10. Cianide - Gods of Death (Death metal.)
More proof the band keeps pumping out good material. The best thing about Cianide is they're a lot like Bolt Thrower or Motorhead or Venom. You know exactly what you're getting each time, and they never branch out farther than they can manage, every album being just different enough from the last one to maintain interest while never completely turning on you. Though to be honest this is kind of just filler in my list, the first two tracks kick ***, the quality just drops a bit as the album goes on. Doesn't change how good the riffs are on some of these tracks- more Hellhammer like, primitive brutality from these guys. Hopefully they've got one more album in them after this!
9. Autopsy - Macabre Eternal (Death metal.)
Now, Autopsy are my favorite band, but I don't think positive bias has anything to do with this album's place here. In fact, I think that means it's probably better than 9th place, since I'm pretty critical of bands I really like. But this album is just really good. Aside from one or two songs and the cleaner production, this album fits just fine between Severed Survival and Mental Funeral. I guess the production is too slick, I guess Chris can't squeeze out his legendary growls quite as consistently anymore, but the riffing on this thing is ****ing immense.
8. Maim - Deceased to Exist (Death metal worshiping old school Swedeath.)
Honestly, Bastard Priest's description fits in here just as well. Nihilist, Carnage, Grave, and all bands like that come together here. It's not another Ghouls of the Endless Night or Epitome of Darkness, but it's not far off either.
7. Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All (Take a newer Neurosis album, get rid of any softer passages, and have a death metal band cover it.)
A pure sonic wall of noise, dissonance, and brutality. Very few death metal bands manage to do anything prog-ish while still sounding good, especially in the last few years, and given how much I can compare this album to classics like Obscura or Close To A World Below, I'd say this stands head and shoulders above the rest of the modern prog death scene. This is not Autopsy or Deceased, so if you're going in expecting head banging catchy tunes you're not going to appreciate this at all. Listen to the two albums I mentioned earlier (Gorguts - Obscura and Immolation - Close To A World Below, in backwards order) to get a good feel on if you'll dig this or not.
6. Acid Witch - Stoned (Just read the description of the album, I can't sum this up in under a paragraph.)
This album goes really well along with the two other gore fanatics this year, Ghoul and Macabre. Mid paced, catchy and slightly more melodic and clean than last time riffing that mixes death and doom metal with weed with a lot of organ interludes and thick bass lines. This whole album is a lot more cleaned up compared to last time (think like, Electric Wizard's Dopethrone compared to Black Masses), cleaner production that got rid of the annoying buzz on the vocals that almost killed Witchtanic Hellucinations for me, cleaned up guitars, and the organs actually play major parts in some songs instead of just leading or closing tracks. It's grown on me to the point I like it just as much as WH, just in a different way.
5. Coffins - Ancient Torture (Sludgey, dark death metal.)
I guess two compilations is kind of cheating but oh well. Coffins play really barbaric, primitive death metal most comparable to the earliest recordings by Asphyx (The Rack and Embrace the Death namely), Mental Funeral era Autopsy, and the like. But they also have a really thick, sludgey atmosphere and style to them that separates them from most of the more standard death metal acts running around. This is a compilation of all their b sides, vinyl only tracks, EPs, the like. And considering how hard most of that stuff is to track down this is a welcome addition to their discography and not filler like a lot of compilations are.
4. Grave - Necropsy - The Complete Demo Recordings (Death metal on most of it, death/thrash on the earliest tracks chronologically.)
Yeah, this is a demo compilation it doesn't count blah blah blah. Suck my dick Grave are better than whatever ******** you like so they deserve the spot.
This is a really great compilation partly just because it's really cool to hear their earliest recordings from when they were just a Slayer derivative leading up to the stuff just before they released the ****ing legendary Into the Grave. Mandatory for fans of early Swedeath, and recommended for death metal fans in general- though if you don't already like Grave get this along with their first effort, Into the Grave.
3. Bastard Priest - Ghouls of the Endless Night (Nihilist worship type death metal.)
This is even better than the bands last album, Under the Hammer of Destruction, which was already pretty sick. This could really be my favorite death metal album of the last 10 years, there's only a few contenders. This is best described as a mixture of Nihilist and Repulsion with some punk snot in there. You could say this band is stuck in the past and are too derivative but **** you you probably put Deicide in your top 10 for this year so you have no room to talk.
2. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room (Think a doom metal band covering singer song writer type stuff.)
A lot to follow up on from Warning. So how do 40 Watt Sun go about showing up Watching From A Distance? They ditch pretty much everything that made them a "traditional" doom band, but kept the guitar tone and thick, clean production. This effort feels a lot more organic compared to Watching From A Distance, and Pat's vocal performance got an improvement in that he manages a bit more control and balance compared to on WFAD, where occasionally he got a bit screechy. Altogether this feels like a perfectly natural progression from where Warning left off and will likely be the peak of any Patrick Walker project in my opinion.
1. Vektor - Outer Isolation (Thrash metal with a lot of other influences, most notably 70's progressive rock and black metal.)
Not as good as Black Future, but only by a very, very small margin. My only complaint is that there's a single filler track and three rerecordings, but considering two of those rerecordings are a pair of the best tracks on the album ("Tetrastructural Minds" and "Venus Project") I don't have much of a problem with this. More scifi techy thrash goodness, with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the thrash and less on the experimental side of the band this time around.