- Nov 23, 2002
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Top Ten Metal Releases of 1995
10. Crystal Age - Far Beyond Divine Horizons
the 10th spot was the hardest for me and could've gone to half a dozen records (darkthrone, immortal, suffocation, the canorous quintet EP, the mournful cong demo), but i decided fuck it let's be spicy. uncharacteristically for an album that quite rightly gets described as technical, this has the melodic sensibility of melodeath's early more off-rails side, the irrepressibly enthusiastic riff assault of '80s death/thrash and the dorky sci-fi/fantasy storytelling of some niche heavy metal record. in other words, a bunch of disparate things i like economically blended into a cocktail i haven't tasted before.
9. Ras Algethi - Oneiricon: The White Hypnotic
albums like this rarely make my lists because they aren't active enough in the songwriting, but i make an exception here because it's such a buoy for the spirit. thing has me floating on clouds among the gods. i'm really glad to see it popping up so often these days because it was extremely obscure when i was hyping it back in the day.
8. Saint Vitus - Die Healing
reagers-era vitus is the greatest trad doom band bar none in my book. i feel this stuff on such a physical level even when it ostensibly isn't doing that much; the riffs flow through the blood like heroin, and reagers' performance is so insistent and tormented, truly one of the all-timers. the only downside is this album strays a little too far into the groovier side of doom for my tastes, something the debut almost never does.
7. Kataklysm - Sorcery
i do believe houde was one of those great metal visionaries like an alf or a corchado, only he was more off his rocker and this affected the quality control. when this album is on it's one of those mind-expanding visions for the potential of the death metal genre which makes you realise how much of it may still be left unexplored; its melodic ideas bleed through the chaos like seepage from an unstable psyche.
6. Ved Buens Ende - Written in Waters
i can nitpick that it rarely moves me emotionally, that some passages are a little overlong or weird for weirdness' sake or compromised by forays into a more traditional sound, but at the end of the day this is one of the most original, out-of-nowhere trippy mindfucks in not only metal history but, i would argue, popular music history.
5. Virgin Steele - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part II
if it ended after emalaith this would be a 5 star masterpiece for me, but i'll always take an album of 50+% brilliance with some duds over an album that's consistently merely very good, and i still give it the edge over part 1 overall. as i said last time i ranked them, they're simply more committed and unfiltered than other bands of their ilk; everything is larger than life in the best way.
4. Black Lodge - Covet
this is quite new to me so i'm not going to pretend its position is stable, but what i am convinced of is that this album with under 100 RYM ratings and a 3.3 average is one of the pinnacles of the entire death-doom genre, a queasy, troubled masterwork that lives up to its twin peaks-inspired name. and when it wants to, it RIFFS.
3. My Dying Bride - The Angel and the Dark River
hits an emotional chord that to my knowledge has never quite been replicated. the grand, glacial, withholding opener has the scale of an entire world, and then that scale slowly narrows and becomes more direct and intimate even as the larger context still echoes. this allows the album to reach toward you while also still reaching beyond to something greater, bridging the personal and mythical, whereas the funeral doom of this year (skepticism, funeral, mournful congregation, etc) mostly just feels mythical, like statues and crumbling architecture, which is awe-inspiring and humbling but lacks the intense personal catharsis i get from this.
2. Graveland - Thousand Swords
i don't know if it was just a flash of inspiration or the right combination of drugs (i suspect the latter), but for one album in 1995 the idiot became the savant and produced one of the most unique, lucid, lived-in black metal albums there is, a fever dream of warlust from the rise to the comedown. yeah he has other good albums, but nothing on the level of this; every song is a bonafide classic.
1. Abigor - Nachthymnen
one of metal's high watermarks for its unfuckwithable combination of diversity, creativity, consistency and dramatic power. riffcraft usually on point, melodies even moreso, the fuckin' drumming... this thing ticks all the boxes for me from the intellectual to the emotional to the visceral.
10. Crystal Age - Far Beyond Divine Horizons
the 10th spot was the hardest for me and could've gone to half a dozen records (darkthrone, immortal, suffocation, the canorous quintet EP, the mournful cong demo), but i decided fuck it let's be spicy. uncharacteristically for an album that quite rightly gets described as technical, this has the melodic sensibility of melodeath's early more off-rails side, the irrepressibly enthusiastic riff assault of '80s death/thrash and the dorky sci-fi/fantasy storytelling of some niche heavy metal record. in other words, a bunch of disparate things i like economically blended into a cocktail i haven't tasted before.
9. Ras Algethi - Oneiricon: The White Hypnotic
albums like this rarely make my lists because they aren't active enough in the songwriting, but i make an exception here because it's such a buoy for the spirit. thing has me floating on clouds among the gods. i'm really glad to see it popping up so often these days because it was extremely obscure when i was hyping it back in the day.
8. Saint Vitus - Die Healing
reagers-era vitus is the greatest trad doom band bar none in my book. i feel this stuff on such a physical level even when it ostensibly isn't doing that much; the riffs flow through the blood like heroin, and reagers' performance is so insistent and tormented, truly one of the all-timers. the only downside is this album strays a little too far into the groovier side of doom for my tastes, something the debut almost never does.
7. Kataklysm - Sorcery
i do believe houde was one of those great metal visionaries like an alf or a corchado, only he was more off his rocker and this affected the quality control. when this album is on it's one of those mind-expanding visions for the potential of the death metal genre which makes you realise how much of it may still be left unexplored; its melodic ideas bleed through the chaos like seepage from an unstable psyche.
6. Ved Buens Ende - Written in Waters
i can nitpick that it rarely moves me emotionally, that some passages are a little overlong or weird for weirdness' sake or compromised by forays into a more traditional sound, but at the end of the day this is one of the most original, out-of-nowhere trippy mindfucks in not only metal history but, i would argue, popular music history.
5. Virgin Steele - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part II
if it ended after emalaith this would be a 5 star masterpiece for me, but i'll always take an album of 50+% brilliance with some duds over an album that's consistently merely very good, and i still give it the edge over part 1 overall. as i said last time i ranked them, they're simply more committed and unfiltered than other bands of their ilk; everything is larger than life in the best way.
4. Black Lodge - Covet
this is quite new to me so i'm not going to pretend its position is stable, but what i am convinced of is that this album with under 100 RYM ratings and a 3.3 average is one of the pinnacles of the entire death-doom genre, a queasy, troubled masterwork that lives up to its twin peaks-inspired name. and when it wants to, it RIFFS.
3. My Dying Bride - The Angel and the Dark River
hits an emotional chord that to my knowledge has never quite been replicated. the grand, glacial, withholding opener has the scale of an entire world, and then that scale slowly narrows and becomes more direct and intimate even as the larger context still echoes. this allows the album to reach toward you while also still reaching beyond to something greater, bridging the personal and mythical, whereas the funeral doom of this year (skepticism, funeral, mournful congregation, etc) mostly just feels mythical, like statues and crumbling architecture, which is awe-inspiring and humbling but lacks the intense personal catharsis i get from this.
2. Graveland - Thousand Swords
i don't know if it was just a flash of inspiration or the right combination of drugs (i suspect the latter), but for one album in 1995 the idiot became the savant and produced one of the most unique, lucid, lived-in black metal albums there is, a fever dream of warlust from the rise to the comedown. yeah he has other good albums, but nothing on the level of this; every song is a bonafide classic.
1. Abigor - Nachthymnen
one of metal's high watermarks for its unfuckwithable combination of diversity, creativity, consistency and dramatic power. riffcraft usually on point, melodies even moreso, the fuckin' drumming... this thing ticks all the boxes for me from the intellectual to the emotional to the visceral.
