Best albums of 2009 (EXTREME EDITION)
Hey all, it’s your resident motherfucking extreme contributor Kevin here with my list of the best albums put out in 2009. It promises to be just as unrelenting and brutal as my daily life. I have spent a good month mulling over which albums I really thought deserved to be in the top 10, which is really too much thought for such a simple task, but there were some goddamn gems put out this year. There were some “non-heavy” releases that were amazing this year, but for the sake of my obsessive compulsive disorder I left them out, there’s already enough genre bending within the heavy music. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty…
10. General Surgery “Corpus in Extremis: Analysing Necrocriticism”
This record fucking slays. It’s a pure European grindcore record from start to finish. It’s starts crushing and fast and it ends the same. There were many great grindcore albums put out this year in the vain of this Carcass worship, but this one was just so compulsively listenable. When it came out I drove around headbanging to it for about a month straight. I would try to listen to other albums but I would just feel this itching to pop this on again and go apeshit. Great sound too, I loved the beefy guitars, the grindy bass, gutteral vocals, and battering ram, hummingbird fast drums. This one just had to make the list based purely on mindless listenability.
9. Diocletian “Doom Cult”
Dirty and evil, that’s the best way to describe this record. Great black metal from Australia. I had never heard of Diocletian before this record, as far as I know it’s their first record, that’s because I’m not all too trve. It’s got that dirty black thrash sound being drowned in a tar pit of fire. Low fi as hell, just as it should be. I like to put it on late at night on my headphones and just lie down with my eyes closed and listen to hellish images fly from my mind. Punishing blast beats and grimy guitars, truly music of the southern cross.
8. Saviours “Accelerated Living”
This was a pleasant surprise, considering that their last record sucked a fat cock. Saviours pulled a fast one on the ol’ Kevster and put out their best, most versatile record yet. They reverted back to their original nasty sound, still not quite as nasty as their earlier releases, but that fresh-from-Macys polished sound from the last one was NOT HAPPENING. A handful of the songs are what you would expect from Saviours, riffy, stoney headbangers at a mid-fast tempo, but they upped the epic solos and engaged the thrash button in a big way. Strangely and good handful of the songs were very reminiscent of Iron Maiden meets Judas Priest, but with a Saviours signature. Once again, a truly complusively listenable record.
7. Yob “The Great Cessation”
Doom and gloom invading your room. This is the slowest release on this years list, but nowhere near the least heavy. I’m a huge Mike Scheidt fan, I think he has one of the most unique and original voices in modern heavy music. He was the guitarist/vocalist for legal martyrs Middian, whose career was cut short but some retarded band from butt fuck Egypt that thought they had the rights to the name. It essentially bankrupted the band and got them kicked from their label, but it also led Mike to reform Yob and put out the best doom record in ages. It starts off at a punishing drawl and drags you along to the end without ever losing you. This was another one that I would like to put on laying around at home and just get lost in it. Still waiting for the fucking vinyl release, but patience is a virtue, right?
6. Katatonia “Night is the New Day”
This is one of the most beautiful and haunting records I’ve fallen in love with in a long time. It’s hypnotizing from start to finish. Layers of instruments, synth/keys, and soft but strong vocals mix perfectly to set a really dark, tragic vibe. It’s one of those records that you find yourself needing to listen to again as soon as it’s done. A lot of it sounds like a mix of Opeth’s melodic parts and somehow a non electronic new wave, I get glimpses of Depeche Mode here and there. Really well produced and, well, haunting.
5. Magrudergrind “S/T”
Fun party time record of the year. These guys know how to rip shit up. Much like General Surgery, this album is not groundbreaking for the genre, just extremely well done power violence/grindcore. This is an adrenaline fueled sound bomb from start to finish that’s not extremely diverse but really easy to listen to over and over. They also put on one of the best live shows I saw this year.
4. Kylesa “Static Tensions”
This album completely blew me away the first time I listened to it, it totally took me by surprise. I was not a huge fan of Kylesa before hearing Static Tensions. I had listened to a couple of their older albums and been all too underwhelmed. From reading around I gathered this was a bit of an evolution for the band, incorporating more straight forward aspects and giving it more of a cohesive sound all around. It all sounded really forced and uninspired, from what I remember. This album has a great fuzzy sound and rhythmic drumming (for whatever reason they have two drummers playing the exact same thing) that pick you up and carry you along for the duration. It speeds and slows here and there but the record is really well paced.
3. Propagandhi “Supporting Caste”
It amazes me how much better Propagandhi gets with each album. From day one they have added new and exciting elements to each new release, even their older stuff before homeboy left to start the Weakerthans, the change between “How to Clean Everything” and “Less Talk More Rock” was pretty amazing. Since Todd Kowalski, formerly of Swallowing Shit, joined the band they have gradually become one of the most original punk bands around, separating themselves from the herd and defining themselves as innovators along the way. This record is an absolutely perfect blend of punk, hardcore, crust, thrash, and the pop punk sound that made them famous. Every song is different, completely, and yet every one is clearly Propagandhi which seems to been near impossible for any band in this day and age. I can only imagine what their next release will sound like.
2. Tombs “Winter Hours”
Winter fucking Hours. This record is so hypnotic and creepy but beautiful and melodic. The album changes pace so abruptly but effortlessly at the same time. Listening to this album always changes my mood and seems to have an emotional impact on me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Tombs is one of the most unique and original bands to come out in the past 5 years and this record did not disappoint. They added more layers and texture than the first self titled outing that made it more of a methodical journey than the first. It may be noted that there was a long while where I thought this album would be number one on this list.
1. Converge “Axe to Fall”
It may be completely predictable, seeing that everybody and their great grandmother is going banana nut bread bonkers over this album, but any heavy music fan that puts a release above this needs to get the cocks surgically removed from their ears. Like I said earlier about Propagandhi, Converge has just evolved with every release and has literally defined a genre that they continue to expand. This album is probably their most refined release to date, probably as a result of playing together for so long. I can only imagine what their writing process is like because this shit seems to be like an instict or second nature. Ben Koller continues to drop my jaw with his drumming, Kurt Ballou plays some of the most intricate yet accessable and digestable riffs and Jacob Bannon continues to write some of the most compelling and heartfelt lyrics in history. Still, Converge manages to evolve even more including gritty ballads and electro infused lurkers that fill in the record emaculately. I may go on record saying this is the best Converge record ever, but we’ll have to wait for the next one to see for sure.
Honorable mentions (in no particular order):
Cobalt “Gin”
Portal “Swarth”
Coalesce “Ox”
Pulling Teeth “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions”
Church of Misery “Houses of the Unholy”
