GMD Poll: Top Ten Albums of 2004

[Omni]

This is the album by Velvet Crackhead everyone is jizzing over?
10 minutes in and I'm waiting for the intro music to end, then I realise this is it. That was trash.

I'm glad you're at least on the same page about that garbage album.

 

[CiG]

I'm glad you're at least on the same page about that garbage album.

To me it sounds about as good as a hundred other fuzzy black metal recordings by more unknown bands, I don't get what makes it stand out from that sea of recordings to anybody.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

I like how the guys in the band go out of their way to tell us that they are "asexual"

 

[CiG]

That would explain why the band sounds so limp-wristed and empty.

 

[no country for old wainds]

it does not, however, explain why their name describes a vagina

 

[Master_Yoda77]

1) Pagan Altar - The Lords of Hypocrisy
2) Paul Chain - Unreleased Vol. 2
3) Isen Torr - Mighty & Superior
4) Nocternity - A Fallen Unicorn
5) Inquisition - Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer
6) Axis of Advance - Obey
7) The Chasm - The Spell of Retribution
8) Witchcraft - Witchcraft
9) The Gates of Slumber - The Awakening
10) Krieg - The Black House


HMs:
Drudkh - Autumn Aurora
The Hidden Hand - Mother Teacher Destroyer
Urfaust - Geist ist Teufel
Church of Misery - The Second Coming
Minotauri - Minotauri

Just to remind myself, we don't do albums that had their first official release if it's different from their original release?

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

When it comes to Velvet Cacoon, too much time is spent talking about the frills and too little time talking about the music. Genevieve is a very special album. There are thousands of depressive black metal albums, there are thousands of evil black metal albums, but there are few, if any albums that communicate the cold, inhumane detachment of Genevieve. It's like an out of body experience, or the process of death. Those beautiful, dreamy melodies played with such cold, heartless abstraction. Similarly, there is human voice, but the sounds are incomprehensible and if not flat out dissociative. Then, the album culminates in "Bete Noir," the most extreme manifestation of what was expressed on the previous tracks: a cold, icy void.

It's an easy #1 for the year on my list.

I sincerely love how glib they were in their approach overall, but you really hit the nail on the head about the actual music. It's like the perfect record for scuzzy escapism in the more dissociative passages. I do understand all the flack they get, but I think a lot of people overstate just how bloated the "AtmoShit" genre was at the time. From my memory, the genre was just beginning to really branch out into the various subsects we see today and they really set themselves apart musically.

Gimmicks are lame, but people who levy these gimmicks against their fans as if they were meant to be taken seriously off the jump are even lamer tbh.

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

3) Isen Torr - Mighty & Superior

Forgot about this ironclad slab of heavy metal! High-time I break it out again

 

[Master_Yoda77]

I kinda rediscovered it because I was having a hard time finding top full-length albums to choose and saw that and that awesome Nocternity EP and had to include them.

 

[CiG]

I sincerely love how glib they were in their approach overall, but you really hit the nail on the head about the actual music. It's like the perfect record for scuzzy escapism in the more dissociative passages. I do understand all the flack they get, but I think a lot of people overstate just how bloated the "AtmoShit" genre was at the time. From my memory, the genre was just beginning to really branch out into the various subsects we see today and they really set themselves apart musically.

Gimmicks are lame, but people who claim levy these gimmicks against their fans as if they were meant to be taken seriously of the jump are even lamer tbh.

It just doesn't sound that special to me, especially not when compared to a lot of other much less known stuff in the same fuzzy meandering strumming style.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

It just doesn't sound that special to me, especially not when compared to a lot of other much less known stuff in the same fuzzy meandering strumming style.

I really can't think of anything comparable, other than bands that rip them off. If you could share some comps, I'd be all ears.

 

[Onder]

6) Axis of Advance - Obey

Axis of Advance!! Good one.

 

[rms]

When it comes to Velvet Cacoon, too much time is spent talking about the frills and too little time talking about the music. Genevieve is a very special album. There are thousands of depressive black metal albums, there are thousands of evil black metal albums, but there are few, if any albums that communicate the cold, inhumane detachment of Genevieve. It's like an out of body experience, or the process of death. Those beautiful, dreamy melodies played with such cold, heartless abstraction. Similarly, there is human voice, but the sounds are incomprehensible and if not flat out dissociative. Then, the album culminates in "Bete Noir," the most extreme manifestation of what was expressed on the previous tracks: a cold, icy void.

It's an easy #1 for the year on my list.

responses like this to any album always blow me away, especially when vocals (lyrics?) aren't really part of the equation

 

[crimsonfloyd]

How are the vocals not part of the equation?

 

[rms]

lyrics are important to that but i'm 15 minutes deep into this album and they aren't even a factor let alone noticeable enough

 

[Talos of Atmora]

Have you ever checked out Wotan before man? Carmina Barbarica is a killer epic/power metal album.

The list I have isn't set in stone so I'm thinking about whether this album and a few others are worth reconsidering for the top ten. It's certainly a great album though.

 

[The Butt]

When it comes to Velvet Cacoon, too much time is spent talking about the frills and too little time talking about the music. Genevieve is a very special album. There are thousands of depressive black metal albums, there are thousands of evil black metal albums, but there are few, if any albums that communicate the cold, inhumane detachment of Genevieve. It's like an out of body experience, or the process of death. Those beautiful, dreamy melodies played with such cold, heartless abstraction. Similarly, there is human voice, but the sounds are incomprehensible and if not flat out dissociative. Then, the album culminates in "Bete Noir," the most extreme manifestation of what was expressed on the previous tracks: a cold, icy void.

It's an easy #1 for the year on my list.

wasnt it written in like 15 minutes or some shit

I'm probably the biggest fan of this TYPE of black metal on the board, and even I think this album is vapid at best. I was into it like... a week, years ago, then it faded fast.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I sincerely love how glib they were in their approach overall, but you really hit the nail on the head about the actual music. It's like the perfect record for scuzzy escapism in the more dissociative passages. I do understand all the flack they get, but I think a lot of people overstate just how bloated the "AtmoShit" genre was at the time. From my memory, the genre was just beginning to really branch out into the various subsects we see today and they really set themselves apart musically.

Gimmicks are lame, but people who levy these gimmicks against their fans as if they were meant to be taken seriously off the jump are even lamer tbh.

Yeah, I honestly think people's affective filters go up as a result of the frills and as a result, they don't hear the album for what it is. One of the reasons I hold this view is the number of non-metal fans who have stopped to ask me about this record when I'm playing it. People who normally just think, "oh another metal band" stop to ask about Velvet Cacoon. There's something fundamentally captivating about it.

lyrics are important to that but i'm 15 minutes deep into this album and they aren't even a factor let alone noticeable enough

The vocals are noticeable, which is what I mentioned. You must not be paying close attention if you don't notice the vocals. As for the lyrics I don't believe I said anything about them. They're basically dissociative nonsense.

wasnt it written in like 15 minutes or some shit

Probably not, since the album is over 50 minutes long, but why does it matter anyway? I wish more people were able to evaluate music in-itself and not dwell on the frills. I get that the band brought this on themselves, but some degree of objectivity would be nice.

 

[CiG]

Just to remind myself, we don't do albums that had their first official release if it's different from their original release?

Thinking about Blood Farmers?

 

[CiG]

Decided to just re-post my list which I've totally reworked after listening to some more albums etc.

1. Pagan Altar - The Lords of Hypocrisy
2. Drawn and Quartered - Return of the Black Death
3. Mirror of Deception - Foregone
4. Orphaned Land - Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven
5. Wotan - Carmina Barbarica
6. Lord Gore - Resickened
7. Rhapsody - Symphony of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret
8. Squash Bowels - No Mercy
9. The Ring - Tales From Midgard
10. Ironsword - Return of the Warrior

HM:

Scythe - The Process of Rotting
Maniac Killer - Amusing Anecdotes for the Depraved
Domine - Emperor of the Black Runes
Suicidal Winds - Wrath of God
The Gates of Slumber - The Awakening