (and there have been a few already, count ‘em!), there have been ups and downs in quality, but there isn’t a stinker among them and there are several brilliant ones, and, most importantly, in all of them Mika and the lads have shown that they don’t give a flying fuck about any trends or musical climates. Nor have they shown any sign of mellowing out, either, as each of those releases has been a blast of hate-fuelled violence. It’s quite a past to live up to, and the best thing about ‘Manifest’ is that not only it lives up to it easily, but it feels like a summing up of all the best bits of their body of work. Unthinkably long for ImpNaz standards, its 50 minutes hold some of the most varied and exciting tunes of their career. Despite being generally perceived as straightforward music, Impaled Nazarene have never been easy to categorize. There’s thrash, death, grindcore and black metal all mixed with an explosive punk attitude, leaving their own nuclear metal catchphrase as probably the most accurate term for it so far. But on ‘Manifest’, everything goes one step further – they manage to put in a doom song, ‘Funeral For Despicable Pigs’ and a goddamn exhilarating Motörhead-gone-extreme rock-out in ‘You Don’t Rock Hard’, just to cite a couple of examples of the generally looser, catchier approach to songwriting. This makes the record an addictive start-to-finish experience, but it’s done in a way that it keeps the furious, uncontrolled feeling of the earlier stuff like ‘Ugra Karma’. Just listen to the insanity of ‘Pandemia’ or the wonderful opener ‘The Antichrist Files’, in which Mika shamelessly shrieks “pledge allegiance to Satan.” No, they haven’t started to take themselves too seriously yet, and the obligatory goat song is still there. It’s still good old reliable Impaled Nazarene, except they’ve still got a few tricks up their sleeve and, unlike many other bands that have reached this level of extremity, they seem to be getting even better with age.

Impaled Nazarene - 'You Don't Rock Hard'

Best of 2007 - from #40 to #36

40. vital remains - 'icons of evil'
I was utterly exhausted, devastated by three whole days of Wacken and a couple of hours away from a whole-day bus+train+plane ride without sleeping, but was still quite pissed off when Vital Remains didn't show up for their gig at the big German festival. And there's a reason - after 1349 played, I couldn't have imagined a better way to finish the whole thing off than a show heavily based on this ugly motherfucker of a record. 'Icons Of Evil' is the perfect companion piece to Deicide's trailblazing 'The Stench Of Redemption' (and Benton fronts the band here too). Everything that makes a good death metal album is here, as 'Icons Of Evil' is simultaneously vast and claustrophobic, sweeping and crushingly to-the-point. The tempo doesn't vary much from halfway through mid-pace and speedy, but this helps the stomping feel, as if each riff and each blastbeat is yet another nail hammered into the body of that christ dude. Perfect Erik Rutan production, typical Benton bile and stellar guitarwork from guitarists Tony Lazaro and Dave Suzuki make this a must-have for any self-respecting death metal fan.

Vital Remains - 'Hammer Down The Nails'



39. om - 'pilgrimage'
Al Cisneros says that there has only ever been one song that just varies throughout his career, and he didn't even write it, he just picked off the air what was already there. I guess that's really all you need to know about 'Pilgrimage', a fantastically peaceful and tranquillity-inspiring record that goes even further in the exploration of the immensely musical effects of humming and vibration than the debut 'Conference Of The Birds'. It's impossible to describe the sense of wonder and discovery that this album will have on you if you give it space and time to develop, so try it for yourself.

Om - 'Pilgrimage'



38. grinderman- 'grinderman'
It's easy to explain - Nick Cave grew a handlebar moustache, picked up a guitar and started writing sleazy rock songs on it, and joined fellow bad seeds Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey and mega-drummer Jim Sclavunos on a journey through the dirtiest corners in town. Grinderman's music is energetic like we hadn't heard Nick Cave in a long time. Not that his recent albums haven't been amazing, they have, but it's cool to have Nick sound dangerous again, and sometimes very funny too on top of it. The greasy essence of rock is perfectly captured on the immortal 'No Pussy Blues', but the whole album reeks of sex, drugs, sex, rock'n'roll and just a bit of sex. And judging by the Bad Seeds' latest album, this was a very good kick in Nick's career. Get it on, indeed.

Grinderman - 'No Pussy Blues'



37. hardingrock - 'grimen'
[review published on issue #161 of Terrorizer magazine]
Not that it wasn’t obvious, for the various things they already did while Emperor was 100% active, and for what they contributed to the band itself, but it has been interesting to realize how different the two main musical personalities of the historical Norwegian band really are. While Samoth is still firmly rooted in extreme metal, both as musician and label owner, Ihsahn has been exploring all the sounds that he touched upon already with his Emperor songwriting, if briefly. Due to its experimental nature mostly, his solo and project career has been rather hit and miss, but it has nevertheless been a brave and admirable one. Next up is Hardingrock, a name that sounds strange at first but has an easy explanation, for this band consists of Ihsahn on vocals and guitar, his wife (today known as Starofash) on keyboards, vocals and guitars and a Mr. Knut Buen on a traditional Norwegian instrument called a Harding fiddle. This instrument has a devilish connotation, as the church forbade them to enter churches in Norway, and Buen is one of the top players in the country. As you might have guessed by now, ‘Grimen’ is a folk album, but as with other Ihsahn projects, his penchant for symphonic metal and King Diamond wails plays a part, as well as some electronic dabblings in a couple of songs. For the most part this difficult mix works really well, but perversely it’s the purely folk bits of the album, when Ihsahn steps back into the background a tad (vocals included), that are really exciting, as they sound totally natural and flowing. The vocals are used mainly in a poetry-reciting fashion or softly sung at most, so the fiddle really is the driving force for the songs, and together with the ambient backdrops created by the Tveitan couple, it’s capable of creating diverse moods, either melancholically sad or drunkenly festive. Although unassuming in comparison with the rest, ‘Grimen’ is Ihsahn’s most genuine and consistent post-Emperor release so far.

Hardingrock - 'Fanitullen'



36. blood and time - 'untitled'
The Latitudes series has been entirely essential so far, with all the artists contributing to this series of limited releases containing exclusive material really capturing the spirit of it, regardless of their musical genre. Be it Shit And Shine, William Elliott Whitmore or Miasma & The Carousel Of Headless Horses, to mention but a few of the most impressive ones, every release has been astounding. However, Blood And Time's untitled five-song Latitudes album might be the best of them all so far. In case you're not aware, Blood And Time consists of Scott Kelly, Noah Landis and Josh Graham, all Neurosis members, and if that doesn't make you rush out and buy the damn thing already, something's wrong with you. Just in case you need more convincing, though - this untitled little gem is the lost link between Neurosis' 'The Eye Of Every Storm', Scott Kelly's solo album and Michael Gira's solo work. It's sombre, it feels quietly apocalyptic, as if you're watching the end of time in slow motion and it doesn't really feel so bad after all. It's like an acoustic 'Through Silver In Blood'. It's like Blood And Time's sole album 'At The Foot Of The Garden' after a bout of depression. I can go on, but you're wasting precious time that you should be using to order a limited copy of this.

Blood And Time - 'Silver Ocean Storm'

A short graphical pause.

If you would allow the shameless plug, I would like to inform you that a new companion blog for our beloved (well, mine anyway) too.many.records. has been created. It's called too.many.photos. and its name is self-explanatory, I would think.

I will try to keep it as straight to the point as this one. If all that matters here is records, then all that matters there is photos. It is not supposed to be a photographer's blog, as I don't think knowing which lens or shutter speed I used would significantly improve your experience of looking at it. It's time to let the images of our favourite musicians do all the talking.

I hope you will enjoy it.

Now, enough non-recordspeak. Onward!

Best of 2007 - from #45 to #41

45. red harvest - 'a greater darkness'
[review published on issue #34 of Unrestrained! magazine, slightly adapted for too.many.records.]
Always a left-field band, Red Harvest have gone one step further into the unusual with this. These Norwegians have been refining their innovative industrialized thrash for well over a decade now, with Cold Dark Matter their most accomplished work to date, but A Greater Darkness is one mean motherload of an album that eclipses everything they’ve done so far in terms of sheer quality. The most phenomenal difference towards the other albums is the threatening, poisonous atmosphere of terror that stains the whole thing. The darkness on this album is indeed much greater than before – check out the coiled, about-to-explode venom of 'Hole In Me' or the dissonant creepiness of 'Dead Cities' for textbooks examples of sonic evil. This unique ambiance is achieved through a slightly different approach to songwriting, as the sound feels much less mechanical than before. The industrial vibe is still present, but invaded by an organic, (post-)human feel. Put it this way: if Red Harvest were a mean robot before, now they are a killer cyborg. This makes the album much more challenging and, seemingly paradoxically, more immediate than any previous work. The immediacy of the beats and the shredding riffs is counter pointed by the insidious melodies and pounding cybergrooves that lodge themselves in your brain after a few listens. The final icing on the cake is 'War Themes', a military march of a song, constituted mostly of sampling and percussion, that is simply obliterating.

Red Harvest - 'Hole In Me'



44. dhg - 'supervillain outcast'
DHG, for those not in the know, is how Dødheimsgard are now known. When I interviewed main man Vicotnik last year he told me that the name change was no big deal. It’s a supplement, we never stopped being Dødheimsgard, we just have two names now,. no big philosophy behind it, he told me, but maybe subconsciously that was done to shed just a little bit of the pressure that was on this band to deliver something. Okay, so this is not a million disc selling band, but within our little world of strange music, the name Dødheimsgard carries a little weight, on the strength of the revolutionary work they left almost a decade ago when, due to millions of problems, the band went on hold for a while. '666 International', for example, was the blueprint for a whole new world of modern, futuristic post-black metal that never really materialized, as the few bands that seemed destined to spearhead it either disappeared, broke up or went somewhere else musically (Thorns, Satyricon, Arcturus). It still sounds wonderfully fucked-up and absolutely brilliant to this day. Well, 'Supervillain Outcast' won't have the same kind of impact, probably, but it's still miles ahead of most supposedly forward-thinking bands. Vicotnik overhauled the whole line-up, arming himself with new vocalist Kvohst, who was also in Code, along the way (and who has since left the band, sadly), but it's the unpredictable quality of the music that still carries the band's sound. The album, and DHG in general, is not as crazy as every review tries to make them seem, but the constant wall of electro-black intensity makes the album so unusual that you won't even know how to categorize it, let alone appreciate it fully. Genius, still, after all these years.



43. coliseum - 'no salvation'
[review published on issue #9 of Rock-A-Rolla magazine]
The fact that Ryan Patterson, vocalist/guitarist for this Louisville band sounds just like Agnostic Front’s Roger Miret is true, but probably misleading as a means to define the band, so let us not reduce them to just that. They do have a general musical framework close to Agnostic Front and a few other hardcore classics, but the great thing about Coliseum is that they sound incredibly angry, more so than most bands in recent memory. The intensity levels throughout the entire album (no, there is no respite) reach worrying levels sometimes, as the average breakneck speed increases even more to help get their desperate message across – there are no rose-tinted glasses here, as the band pummel into you the world like it really is. Some of the songs are metallic enough to recall equal parts of Black Flag and Motörhead at their grittiest, but despite this fiery aggression, there are as many chances to sing along as there are to headbang. Coliseum never lose their sense of melody in the eye of each of these 13 storms, and as such some great hooks are thrown aplenty throughout. When a band has this much to get off their chest, and when it’s done with this much honest, genuine passion, it’s easy to overlook the songwriting element, and the great thing about ‘No Salvation’ is that underneath the violence you have songs, so the album won’t last you for two weeks, it will last you for years. Unassumingly so, this might help shape the more traditional-influenced hardcore to come.

Coliseum - 'Funeral Line'



42. atavist - 'ii: ruined'
Lights go down and then everyone dies. Slowly, painfully, drowned in the sorrow of their worthless, miserable existence. Grrrrrrrrrrurrrrrrrrghdooooooom.

Atavist - 'II'



41. candlemass - 'king of the grey islands'
After yet another bout of Messiah Marcolin insanity, Candlemass, the legendary doom giants who seemed completely revitalized after 2005's crucially awesome self-titled album, were left with an album and no vocalist. A great album, on top of it, with some soaring songs and some near-psychedelic arrangements thrown in among the traditional Candlemass doom that has inspired so many of the bands that we currently listen to. The chosen man couldn't be more appropriate for the job, or more surprising - Rob Lowe, singer for the-other-best-doom-band-in-the-world, Solitude Aeturnus, a band that very fortunately he did not leave. That problem solved, you get everything you usually want from your Candlemass albums, Leif Edling's crushing grooves, even spiced up a bit by those elements. Take the instantaneously recognizable as prime Candlemass 'Devil's Seed', or the dreamy, unusual feel of 'Of Stars And Smoke'. So why isn't this in the top 5, then? Well, because, although it stands head and shoulders above most competition, 'King Of The Grey Islands' has moments where Candlemass doesn't really sound much like Candlemass for real. An adaptation for which there was no time or will would have benefited Lowe as well, as it seems that he's trying to modulate his talents to a structure that was already written for someone else. So, Leif and the boys, here's the deal - 'King Of The Grey Islands' is great, but since we know that the next album, thought since the beginning with Rob in mind and with a better environment around the band, should be a motherload of doom, we'll leave this one here in this already very respectable position and cross fingers. Deal?

Candlemass - 'Of Stars And Smoke'

Best of 2007 - reaching halfway! From #50 to #46

50. behemoth - 'the apostasy'
[review published on issue #162 of Terrorizer magazine]
Behemoth have been worryingly average for a while now, and the fact that this less inspired (by their standards) period has coincided with a rise in their commercial status, especially in the United States, is a very valid cause of concern for fans of these Polish giants. ‘Demigod’ was a step further into their definitive affirmation as a death metal band, as opposed to their blackened earlier output, but it was a bland, uninspired step which left several question marks on what would be the ideal direction to follow on the next release. Their commercial future might be relatively secure, with the kind of popularity they seem to hold now, but purely musically speaking, a lot hangs on ‘The Apostasy’. So it’s good that ‘Slaying The Prophets Ov Isa’, the first track proper after the moody intro, will kick any lingering doubts and anxieties from your mind with all the violence you could wish for. A clinically precise yet very pleasantly gritty and above all very heavy slab of proper death metal, it nevertheless shoots off in several other directions that elevate it from very good to brilliant status, and sets the norm for what comes next. In a month where I feel like I’ve used the word ‘ethnic’ on every single review, Behemoth show everyone how it’s really done. Much like Rotting Christ’s ‘Theogonia’ or any Nile album, all those influences are entangled in the songwriting itself, instead of someone just plucking a sitar when the drums go quiet. Coupled with frequent tempo changes and the best, most twisted and fiery drumming of Inferno’s career, this melting pot of ultra-brutal death metal, shit-scary vocal layering, Middle-Eastern chanting and tribalism turns a song like ‘At The Left Hand Ov God’ into something very close to a masterpiece. Even better, if that’s possible, is ’Inner Sanctum’, where none other than Warrel Dane wails all over some sick black metal riffing and jazz piano (!), his characteristic voice a perfect and surprising match to Nergal’s deeply resonant growls. ‘The Apostasy’ isn’t catchy, and all the kids who picked up on the band recently will have trouble getting to grips with its complexity and density, but the top-notch songwriting, the sheer weight of the atmosphere and the grinding relentlessness of the whole album make it one of the top death metal releases of the year so far.

Behemoth - 'Inner Sanctum'



49. antimatter - 'leaving eden'
Saddest band in the world, proclaims the sticker on the cd case, but that might be misleading. In fact, the first feeling that you get from 'Leaving Eden' isn't really of overbearing sadness, but of quiet, of solitude and contemplation. This record actually sounds a bit like the more pensive bits of Anathema, which is funny since it's the first Antimatter album to not feature ex-Anathema bassist and songwriter Duncan Patterson, leaving Mick Moss as the remaining founder. It does still have a tie to the Liverpool band though, as Danny Cavanagh guests with a few guitar parts. Somewhat like Ulver's 'Shadows Of The Sun' (coming up later... much later!), 'Leaving Eden' is the perfect album for a silent, dark evening, and even to put on just before you fall asleep. There's the same kind of quiet melancholy in the singer/songwriter-like simplicty of 'Ghosts', the breezy, 70s-like 'Another Face In The Window' or the beautiful instrumental 'The Immaculate Misconception'. I must admit I feared Anitmatter would fade away without Duncan, but that might have actually been a good thing. Wonderful as Antimatter's previous albums where, there always seemed to be a conflict of styles between the two men, and with 'Leaving Eden', Mick Moss has managed to create the most cohesive and coherent Antimatter album to date.

Antimatter - 'Ghosts'



48. fall of the leafe - 'aerolithe'
Sadly, Fall Of The Leafe split up shortly after the release of 'Aerolithe', but at least they left another great album so that we won't grieve too much. Long-time fans of the band will grieve anyway, because there was something special to Fall Of The Leafe. Whether it's Tuomas Tuominen's unique, labyrinthine vocals or the never obvious but nevertheless infinitely catchy song structures and hooks, you can't really find a comparison point for these guys. Mixing all kinds of melodic metal elements and even, why not, a few poppy bits now and then (mostly in feeling), Fall Of The Leafe's songs were often memorable, launching into choruses molded by Tuominen's voice meanderings and coloured by his cryptic, unusual lyrics. If previous album 'Vantage' was where he totally let loose with all his vocal talent, 'Aerolithe' is a more controlled affair, where the music is given space to breathe (ie, he shuts up now and then) and therefore work much better as a whole. Although there isn't a stand-out million-dollar song like 'The Fresco' on 'Aerolithe', the whole album feels more like a complete effort, and still offers a few highlights of incomparable melody, like 'Sink Teeth Here' for example. Sink your teeth on it down there and you'll know what I mean.

Fall Of The Leafe - 'Sink Teeth Here'



47. reverend bizarre - 'iii: so long suckers'
That title is well revealing - Reverend Bizarre are no more. What the hell happened to Finnish doomsters in 2007? Two of the finest, most brilliant bands in the entire genre of traditional doom, Reverend Bizarre and Minotauri, have called it quits last year, apparently just because they could. At least they both left monuments to their memory, 'II' in the case of Minotauri (later on this list...) and this little monster in the case of the Reverend. Basically, 'III: So Long Suckers' is two hours (yeah, it's a double) of The Riff. The ghosts of Black Sabbath or Candlemass are summoned to the seance, and all the spirits join together to spew forth mammoth doom riff after mammoth doom riff. And that's it, really. Reverend Bizarre have always kept it simple, you want doom, you get doomed, with Albert Witchfinder crooning all over the slow paced of the beasts that are these seven (for two hours, I repeat!) songs. A worthy funeral for the Reverend.



46. l'acephale - 'mord und totsclag'
Holy shit. One of the major headfucks of the year, 'Mord Und Totsclag' will require some getting used to, even by people who listen to abrasive music daily. L'Acephale combine the atavistic primitivism of old Darkthrone with a viciousness worthy of Funeral Mist to create a severely bruising wall of hellish black metal fury. The vocals are some of the most intense, paint-peeling shrieks heard this side of Dead, and the music reaches Burzumic levels of repetition and creepiness often. The most amazing thing about this record is the creeping unease that permeates it, from the most direct stuff like 'The Book Of Lies' to the unbearable 21 minutes of centerpiece 'Against A Weeping Sea Of Sleep'. That's the best description for 'Mord Und Totsclag - it's unbearable. All props to you if you can listen to it all the way through in one sitting, because sometimes even the music on this album seems to be unable to keep up with itself, like on the insane 'Terror Is Our Tenderness', where the instrumental part sometimes goes down in volume during vocalist's Set Sothis Nox Law shrieking. Phew.

L'Acephale - 'Terror Is Our Tenderness'