GMD Poll: Top Ten Albums of 1991

[TechnicalBarbarity]

dammit, forgot the black album in my honorable mentions.

this year clearly belonged to death metal.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

this year clearly belonged to tech-thrash and prog metal.

ftfy

 

[Baroque]

this year clearly belonged to death metal.

Yeah, but none of the death metal albums touch Unquestionable Presence, it's the clear winner for this year imo. Still some good thrash too but not the strongest year for it.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

some come close, but yes UP reigns supreme here. Top 5 death metal album.

Dont know how i can do a top 10 for this year without including Testimony and Excursion Demise. And im listening to Dreaming With the Dead right now and might have to bump it up a spot or two on that list. And maybe drop Considered Dead to the #10 spot. But fuccck, that album is like OSDM perfection. Decisions, decisions...

 

[CiG]

I recall the Sieges Even album from this year being pretty good, Shadow Gallery too. I've only sampled them on Youtube but now I really wish I had them.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

this year clearly belonged to tech-thrash and prog metal

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I recall the Sieges Even album from this year being pretty good, Shadow Gallery too. I've only sampled them on Youtube but now I really wish I had them.

The Sieges Even album from 1991 is total shit and not even metal, it's a bad early 80s Rush clone. Their only good albums are Sophisticated and Uneven, when they went prog-Van Halen or something.

 

[CiG]

What? Life Cycle fucking rules.

 

[Phylactery]

1. Coroner - Mental Vortex
2. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
3. Morbid Angel - Blessed are the Sick
4. Pestilence - Testimony of the Ancients
5. Death - Human
6. Entombed - Clandestine
7. Bolt Thrower - War Master
8. Fudge Tunnel - Hate Songs in E Minor
9. Carcass - Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious
10. Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten

You've failed me, I thought I could rely on you to have Blessed are the Sick at number one .

​

This round was ridiculously hard, I was almost crying at the fucking masterpieces that I had to leave off.
​

1. Bolt Thrower - War Master
2. Type O Negative - Slow, Deep and Hard
3. Bathory - Twilight of the Gods
4. Coroner - Mental Vortex
5. Running Wild - Blazon Stone
6. Darkthrone - Soulside Journey
7. Entombed - Clandestine
8. Autopsy - Mental Funeral
9. Pungent Stench - Been Caught Buttering
10. Solitude Aeturnus - Into the Depths of Sorrow

I thought Reflections of the Solstice would be a shoo-in for you.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What? Life Cycle fucking rules.

Pretty much the worst tech-thrash album in existence. Half of it is plagiarized, the other half is just plain shit.

 

[The Ozzman]

11pm UTC on SEPTEMBER 3rd.

7 PM Eastern time for those of us not abroad

 

[Satanstoenail]

You've failed me, I thought I could rely on you to have Blessed are the Sick at number one .

Not when there's one of Coroner's best and the greatest tech-death album ever released in the same year.

 

[Phylactery]

I'll take Blessed over both. Unquestionable Presence is amazing and will probably make my top 10. Mental Vortex isn't as good as Punishment for Decadence imo.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Any Coroner album shits all over Blessed.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Any Coroner album shits all over Blessed.

I can't believe you put MV at number three. I listened to the Anacrusis and the Maelstrom and they are both fucking dire.

 

[EspaDa]

Fuckin great year

 

[HamburgerBoy]

2deep4u m8

Mental Vortex is an album I want to be my all-time fave. The production and guitar tone are awesome, has a totally unique cold vibe to it, the move towards slower and more subtle grooves plus weirder chords nails it down even further, and Pale Sister is basically the quintessence of what I want out of music and my very favorite Coroner song. The first several listens were captivating experiences on par with anything else in music. However, Metamorphosis is notably less interesting than any of the other originals, the Beatles cover doesn't really do it for me anymore either, the drumming is unfitting on about half the tracks, and I hate to admit it, but even some songs I really love like Son of Lilith could be shortened a bit. It's really close to being transcendental on its strengths alone but the flaws are obvious and numerous.

Manic Impressions is pretty much Anacrusis' superior alternative. Also cold and clinical, though lacking the godliness of Vetterli, it makes up for it with modesty, honest angsty passion, and maintained aggression. It also has a couple flaws, like a few bad choruses towards the end of the album, but overall their entire discography is really hard to criticize for me. Anacrusis is probably my favorite thrash band if I'm being honest with myself.

The Maelstrom demo is one of the most ridiculous things I know of, but it's perfect. My statement above about Pale Sister is probably a lie btw, I don't know how you can improve on a USPM/tech-thrash hybrid with vintage Bill Roper-circa-Warcraft: Orcs & Humans narration and totally unhinged faux-British madman theater and a super busy technical rhythm section that would get in on the early mathcore scene and a thousand tech-y galloping harmonized riffs everywhere. It's basically the ultimate counter-argument to the common "Too many chefs" accusation, it does fucking everything at the same time and succeeds 100%.

 

[CiG]

I thought Reflections of the Solstice would be a shoo-in for you.

Unfortunately it was squeezed out rather early in the process, besides I always preferred Goatlord's demos. The Distorted Birth compilation gets the most spins from me.

Pretty much the worst tech-thrash album in existence. Half of it is plagiarized, the other half is just plain shit.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What is your favorite song from it?

 

[CiG]

I don't own any of their albums, I believe I discovered them through the mixtape games actually. But I have played the debut a bunch of times on Youtube and I really like it, especially the first half.