As promised, part three is all about music! Here are my top ten favourite albums of the last decade. And don't worry, they aren't all metal. 10 Starting with a bang at number ten, it’s Surgical Steel (2013), by death metal legends Carcass. Released in 2013, Surgical Steel is a razor-edged aural assault, and is the most extreme album on this list. But that’s no surprise, seeing as Carcass were pioneers of both goregrind and melodeath (the former with their 1988 debut album Reek of Putrefaction, the latter on 1993’s Heartwork). Surgical Steel is the album I go to when I’m really angry about something. Those times when someone has really, really wound me up. I lie on my bed, earphones on, and it blasts my head clean. It works every single time. In fact, I think this album should be available on prescription. With soaring guitar work, rabid vocals and machine gun drumming, it has everything you could possibly want from a death metal album, and then some. 9 Anyone who knows me (or has had unsolicited photos of my battle jacket sent to them) is aware of my love for Australian thrash act Harlott, whose third album Extinction (2017) takes the number nine spot, and whose backpatch takes pride of place on my gig attire of choice. Having got me hooked on them with their debut album Origin back in 2013, I knew Harlott would be one to watch. They haven’t disappointed since then, with Proliferation (2015) upping the ante on speed, whilst Extinction takes everything from their first two albums and combines it to dazzling effect. Accusations of ripping off Slayer’s sound have dogged the band since their inception, but only the most casual listener could possibly confuse the two. Also, if Slayer sounded this good on any of their last few albums, I would have bothered buying them. Vocalist Andrew Hudson barks out his vocals in a kind of melodic shout, seeming to manage the impossible of being both intelligible and extremely fast. Guitars race along at incalculable speed, occasionally breaking off for virtuosic solos. I’m impatient for more, but three fantastic albums in five years is pretty good going, so I guess I can wait a little longer for the next one. 8 Shadows of the Dying Sun (2014) is at number eight, because an Insomnium album absolutely had to make this list. As much as I love their 2012 album One for Sorrow, Shadows of the Dying Sun takes it here because it’s the first album of theirs that I heard. It was being recommended to me pretty relentlessly by every media outlet going, Amazon kept suggesting it, the single (While We Sleep) was in my suggested YouTube videos… It seemed I had no choice but to give them a go. In the end, I was extremely glad I did. The album has the perfect blend of sorrowful atmosphere, beautiful melody and catchy hooks. Shadows of the Dying Sun also alternates between harsh and clean vocals more than any Insomnium release prior to it. Thankfully, however, this doesn’t seem to have been symptomatic of an In Flames style slide into arena rock, with both Winter’s Gate (2016) and Heart Like a Grave (2019) carrying on in much the same vein. If anything, Winter’s Gate was a bit harsher, despite its status as the “experimental” album (the whole album was one continuous song, supposedly, though in reality it was a few different songs stitched together with ambient sounds and piano led parts). As an aside, I’m finally getting to see Insomnium soon, after six years of waiting. I can’t wait. 7 Don’t call it a comeback! Although there’s no better way to describe number seven on this list, Anthrax’s Worship Music (2011). After several albums recorded with Belladonna replacement John Bush - formerly of Armored Saint - that failed to set the world on fire, it’s fair to say that Anthrax had been written off by many. Always seen as the class clowns of the Big 4, they weren’t to everybody’s taste in the first place, despite classic albums such as 1987’s Among the Living and progressive masterpiece Persistence of Time (1990) establishing them as thrash royalty. Attempting to sound more like everyone else by getting Bush in and kicking Belladonna out did not do them the favours they thought it would. After much “will they won’t they” style wrangling, Belladonna re-joined Anthrax, and they set to work rerecording a number of tracks on Worship Music with his inimitable vocals, as well as writing some new ones. The result, protracted as the process had been (over five years, and three vocalists) turned out to be well worth the wait. Worship Music finally made me care about Anthrax, and dig into their back catalogue properly. It’s anthemic, punchy, highly moshable metal, that easily stands alongside their best work, and - for me at least - totally eclipses the bloated follow up, For All Kings (2016). 6 I did promise they weren’t all metal! Handwritten (2012) by The Gaslight Anthem takes the number six spot. It seemed like I couldn’t buy an issue of Kerrang! back in the day without having The Gaslight Anthem shoved in my face constantly. It was relentless. I see from my research that they were also the first band that had been on the cover without the magazine having written about them previously, which is probably testament to just how meteoric their rise was - even the journos couldn’t keep up. I didn’t mind them, particularly, but I didn’t really feel any inclination to listen to them. Having decided to buy tickets for them to see their support (the excellent Chuck Ragan, whose album Gold Country would have made it high up on this list if it had come out later than 2009), I finally saw the band live and was blown away. After that, I was converted, and bought their back catalogue just a week before Handwritten was due out. I did wonder if my love for Handwritten would be a phase that passed quickly, a whirlwind romance sort of scenario. But actually, despite the albums prior to it being excellent, it’s always the one I go back to, time after time. Brian Fallon’s vocals still have the rough-edged vulnerability that makes their material so distinctive, but here they’re alongside the best song writing and storytelling they’ve ever achieved. Which is high prise indeed for the band that recorded The ’59 Sound (2008). 5 Hey, look at that, we’re back to the metal. At number five, it’s Time is Up (2011) by Havok. As the highest rated thrash album on this list (who knew I liked thrash, right? Oh, that’s right, everybody) is it fair to say that it’s the best thrash album of the decade? Well, yeah. Duh. Time is Up revitalised a flagging genre, helping to kickstart the New Wave of Thrash Metal - which we write in capitals because people want it to sound like as big a deal as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal - and reminded critics around the world that thrash was still alive and very much kicking. In the years since Time is Up was released, thrash has enjoyed a period of rude health, with stellar albums from the likes of Overkill, Death Angel, Testament, Megadeth, Kreator and more besides, as well as countless new thrash acts joining the fray. Warbringer, also definitely worth checking out (and a ferocious live act to boot) are also often credited with giving thrash a much-needed shot in the arm. But Time is Up is the one for me. Managing to be definitively a thrash album without sounding like another tired “rethrash” band endlessly reheating the same ideas, the album absolutely drips with attitude from start to finish. This is music to go absolutely nuts to. Opening track Prepare for Attack is aptly named, as from that point on it’s a no holds barred thrash assault, Sanchez’s vocals venomous, the rhythm section relentless, the buzzsaw guitars barely contained. Play Fatal Intervention to any room of thrashers and see what happens. It won’t be pretty, but it will be a hell of a lot of fun. 4 True North (2013) bags the number four spot, by my favourite punk band of all time, Bad Religion. I’m definitely being nice and impartial there, right? For some reason I hadn’t listened to Bad Religion for a while prior to picking this album up, and I can only think this was due to some sort of temporary insanity. Thankfully I recovered from it, and was extremely pleased with my purchase on putting it on in the car on the way home. True North has everything a good Bad Religion album needs - lyrics that rail against social injustice, the best solos in punk rock, those vocal harmonies backing Greg Graffin’s instantly identifiable voice that make the band sound like some kind of unholy choir, all delivered at breakneck pace. It’s very difficult to talk about what makes a great Bad Religion album without resorting to saying that people know what they’re getting because it’s a Bad Religion album, but I always think that’s an unfair way to talk about the band. There’s nothing wrong with being consistent. In fact, those albums which the band changed up their sound for are usually their worst. If it ain’t broke, Bad Religion, please, PLEASE don’t fix it. 3 Naming yourself after a Warhammer character is a pretty good way to get my attention. I don’t think that Be’lakor had that in mind when they named themselves, but it’s what’s ended up happening. Their third album, Of Breath and Bone (2012) gets a podium finish with the number three spot. Chancing upon Be’lakor through the fertile ground of the YouTube comments section, I was blown away. I picked up 2009 album Stone’s Reach first, as I had trouble tracking down their others, before buying their latest release Vessels (2016) shortly after it came out. Upon finally picking up Of Breath and Bone, I fell even further in love with the band’s music, not to mention their lyrics, which put many more established acts to shame. The lyrics for In Parting are perhaps my favourite, but the whole album is chock full of gems. I have heard it said by some that there’s no point in a band writing wonderful lyrics which are then rendered largely unintelligible by the style of their delivery - in this case the harsh vocals of melodic death metal - which I can see the reasoning behind. But I would counter this by saying that there’s plenty to enjoy about Be’lakor for metal fans before they even get around to checking the lyrics. I’m sure there are plenty of fans of the band who never even bother. But for those that do, the lyrics add an extra level of emotional resonance. Any album of theirs is worth hearing, but for me, this is their best. 2 At number two, it’s an album I absolutely would not shut up about, recommending it to everybody who dared talk to me about music - War Moans (2017) by Mutoid Man. I had never listened to either of the two much more famous bands that Mutoid Man emerged from - Cave In and Converge - and stumbled across them by fortuitous chance on YouTube. After consuming every video they’d uploaded, I knew I had to buy their album to make sure I had a constant fix of their music whenever I needed it. It turned out that “whenever I needed it” was essentially constantly. It came everywhere with me. Any day I didn’t listen to it felt like a wasted day. I played it to everyone I gave a lift to. I sent links to their videos to friends, forums, everything. I don’t know exactly what genre Mutoid Man fit into, having seen them described as everything from math rock to metalcore, so it seems safest to say that they’re a bit of a rock grab bag. Vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky mostly keeps things firmly on the clean side in terms of his singing, though his occasional yelps and screeches add to the feeling that at times the band are something of a runaway train - occasional passages increase the pace until the band are barrelling and bulldozing their way through the song, seeming as if they’re barely clinging on. It’s high energy, frenetic rock music, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to. In fact, I would challenge anyone to listen to it without smiling. 1 So, the number one spot, and one band has been conspicuously absent thus far. That’s right, at number one it’s my favourite band, Clutch, with their 2013 album, Earth Rocker. I was so excited for this album to come out. Since picking up 2007’s From Beale Street to Oblivion a few years before Earth Rocker released, I had loved Clutch, so was impatient for new material. I knew that the more I hyped the album up in my mind, the more disappointed I’d be if it was rubbish, but I couldn’t help it. Luckily for me (and everyone else too I suppose), Clutch released one of the best albums of their career. It had plenty in common with the aforementioned From Beale Street to Oblivion in terms of its sound, but there was a greater degree of accessibility to the album, which hadn’t always been the band’s strong suit. The weirdness was still there in spades of course, with plenty of completely impenetrable lyrics, but musically the band had moved into very fruitful and approachable bluesy/Americana territory. This would prove to be the beginning of a particularly purple patch in the band’s career, with both Psychic Warfare (2015) and Book of Bad Decisions (2018) maintaining this approach to great effect. Honestly, it was a struggle to decide which of the three should take this spot, but in the end it had to be Earth Rocker - there’s very little to pick between them, so in the end I went with the one that meant the most to me. There we go then, those were my favourite albums of the decade. It’s a good job I’m only picking from the last ten years, or this would have been even harder! Next time it will be my favourite books of the last decade, which some might say is the only one I should have bothered with considering this is supposed to be a literature and publishing blog. I don’t really have a response to that other than to point out that it’s my blog, so too bad. Currently listening: Ha Ha, GBH
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AuthorOllie - BA English and Creative Writing, MA Publishing. Archives
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