Awards 2007

After a very turbulent year for me on a personal level, it was great to have some great music to get me though. Some old favorites came back from lineup changes and/or subpar albums to release a gem in 2007. Looking over my list for this year, I've included some bands that I never thought would appear on one my "best of" lists 2 years ago, or even last year. I didn't hear anything bad enough to warrant a "joke" label. So, hopefully that will become a 2 year streak in 2008.

I'd be remiss not to mention the sad passings of a couple musicians who have provided me with hours of listening enjoyment, and even a live show here and there.

R.I.P. Brad Delp 3/9/2007
R.I.P. Kevin Dubrow 11/19/2007

Cheers to all our readers for a prosperous and safe 2008. Rock on!

I would like to extend sincere thanks to all the labels, bands and PR people that are so helpful in supporting MetalReviews.com. Last but certainly not the least, thanks to the loyal readers and dedicated forumites...you are all part of this crazy and fun metal "community" that is unlike any other on the net...I continue to stand by that claim.

Cheers and have a great (and heavy) 2008

Marty

Like always these year end lists are very difficult to compile. In 2007 my exposure to much new music was limited. I haven't even heard the new Vanishing Point which is something that I am chastising myself for. Some favorite bands from years past released albums that were pretty bland if not outright terrible. However, despite being put off by the majority of new releases in 2007, the ones that I did manage to enjoy I enjoyed wholeheartedly.

Nightwish's Dark Passion Play shot to the top of the list by being the most played album of 2007 by a mile. This new era with Annette is going to be a pleasure to experience. Helloween managed to revive their career with one of the best Power Metal albums in ages. Just like with Iron Maiden, young bands need to look at these musical institutions to see the secret to longevity. You can try all you want to emulate something but when the originators come out with an assburner then you'd do best to hang in back in the shadows. Progressive Metal was actually healthy this year. Redemption, Symphony X, Circus Maximus, Coheed And Cambria, and Wuthering Heights all released stellar albums. Melodic Rock gets a few nods from the Harem Scarem and Pink Cream 69 corners. 2007 also saw several bands experimenting with their sounds. Nightrage took on a less Swedish sound and their more Americanized take on Melodic Death was a unique twist. Sonata Arctica and Tobias Sammet though were the big offenders to many. The common trait between these two? Both artists took away the speed and upped the "feeling" aspect of their music. This is what needs to be done though in order for this type of music to prevent stagnation.

2008 is already looking bright. I'm blasting the hell out of The Scarecrow. Three releases that I am eagerly awaiting are Immortal from Pyramaze, We Are The Nightmare by Arsis, and Humanity Dethroned from Dark Empire. Seeing as how I've heard all but the Pyramaze I can safely say that you should expect these cd's to be mentioned again this time next year.

The album that pretty much every Black Metal fan under the sun has been waiting for, this is the fulfilment of years of underachievement from the Norwegian legend. You want hope? You want light? You want happiness? You won’t find them here. It gains the top spot of 2007 for a simple reason – it affected me deeply, reminding of things I’d much rather have forgotten, and in a scene where most people respond to Metal in the same way (headbang… now! air guitar… now!) a piece of deliberately difficult art like this that speaks to each of us in a different way is special indeed. You can’t escape your dark side, however far you may run…

The Greeks prove that there’s more to Greece than, um… yeah, Theogonia’s really good, an atmospheric mix of Black Metal and Folksy Goth, ten songs of passion that’ll bring out the Achilles in all of us. Perfect writing, perfect flow, my introduction to a band that deserve far more attention than it gets - I’ll definitely be chasing past works down. Some might call it an odd choice for second-best with other deserving possibilities in the running, but it’s a classic piece of Metal and deserves every compliment that it gets. With albums like this being released in the here and now, Metal’s future is assured.

Concept albums about aliens? Yes, please! Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens has never sounded better, and the fact that Iced Earth seems headed in a more Progressive direction is great news. Sure, Schaeffer and co. were awesome in the past as an OTT riff-heavy Power Metal band – let’s hope he ramps up the experimental Progginess with part II, due next year, even without Ripper on vocals. In the meantime, Framing Armageddon is an excellent album that rewards your time tenfold.

Fine, they’ve got a new singer and she’s not Tarja. Yet the talent shines through, and Marco and co. have produced another million-dollar winner, with some supreme songwriting skills going into creating a classic for the band. The changes are for the better, I think, and with luck this band will be as good for many years to come.

Who cares when it was released, the best Black Metal is timeless, and L’Acephale will still be putting fear in peoples’ hearts in a hundred years’ time if this blast from the sewer proves anything. Like staring into the abyss and having something cold and slimy stare back…

Mendonca, Gray and the gang have never disappointed me, and Antichrist is no exception. It might not be as immediately outstanding as Words… but give it time and you’ll see this is the Satanic Londoners’ best and most experimental platter o’splatter yet.

Death Metal with style, with skill, and with variation, album number two from this English crew is more than a match for the big names this year. This brute is as much about the brain as the brawn…

Norway’s finest prove they can do subtle as well as overbearing with this heartbreaking album. If they were American they’d be superstars, as it is, well, they’re stars to us. Another slice of genius from the Ulver pie – long may it feed us all.

Voivod meets Kyuss in an explosion of riffs, taking in influences from Meshuggah to Led Zeppelin without losing touch with the music’s foundation. Anyone that appreciates the zanier Doom bands will love this.

Cinematic Metal doesn’t get much better. Think you know epic? Think again, as this band of Swedes prove there’s more to Kabbalah than ropey pop stars and add another shining star to their collection.

True genius lies in the hands of a bunch of Jazzy Black Metallers from Belgium, it seems, and their seventh album of 'Boersk Blek Metle’ is amazing. Blue-skinned dwarves have never been so creepy…

“Someone has found the antidote!” screams Ofu Khan on the ripping opening track. The antidote to the new Nine Inch Nails album, perhaps? Fear Factory’s heavier, scarier sibling proves Industrial Metal doesn’t mean Wimpy Metal yet again, with intriguing hints of a progressive slant meaning that this band isn’t going to run out of ideas any time soon.

These plucky Swedes are the original and best, and it’s about time that people start speaking of them with the respect they deserve. Serpent Saints is a ridiculously good collection of Death Metal anthems, and anyone that appreciates the genre should love it.

Ire works, indeed, so well that you’ll be wondering how in the hell Justin Timberlake went Grindcore. Before remembering you are, in fact, listening to The Dillinger Escape Plan and they’re awesome.

Whatever you think of Dave’s politics, it’s impossible to deny that he’s still got it, and that this (eleventh!) album is the best his band’s put out for a while. There’s no way he can end his band when releases of this quality are ripping up stereos – let’s hope we’ll still be headbanging in another eleven albums’ time.

Progressive Death Metal that’s actually Progressive? That doesn’t rip other bands off? That’s fun to listen to? The queue starts here as London’s finest drop their second album of twisty riffs into our collective skull – damn, indeed.

Well, did you know that Rune from Mayhem even had a gentle side, let alone that he was capable of masterminding some of the best Gothic Doom ever made? Or even that his partner Carmen had a voice that single-handedly makes Lisa Gerrard sound like the drunken singing of a gangrenous tramp? OK, so that’s exaggerating, but it’s not far off it. The next time someone tells you that female-fronted bands are rubbish, hit them in the face with a copy of this, then play it for them.

Cathedral ain’t the only limeys around reshaping Doom in their own, spectacular image. An excellent album that lasts well beyond a few listens.

Yes, it’s a silly name, but it’s an excellent modernized journey through Prog Metal. The first of hopefully many from these Canadian upstarts, let’s hope someone takes notice and this band gets the rewards it deserves.

After the ‘heavy’ side of this project proved itself not much more than passable I wasn’t expecting much from the ‘light’ side, but the guys from Rage managed to make this a riff-heavy exercise in Power Metal goodness.

One of the most out-there bands on the Black Metal front shoots itself in the foot by turning formulaic. Sure, bonkers kvltsters who put style over substance will love it, but those who care more for music than image will be as saddened as I was.

After the awe-inspiring epic pyramids of riffs to be found on Annihilation Of The Wicked, Nile abruptly turned around and produced… this. Although after many listens I’ve started to accept it as not being completely awful, it’s not an instant classic like, ooh, any of the past albums. People have been suggesting that this band has been running out of ideas for a while, and I didn’t believe it until Ithyphallic came along.

Following two underrated experimental albums with a riff-heavy blast may be the way to go. What a pity the riffs are all at least ten years old and the experience in total is about as engrossing as watching paint dry.

In which it is proven that not every Black Metal legend that has split up should reform. The sound of men stuck ten years in the past, trying to sound as if they’re in the present.

An exercise in cutting through hype, actually listening to music, and being disappointed to find that if not for their shapely fire-haired singer, none of you would ever have heard of Epica because they’d be lost in a sea of similarly mediocre bands.

What Amy Winehouse is to Jazz and Ben Stiller is to comedy, these are to Metal. Mock them with harsh words, mock them with scornful laughs, mock their very existence and mock people that enjoy listening to them. It’s not that they aren’t extreme or underground enough, oh no. It’s that each and every song they’ve written is exactly the sort of rubbish that mainstream toe-dippers and day-trippers seize upon as being proof that Metal isn’t dead, that Limp Bizkit and Nirvana didn’t kill us after all. Welcome to the real world, cretins, we’ve known that for years. The above five make metal for the scum, the sheep, those that paddle at the edge of the sea of steel whilst the rest of us dive to its depths, and if you’re reading this rage-filled at this casual trashing of the five bands that have given you a new outlook on life, then may I respectfully suggest spending a shitload more time at this site because, heck, you sure need it.

2007’s been more than an interesting year for me, both on the musical and personal fronts. Of course, I joined MR late in the year as a reviewer, fulfilling an ambition that’s been hovering near the surface since I first joined the forum as someone who’d gotten into Metal through Evanescence and for whom all this ‘Metal’ stuff was a bit heavy. Thankfully, all it took was a few Iron Maiden albums, a chance Darkthrone purchase and many long hours spent exploring the steel world online to bring me around, and although at first I took the whole Black Metal thing too seriously, more recently I’ve realised that life’s as much about the greys as the black and whites and branched out a little.

This didn’t help stop my Top Fifteen from being a real pain to choose! Those tearfully culled include Behemoth – The Apostasy (Nergal and co. really pushed themselves on this one, producing a fine set of songs that are leaps and bounds above the decent but rather more straightforward Demigod), Municipal Waste – The Art Of Partying (Thrash never sounded so good), Angelcorpse – Of Lucifer And Lightning (reformation of the decade? Old-school Death Metal proves it can still kick serious ass!), Machine Head – The Blackening (call it Metalcore if you want, it’s still a great album), Mithras – Behind The Shadows Lie Madness (not as good as the first two but, heck, if it gets the punters in who’s complaining? Still ten times better than most Death Metal bands could ever hope to be), Alchemist – Tripsis (I underrated this in my review. Excellent band), Vital Remains – Icons Of Evil (never let anyone tell you that Glen Benton is an embarrassment to Metal – just play them this and watch their feeble Christian souls melt away!), Coheed & Cambria – No World For Tomorrow (yet another masterly effort from these alt-prog-whateverers), Obituary – Xecutioner’s Return (the epitome of solid, these guys have never disappointed me, and this is another fine slice of Floridian Death), Deathspell Omega – Fas – Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeturnum (possibly slightly overrated by the kvlt krew, but still a remarkable achievement), and Ministry – The Last Sucker (I can’t believe Al’s bringing this band to an end, but it’s one hell of a final album).