I'll post mp3s on request
The Evpatoria Report - Golevka
Dev, I and a few others have been attentionwhoring the web since late march for these guys. With at least some sort of success, as it seems. Seriously, post-rock doesn't get more mature, intense and emotion-laden as this. The opening combo "Prognoz"-"Taijin Kyofusho" alone is worth pedaling to the moon and back. 10/10
Listen to Taijin Kyofusho
Bohren & der Club of Gore - Geisterfaust
paralytic medicine for sleepless hours. It's like sitting numbed in a dark murky cabaret to the bodiless dirges of a ghost orchestra dwelling on each single note as if it was to be the last particle of sound ever to crash upon the earth. Call this droning blues, call this streetpost ambient, call this art-fag shit... what's left is music to fall slowly into coma, best experienced at maximum volume and maximum stonage. 8/10
Overmars - Affliction, Endocrine... Vertigo
These French sickoes will shape up a majestic sandcastle of dreamlike hallucinations only to crush it down again with some of the most ruthless and unnerving apocalytic hardcore you can think of. Walking a tightrope between Neurosis, urban doom and pathologic melancholy, this album is a bloodfreezing orgy of supreme ruleage. 8/10
Sólstafir - Masterpiece of Bitterness
You have to believe Erik down to the last word, these guys are the most refreshing thing that happened to extreme metal in quite a while. Even though you can still pick out the Viking background and blackish undertones, they're taking their music through unbeaten territories in a similar fashion to what Enslaved did on "Monumension", i.e. they're not striving to sound metal but they fish in the metal and rock genres whatever they need to fulfill their own vision. And in that they're 1000 times more metal than any random band going the academic approach. 8/10
Listen to Bloodsoaked Velvet
Lunar Aurora - Mond
Having delivered an almost stainless and much underrated discography since the mid-90's, Lunar Aurora once again succeed in their new challenge: getting a clean, powerful sound without ruining their atmospheric qualities. A grim headbanging feast for your solitary nights in the woods. 8/10
Listen to Heimkehr
Yob - The Unreal Never Lived
A late discovery which made the top list almost straight away. Heavy, plodding doom metal paired with some more sparse, ethereal riffing à la Isis and incredible wailing vocals. Their back catalogue is mine! 7/10
Red Sparowes - At the Soundless Dawn
Some more absolutely gorgeous post-rock with a strong emphasis on guitar framework and very fluid, almost casual drumming patterns. Could be the soundtrack to a wildlife documentary of epic proportions. Can't wait for the European tour... and the follow-up of course. 7/10
Drudkh - The Swan Road
OK you could find many reasons why this quite flawless installment of raw pagan metal went by unnoticed or at least disregarded. On top of the list, the fact that its predecessor "Autumn Aurora", while very good, had been slightly over-hyped and thus spawning irrational hopes for another album in the exact same vein. Which "The Swan Road" is not. Then, maybe Drudkh should slow down their production a little bit. I'm not doubting that such good musicians are able to come up with 40 minutes of top 10 music each year, but too much of one artist in such "short" periods of time is more than the audience can absorb. And they're due another album in 2006, ugh... 7/10
Listen to Glare of 1768
Sigur Rós - Takk
How could they possibly top "( )"? Well, they did not. But they went for the clever option of revamping their style just enough to remain absolutely brilliant while creating a new horizon for further development. More post-rockish than their previous stuff, maybe a little too quiet for too long stretches at a time... 7/10
Capricorns - Ruder Forms Survive
Another last-minute addition, which ironically enough kicked one of their main influences out of the top 10 (Crowbar). Dirty (mostly) instrumental rock crawling somewhere between Keelhaul, Melvins and Karma to Burn. Music to keep your hairs erect and your mouth foaming like a madman's. 7/10
Listen to 1440: Exit Wargasmatron
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Other 2005 stuff worth mentioning:
Alcest - Le Secret
Arcana - Le Serpent Rouge
Blut aus Nord - Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity
Buried Inside - Chronoclast
Callisto - True Nature Unfolds
Circle of Dead Children - Zero Comfort Margin
Crowbar - Lifesblood for the Downtrodden
Deathgate Arkanum - Totenwerke
Deathspell Omega - Kénôse
Drastus - Roars From the Old Serpent's Paradise
Dredg - Catch Without Arms
Esmerine - Aurora
Geist - Patina
Glorior Belli - Ô Laudate Dominvs
Herbst9 - Buried Under Time and Sand
Hexenkreis - La Paix se Meurt... La Paix Est Morte
Kataxu - Hunger of Elements
Knut - Terraformer
Minsk - Out of a Center Which is Neither Dead nor Alive
Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet
Obtest - Iš Kartos į Kartą
Oceansize - Everyone into Position
Pantheist - Amartia
Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness
Rosetta - The Galilean Satellites
Siver Mount Zion - Horses in the Sky
Solefald - Red for Fire
Storm of Capricorn - Retours des Tranchées
Sunn O))) - Black One
Superstatic Revolution - Goodbye Mr Wanton
Taake - Hordaland Doedskvad
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
The Ocean - Aeolian
Triarii - Ars Militaria
Twilight - Twilight
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2005 stuff to bury and forget:
Arcturus - Sideshow Symphonies
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
