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Hello all, and happy new year. All is well in Maine, though it's cold. I'm glad to see the forum is active, and continues to work for the glory of heavy metal. It's been a long time, I feel like I ought to have brought a present. Let me see what I can find. This is for Chinese new year, so it's not even late, it's a few weeks early. Year of the pig, how about that? pretty exciting!

Hey Will, awesome list of (mostly) Australian bands. I've seen nearly all of them at the metal pub I go to and keep banging on about (Bendigo Hotel). I hadn't heard about any trouble with Whoretopsy. They are such an enjoyable band to watch live, although I don't think I've seen them for about three or four years now. Great groovy death metal that work brilliantly in a live context. I'm sure I know a couple of the guys but I can't remember. Hard to believe they'd cause any controversy in this town considering the huge number of extreme bands banging around. I should get Requiem to send me royalty checks for stealing my awesome name. And then I'll pass them on to the estate of one Wolfgang Amadeus. I don't think I've seen them but I've seen posters for their shows.

Megadeth - 'Rust in Peace' It's easy to forget how good this album is until you have a few drinks and slam it on.

Primal Fear - We Walk Without Fear

Beherit - Drawing down the Moon

Vomitory - Revelation Nausea

Of albums released in 2018 ... are you fucking kidding me? I'm not even up to date with the 80s yet ... it seems kind of random what I hear about and not, so it's not like I've made any informed and conscious choice based in what I've listened to and subsequently arranged in some kind of neat order ... I can only say that there are two albums that have seriously hit it home with me this year of 2018: There is Craft, "White Noise And Black Metal" ... it appeals to me for the same reasons that the "new" Mayhem appeals to me. There is some kind of weird "surgical chaos" vibe going on in there that I find pleasing. Very competent work with several layers of discreet complexity. The "trve evil kult" black metal kids are probably not going to like this album, but metal conisseurs, musicians and intellectuals might just find a gem. Then there is Rivers of Nihil, "Where Owls Know My Name" ... which is one of those projects that break the form, in that it incorporates elements of various, seemingly incompatible things, such as chugging death metal riffs with a mellow saxophone solo ... which really should NOT work, but it kind of does anyway. Very interesting album, also a strangely beautiful creature. My third mention is going to be Outre-Tombe ... but I haven't quite processed that one yet. However, it seems so far that it might just become one of my "legends". We shall see.

I basically shut myself in my room today and wrote some music. Time contracted and disappeared. First time in a couple of years that I've felt able to be productive with it, and it feels great, sort of like part of my mind took a bath it didn't know it needed. Whether the band will be able and willing to play the thing is another issue, but at least I have this little plateau to enjoy.

Ulcerate - Shrines of Paralysis. Better than Vermis, roughly on the same level of The Destroyers of All. Everything is Fire is still their best effort though. Looking forward to hear news from Paul Kelland and the others, a new album would be a fine surprise.

Judas Iscariot "Heaven In Flames"

8/10 Martin-era Sabbath's pretty great.

I will say 8/10. Don't get me wrong, - Dios vocals were very beautiful. I mean, he could make it big in other genres too. His voice was like no other, wich I respect him for. But I'm used to Ozzy's Sabbath, so it's hard for me to like later Sabbath. Here you go. An young motherfucker, who began listening Megadeth just yesterday. The thing is, I've heard Peace Sells and uhmm... Symphony of destruction before, but I somehow did not like it much. It's like that with me. Some time passes, I listen to record again and start liking it more. So this night I went in spotify and listened to Killing is my Bussines... And basically Mustaine loves killing, hehe. So I started listening to album, and title song just filled my ears with metal like nothing else. Rock on!

It was a weird year for me. I'll sum up my feelings toward new releases in 2018 by misquoting Bilbo Baggins: "I listened to less than half of you half as much as I would have liked, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." With only a little hierarchy, here are a few albums that, for whatever reason, in whatever way, caught and held my attention. ____ Howling Sycamore: Howling Sycamore ...dark horse favorite for my Album Of The Year. Tight, controlled music with incongruous, ridiculously expressive power-metal vocals from Jason McMaster of Watchtower. I could wish the music had gone more nuts in spots, but accessibility is one of the strengths here. Most people either love it or hate it based on the vocals. If you love it, these songs can burrow their way into your brain like those critters from The Wrath Of Khan. Augury: Illusive Golden Age ...if only more modern tech death was like this. Musicianship for days, idiosyncratic snaky counterpoint riffing, moments of real majesty scattered throughout. The occasional melodic "yelling" vocals drag it down a bit for my taste, but at least they're being true to themselves. Svartidaudi: Revelations Of The Red Sword ...melodic/dissonant BM in the now-familiar Icelandic style, jangly and chiming, like if Deathspell Omega woke up one day with a burning desire to clean their apartment and put everything in its place. What sets this apart are memorable themes and thoughtful, engaging song structures that reward repeat listening. Evoken: Hypnagogia ...their most varied album yet, with the atmospheric elements dialed up, visions of sky and sunlight occasionally piercing the usual dense forest canopy. Not a huge stylistic departure from the previous one overall, but with a more heartfelt sense of focus behind the melodies (to my ears, anyway). Keyboards and gorgeous violins come and go throughout sprawling, lumbering tracks that recall the mood of early to mid 90s My Dying Bride. I love it. Fans of vintage Peaceville-three doom should find a lot to hang their hat on here. A journey awaits. Craft: White Noise And Black Metal ...another extremely well-paced, thoughtfully written album that remains engaging throughout. Riffy BM with a spite, cold precision, and occasional sense of bounce or groove that reminds me of what I liked about the modernizing turn that some black metal took in the late 90s and early 2000s; but this doesn't come off as a throwback, it's fresh and vengeful. Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik: Hugsjá ...much like their first album, I was initially let down by this, and wanted something with more teeth. Repeated listening let me sink into the lonesome, meditative beauty of these songs and enjoy them for what they are, which (as I often have to relearn) is the entire point. ____ Other albums I also liked but have less to say about at the moment: Golgothan Remains: Perverse Offerings To The Void ...dissonant DM with a modern Portal/DSO/Ulcerate riffing style and some old-school balls to back it up. Cult Leader: A Patient Man ...everything pushed a little farther from their last album. Aggressive parts are more aggressive, moody parts are moodier. The pacing and length of the gloomy clean-vocal tracks drags this down, but I think it's supposed to be dragged down, so I guess that makes it ok. Whoredom Rife: Nid - Hymner Av Hat ...solid 2nd-wave Darkthrone/Satyricon vibes here, engaging songs that do the right things in the right spots, a definite improvement over the first album in my book. Ulthar: Cosmovore ...angry, angular, odd death metal with a grimy sound, blackened edges, and a willingness to pummel. This is one of my more interesting recent DM finds in a year when I wasn't clicking with a lot of DM, and I wish I had more to say about it. Soldat Hans: Es Taut ...long, drawn-out tracks billed as "folk doom". Post-rock and post-metal atmospheres at the pace of funeral doom, abrasive crust-laden vocals, gloomy brass, and an unusual sense of what should happen next. You will feel your heart slow down. Anachronism: Orogeny ...gutsy, a little Gorguts-y, technical yet catchy modern dissonant DM. Creative guitar work is the star of the show. Second band in a row here from Switzerland. Mournful Congregation: The Incubus Of Karma ...Macabre said it pretty well. This album isn't near the bottom of the list because I didn't like it as much, it just happened to wind up here. Great work, more enjoyable than the previous one for me. Hooded Menace: Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed ...more doom-death with really good guitar work and a solid sense of pacing. A kickass riff or cool melody or harmony hides behind every corner. Replicant: Negative Life ...another dissonant modern DM album with some Gorguts, Negativa, and Pyrrhon-inspired riffing. Starkweather/Concealment split ...two long-form stream-of-consciousness tracks. Sneering, lumbering, psychedelic post-hardcore from Starkweather; groovy, dissonant something-but-I-don't-know-what from Concealment, like an impromptu jam session with Luc Lemay and the guys from Virus. Imperial Triumphant: Vile Luxury ...love the brass, choral parts, and general mood here. I'll leave it at that for now and hopefully make this the subject of its own writeup at some point. Portal: Ion ...more twisted guitars and stuttering drums from these weirdos. I go back and forth between missing the murk of their older recordings and appreciating the dryness and relative intelligibility of this one. They're their own musicians; this is a stark, refined album that plays with standard ingredients in a way that comes across as outsider/art music.

5. Portal "Ion" Patchy year for DM this year and this thankfully remains a high point near 12 months after it was released.. A more refined and calculated record (by Portal standards at least) although no sacrifice is made of the usual mind destroying chaos that we have all grown to know and love. A great build on the use of the horror elements of "Vexovoid" to create more atmosphere than a divorce hearing. Here's hoping 2019 can raise the stakes somewhat in the DM world. 4. Svartidaudi “Revelations of the Red Sword” The revelations here are all dark and majestic, carrying a dissonance and extremity at the same time, combining fathomless black with the angry stabs, slashes and protracted strokes of red promised by the sword. A truly well written and thought out record, that sits way high above the likes of Behemoth’s paltry excursion of 2018 that the internet seems to love. I have listened to this regularly for weeks now but still feel I have so much more to learn and discover about it. That my friends is the sign of a good record. 3. Megaton Leviathan “Mage” Hazy, gazy(?), doomy, drony goodness here with a shit (mega)ton of melody and harmony to make ya feel good about life. Vocally it doesn’t always exactly sit right but musically the songwriting and instrumentation are near perfect. My - slightly odd - analogy is that this album is like decorating a room, the laminate flooring effortlessly clicks together and the colours on the walls blend superbly to give vivid and vibrant shine to the room. But then some of the furniture is a little out of place but somehow it still really works. Not my normal bag but...me likes it. 2. Winterfylleth “The Harrowing Of Heirdom” No surprise here that this places high on my list, it was top of my BM release list despite not having one moment of BM present. The folk storytelling theme of this record captures a mood of dark and ethereal tales told via dulcet harmonies and medieval strings. It weaves scriptures of musical mystique noted on scrolls of poetic parchment. 1. Mournful Congregation “The Incubus Of Karma” Funeral doom on top of the list, what an odd year 2018 turned out to be. The fact is “The Incubus Of Karma” generates enough emotion, atmosphere and density to crack windows. I can’t recall any release since the last couple of Bell Witch albums, that establish such a memorable and impacting experience based largely on the use of one instrument. The guitars on the latest Mournful Congregation album just sing for virtually the whole record. Never do they become smothering or even mildly irritating and naturally for the genre in question they aren’t remembered through excessive technical wankery. They just do such a great job of constructing tracks that bore into your bones. For hours and days after each listen I can hear tracks echoing around my head like it is devoid of all organ matter and is just now some cavernous void with the best of acoustics. The success for me of this record shows why I couldn’t get my head around Evoken’s offering from this year. It had lost all menace, all definition and virtually all tangible emotional connection with me. I wanted to feel consumed by it and instead felt a bit nibbled at and the effort required to try and figure out the direction was just not worth the eventual reward. “The Incubus Of Karma” ate me whole, digested me, absorbed me into it’s blood stream and I am swimming for all eternity...

OK here goes - I'm just listing bands & album. No explanations. Sorry, time poor. Top 10 for 2018 (no order) Craft White Noise and Black Metal Uada Cult of a Dying Sun Immortal Northern Chaos Gods Satan Cruel Magic Shylmagoghnar Transience In the Woods Cease the Day Necrophobic Mark of the Necrogram Ocean of Grief Nightfall’s Lament Demonical Chaos Manifesto Harakiri for the Sky Arson Song of the Year: Harakiri for the Sky "Fire, Walk with Me" Best of the Rest Panopticon The Scars of Man… Altars of Grief Iris Stryper God Damn Evil 1914 The Blind Leading the Blind Jungle Rot s/t Tomb Mold Manor of Infinite Forms Judas Priest Firepower Marduk Viktoria Saxon Thunderbolt Visgoth Conqueror's Oath Tokyo Blade Unbroken Khemmis Desolation Wolfheart Constellation of the Black