MACHINE MUSIC PRESENTS THE LENGTHY AND FUTILE BEST 111 ALBUMS OF THE DECADE "HALFWAY THERE" EDITION 2020-2024

How does one sum up the worst half a decade since atomic bombs were actually a thing? Well, I don’t know. I felt like giving up on this project nine hundred times since I first thought of it, and in actual fact feel like giving up as I write this intro! And yet the sweet promise of eyeballs, clicks, and the allure of finally finding the validation I am seeking from perfect strangers is all it took to again launch this leaky vessel into the stormy waters of “no one actually gives a fuck.” And I, its only sailor, everyone else is dead or sick or drowned or never existed because I don't cooperate well it seems, present to you a very non-committal kind-of list of albums that for my measly money (pieces of eight, if I am to continue this dumb metaphor) are the classics produced by our filthy age and thus also me kind of getting a head start on the whole decade thing before it actually ends. Besides, no one’s promising any of us will actually be alive in 2029, so we’ll always have this. I know that sounds awfully fatalistic, but it is.

Obviously, albums I have more of a history with are overrepresented in this list, and albums that I really like but haven't had, say, four extra years to dwell with are underrepresented. Then again, there might be some recency bias with some of the newer ones, so I guess they both cancel each other out. Which, again, begs the question: "Why am I doing this?" But, upon further consideration (with myself, at this point dehydrated and without my compass), if I actually attend myself to the futility of this project I might then notice the completely uselessness of this entire website, and I don't want that. So, onwards to find the white whale of internet music writing: Getting the job done.

I thought of doing this in the style of my usual nonsense year-end lists, but then I remembered I would probably have to do one of those too, so this will be a somewhat tamer affair. Just little ole me thinking hard about the albums that will ring in eternity and then immediately resenting myself for that horrible piece of writing.

Oh, and I chose to include only one album from each band (with one notable exception that seemed artistically warranted). Also, I've been doing this for months now, and have now decided (October 8, 2024) that I can't take it anymore. Will great albums still come out in November and December? Sure they will. But they'll just have to wait until 2029. If, again, I'm alive.

If you're new to this metal blog Ship of Theseus you can also check out the various interview projects I have going on as well as the weekly recommendation posts. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (FALSE!) (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify etc), and listen to my, I guess, active? (no) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You could also possibly support my unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming habit. It's probably a bad idea, but to each their own. ON TO THE LIST.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Afsky – Ofte jeg dr​ø​mmer mig d​ø​d (Vendetta Records) [2020]

atameo – it sure is sad to hope for the best while expecting the worst (Zegema Beach) [2022]

Ataraxy – The Last Mirror (Dark Descent Records / Me Seco Un Ojo) [2022]

Atramentus – Stygian (20 Buck Spin) [2020]

Atvm – Famine, Putrid and Fucking Endless (Independent) [2021]

Aylwin – The Arch Holder (Pacific Threnodies) [2021]

Blut aus Nord – Luciferian Echoes (Debemur Morti Productions) [2022]

Caustic Wound – Death Posture (Profound Lore Records) [2020]

Civerous – Decrepit Flesh Relic (Transylvanian Recordings) [2021]

Cognizant – Inexorable Nature of Adversity (Nerve Altar) [2023]

Cryptic Shift – Visitations from Enceladus (Blood Harvest Records) [2020]

Djevel – Tanker Som Rir Natten (Aftermath Music) [2021]

Ekdikesis – Canvas of a New Dawn (Onism Productions) [2021]

Exhumation – Eleventh Formulae (Pulverised Records) [2020]

Fawn Limbs – Darwin Falls (Wolves And Vibrancy Records / Wolves And Vibrancy Records) [2021]

Florid Ekstasis – Trepanning (Independent) [2023]

Fyrnask – VII – Kenoma (Ván Records) [2021]

Gorephilia – In the Eye of Nothing (Dark Descent Records) [2020]

Gravesend – Methods of Human Disposal (20 Buck Spin) [2021]

Great Falls – Objects Without Pain (Neurot Recordings) [2023]

Gulch – Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress (Closed Casket Ativities) [2020]

Gnaw Their Tongues – I Speak the Truth, Yet with Every Word Uttered, Thousands Die (Consouling Sounds) [2020]

Grand Celestial Nightmare – Excluded From Light And The Pleroma (New Era Productions / Nuclear War Now! Productions) [2022]

Gruzja – Koniec Wakacji (Coś Więcej Records) [2023]

Hallux Valgus – Reflections of Distant Dreams (Edged Circle Productions) [2021]

Haunter – Discarnate Ails (Profound Lore Records) [2022]

Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium (Season of Mist) [2023]

HWWAUOCH – Under the Gaze of Dissolution (Amor Fati Productions) [2023]

Infant Island – Obsidian Wealth (Secret Voice) [2024]

Inter Arma – New Heaven (Relapse Records) [2024]

Knoll – Metempiric (Independent) [(2022]

Kwade Droes – Met onoprechte deelneming (Ván Records) [2021]

Mahr – Malestorm (Amor Fati Productions) [2020]

Medico Peste – ב :The Black Bile (Season of Mist) [2020]

Mesa – Collapse (Realm and Ritual) [2021]

Nothingness – Supraliminal (Everlasting Spew Records) [2023]

Odraza – Rzeczom (Devoted Art Propaganda) [2020]

Ophanim – T​ä​mpelskl​ä​ng (Eisenwald) [2023]

Pharmacist – Medical Renditions of Grinding Decomposition (Bizarre Leprous Production) [2020]

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter – Saved! (Perpetual Flame Ministries) [2023]

Skin Tension – Machinic Impulses of the Hyperreal (Independent)

Somme – Somme (Death Kvlt Productions) (2020)

Spectral Wound – A Diabolic Thirst (Profound Lore Records) [2021]

Spirit Possession – Spirit Possession (Profound Lore Records) [2020]

Succumb – Succumb (The Flenser) [2021]

Sumac – May You Be Held [2020]

Sunrise Patriot Motion – Black Fellflower Stream (Sibir Records/Gilead Media) [2022]

Svrm – Р​о​з​п​а​д (Independent) [2021]

Swarrrm – ゆめをみたの – I Dreamed​.​.​. (Long Legs Long Arms Records) [2021]

TDK / ТДК – Nemesta (Independent) [2023]

Thin – Dusk (Twelve Gauge Records) [2023]

Urfaust – Untergang (Ván Records) [2023]

Vertebra Atlantis – Lustral Purge In Cerulean Bliss (I, Voidhanger Records) [2021]

White Ward – False Light (Debemur Morti Productions) [2022]

THE LIST THAT SHOULD NOT BE

111. Nekus – Sepulchral Divination (Sentient Ruin Laboratories) [2023]

Nekus' Sepulchral Divination manages to take the death doom box and explode it, sounding closer to what you might imagine a Impetuous Ritual doom album would sound like – like a black hole from which no light escapes and the only sound you hear is that of the rush of an impossibly dark waterfall. Or, you know, death doom music. You can hear that too.

110. Mizmor and Thou – Myopia (Gilead Media [RIP]) [2022]

I'll be honest here, mostly because no one will ever read this plus the probability I won't be around to hear the moans of the disappointed throng – my favorite albums by both worthy collaborators were released in the previous decade, and I don't really see that changing soon. And yet the meeting of the two, despite not being hugely different in their respective gloomy styles, brings out something new and interesting to the proceedings. No one's inventing the sad wheel here, but it does feel a tad more urgent and/or different to my dilapidated ears.

109. Rigorous Institution – Cainsmarsh (Black Water / Symphony of Destruction / Sentient Ruin, Black Konfloik) [2022]

In its relatively short lifespan of this album's existence it has already become one of those albums that become a genre in my mind. There is but one album like this in recent memory, that's so punk and/or hardcore that it almost becomes an early 80s almost-black metal album.

108. Malignant Altar – Realms of Exquisite Morbidity (Dark Descent Records) [2021]

The Malignant Altar demo was and remains one of my favorite death metal demos of all time, and the level of expectation that led to was unhealthy. That all resulted in me allowing this album to completely go over my head for quite some time, until I decided to standup and it went right into my head. Basically this is what all death metal wished it sounded like and felt like, only more violent, and with better drumming.

107. Sigh – Shiki (Peaceville Records) [2022]

The impossible coming together of heavy metal, rock, progressive rock, folk, progressive metal, black metal that is Sigh is that spaceship that randomly hops on plane Earth every once in a while just to show us mortals that this making art this is actually quite easy, only to then fuck off back into whatever space they're from. I don't like feeling like an ant, like a vermin undeserving of the electricity we call life, and so maybe that's why I don't reach out for Sign as often as I should. But when I do I'm always happy I did and immediately start foraging for seeds and sugar.

106. Рожь – В​с​ё (Reflection Nebula) [2023]

Where Rye's В​е​ч​н​о​е was majestic and dream-like in its oppressive/emotive way, it's heir В​с​ё feels like that same atmospheric black metal spaceship, only now re-entering the atmosphere and about to implode from the heat scorching its ceramic tiles. The emotional energy that makes Рожь one of the most potent voices in contemporary black metal is all there, but it's rawer, somehow sadder and at times angrier. As if this was the Steve Albini version of their sound, stripped-down and huge.

105. Dold Vorde Ens Navn – M​ø​rkere (Prophecy Productions) [2021] 

Gandalf the White returns with that shiny stick and saves the day, kicking orc ass. That's a nice geek-appropriate metaphor for what Dold Vorde Ens Navn did by even existing. It brought bring back the spirit of adventure and creativity that marked the work of so many of the bands associated with it along with a kind reminder that these aren't just quaint Norwegians with an affinity to quirky songs and whispered vocal parts that make your spin flatten like dough, but also the meanies that helped make the mean, ah, mean. Aggressive and dream-like in the best WATNBM (Weird Ass True-ish Norwegian Black Metal) way.

104. Herxheim – Contrapasso (I, Voidhanger Records) [2024]

It hardly feels polite to say about a post-Howls of Ebb project "the return of Howls of Ebb" but this is not a polite list (thought I am, to be sure, quite a polite person – Thank you. See that?). Herxheim didn't set out to become another HoE (oh look, a Howls of Ebb interview!), it set out to release basically knuckle-dragging black metal that is great but sounds like shit (or, you know, with the "sounding like shit" aesthetic in mind). But Patrick Brown's weird side, the same that had been marginally repressed to make the previous Herxheim releases, finally got the better of him. It is not, obviously, a Howls of Ebb album. But if you, like me, still wonder if that band was actually a reality or just a drug-induced fever dream, then the return of that nightmarish side of Mr. Brown's head is fantastic news.

103. Lamp of Murmuur – Submission and Slavery (Black Gangrene Productions) [2021]

I have a conflicted relationship with the Lamp that is Murmuur, one steeped, as with all of my conflicted relationships, with a deep admiration and fascination (compulsory interview plug, here). As far as I'm concerned there were zero misses in the Lampinator's catalogue up until and including this release, which, I'll admit, took me longer to get into than some of the more immediate stuff. And it should also be said that I'm never a fan of the "let's give 'em a metal album" mindset that at times plagues those artists who dare be original in what is at times a media/audience atmosphere that applies huge amounts of pressure to not be original, and thus Saturnalian Whatcamacallit was far from my cup of tea. But this is still LoM feeling shit out, struggling to find some inspiration, and that'll always be more interesting to me than pretending to have found it.

102. Reveal! – Doppelherz (Sepulchral Voice Records) [2021]

I didn't really know where to place this odd album, or to contextualize it within the already weird bounds of an undoubtedly odd list. All I knew is that there's something fantastical about the push-pull quality of Doppelherz that makes it an almost infectious bug in my damp and disoriented brain. Is it really metal? And if so, is it black metal? Is it a rock-n-roll banger that just sounds like it's metal because there's apparently musical malevolence running through Uppsala's municipal water system? What it is, there's this sense with Reveal! that they're not trying to reach any extreme thing but that, like very few bands – perhaps Daggers work in this space as well – they're working at the root of what makes evil-sounding music evil-sounding music. Whatever it is, it's entirely unique and wholly enthralling.

101. Void Rot – Descending Pillars (Sentient Ruin Laboratories) [2020]

Quite possibly my favorite death doom album of the past few years, made by some of the most talented people from one of the most talented American scenes of that span as well (yes, an interview exists as well). On the face of it just playing death metal really slow isn't that much of a skill. But the ability to reshape that slowing down into a whole new world and atmosphere very much is, and there just aren't that many albums that have done that better than Descending Pillars. Like slowly creeping into a dark new landscape, and it's foggy. Sure, it's foggy.

100. Sun's Journey Through the Night – Demo II (Crown & Throne Ltd.) [2021]

It's not often that I desire to mount the Big Sounding Black Metal© train, but when I do there are very few rides as fulfilling and powerful as this masterful release weirdly titled "demo" despite the fact that it sounds better than 90 percent of underground black metal releases. SJTTN has since gone on to better and bigger things – touring, signing with Church Road, all great. But that 2020-21 run he had has to be one of the best run of black metal releases in recent memory, on par with Lamp of Murmuur's 2019-20 run of demos. Unreal.

99. Faceless Burial – Speciation (Dark Descent Records) [2020]

Speciation acts like it can kill you and never break a sweat. When the album kicks off you just think: "Oh, they're going to kill me aren't they?" And to some extent that's true, it will kill you – the drumming, the riffing, and unrelenting attack, they're all a lot to take in. But the deeper you go the more you realize that what's actually happening is a late 90s prog Death in late 80s nasty Death's clothing. If you stick around enough, if you survive the pummeling, you will be rewarded by one of the most vicious, off-kilter death metal records on earth.

98. Convulsing – Perdurance (Independent) [2024]

The maker of twisted, emotionally urgent, and musically impossible masterpieces AKA Brendan Sloan did his thing and released yet another twisted, emotionally urgent, and musically impossible masterpiece. Where his past releases – Errata and Grievous, specifically – were pointy and jagged almost to the point of a very pleasurable suffocation (no judgement), Perdurance finds Sloan expanding into more atmospheric territory (well, relatively speaking), producing moments of genuine anguish and beauty to match up with his usual talent for fucking your face right off.

97. Slutet – Love & Beauty (Goatowarex) [2020]

This is one of those albums I only got into much later and definitely not in real time, to which I owe my thanks to Alex the Mighty Axe Swinger. A band that is in its essence a great big intangible, that made music made up seemingly only of intangible, and that produced this intangible of an album out of who knows what pit of horror and love. Depressive black metal, savagery, shoegaze, punk, they all exist here in a way that I can't think could be ever replicated. An artist giving out a unique cry of pain, and then burning the world with it. Crazy.

96. Dawnwalker – Ages (Independent) [2020]

Famously (to me only), Ages came out on the last day of 2020 but was so amazingly good I had to do it justice and include it in my 2021 list. But, Machine Music lore aside, it's probably the last time this merry band of English folk had at list a limb in black metal, along with the rest of their body steeped in a mixture of folk and post-rock. And, as such, it has enough of the dark notes that make said mixture less ethereal and, at times, harsh and beautiful. A wonderful album.

95. Feral Light – A Reckoning with the Intangible (Independent) [2024]

It's a kind of shame that the final release from the wonderful Feral Light might just be their best. Equal parts absolutely ruthless and breathtakingly beautiful, it's the kind of album that could solidify the legacy of a band. Instead it's the album that marks the death of a band. So it goes.

94. Cosmic Putrefaction – Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones (Profound Lore Records) [2022]

Picking your favorite Cosmic Putrefaction album is like picking your favorite scab with your favorite rusted pair of pliers using odd time signatures and somehow getting pristine sound of your disgusted shrieks. But, somebody's gotta do it, and Crepuscular might be it. Why? Because it has all the gross bits with all the flash bits with all the atmospheric bits with all the blasting mania with so much soul and proggy weirdness. Which, I realize, describes every CP album, but it all just comes together much too beautifully.

93. Baring Teeth – The Path Narrows  (I, Voidhanger Records) [2023]

If I had 100 monkeys under my dictatorial thumb, all of which had been trained to play all instruments and then forced fed avant-garde music and Gorguts and then asked them to record an album, then that album would probably suck, and  that's no way to treat monkeys. But if I wanted to listen to an album that sounds like I did that and it actually went really well then The Path Narrows is basically it. Everything happening at once, never relenting, never happy with just riding a riff or an idea and never boring. Plus, all the ideas are fucking great, so that's nice.

92. Ænigmatum – Deconsecrate (20 Buck Spin) [2021]

I know it's pretty high up the list to be talking about "a difficult decision." But it wasn't easy deciding between this and what might be one of its closest artistic relatives of recent years, Horrendous. What broke the tie, for me, was just how over-the-top everything is on this weird album. The drums are working WAY too hard, the riff changes are WAY too frequent, and the whole deal feels like a bunch of people got pumped in the gym while wearing some pretty arm-pit-bearing clothing, and went into the studio like they were still lifting weights. But, you see, I LOVE that energy (as explained in my lengthy essay of little value about exaggeration in metal). That overdoing. When it's done right, transcends the gym sweat and slight smell of plastic into what feels like actual magic.

91. Epitaphe – II (Aesthetic Death) [2022]

If Haunter and Inter Arma, and maybe to some extent Dead to a Dying World, were the poster children of absolutely-everything metal in the 2010s, then Epitaphe are a member of a select group raising the flag of "Yeah, fuck it, why not fit twenty other moods in this track" in contemporary life. Their stunning debut album was…. OK it was stunning. But they did not let up with the followup, producing one of the most frighteningly dynamic albums of the decade. From black metal, to death metal, to post rock, to whatever you want. It's all here, and it's glorious.

90. Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestarin kynsi (Nuclear Blast Records) [2020]

Finnish wise men Oranssi Pazuzu don't need me to tap into whatever their cosmic mind is doing, they've created a world that, as they progress in their journey toward the black hole at the center of the universe, has become more and more unto itself and for itself. A fact that has the benefit of expanding the horizons of art, and also the effect of me, at times, feeling pushed back from their world. However, these are minutiae in the grand scheme of things, and Mestarin kynsi remains one of the most intriguing and, honestly, disturbing albums of the decade so far.

Strangely enough, by the way, Oranssi Pazuzu's newest album, Muuntautuja is a bit of a walking down the mountain version of this train of thought, a more well-packaged take at the weirdness and obscurity that shrouds this release. Which, I think, is why I still prefer this one. I don't want to listen to it as often, and it may be less "easy on the ears," but when I do open that door I feel a lot weirder.

89. Universally Estranged – Reared Up in Spectral Predation (Blood Harvest Records) [2021]

Perhaps the most underrated death metal album of this weirdo decade so far, and one of my favorite modern death metal releases. If you crave that death metal that shoots lasers at you while you question your life decisions then this is basically it.

88. Argwaan – In a Surge of Anguish (Independent) [2021]

True story: I was scrolling Bandcamp like the creep I am and happened upon this album cover and said to myself: "Black metal can't possibly be good with a butt on the cover, right? But, what if I'm wrong?" And that's how I stumbled into one of the best depressive black metal bands on earth, which also happens to be populated by very cool people. Let that be a lesson to you all: Butts on covers are in fact an indication of quality (Origin of the Feces as one other standout example). Soaring moods, horrid sadness, and enough harsh melodies to make you cry in a cool way. No snot.

87. Vauruvã – Manso Queimor Dacordado (Independent) [2021] 

The world suffered a mortal blow the day Caio Lemos (Kaatayra, Brii) seemingly walked away from doing "black metal" black metal. We all love his Brazilian mind running circles around the cosmos with his love of Gas or some weird-ass shit like that, but we wanted his skinny hands clutching some power chords. And thus Vauruvã came in as a corrective, bringing balance to the force and some violence to the Lemons-verse. Sweeping atmospheric black metal that sounds like it could have emanated from a Dawn–like alternate universe where Caio was Swedish and filled with riffy feelings, only still him.

86. Jute Gyte – Unus Mundus Patet (Jeshimoth Entertainment) [2023]

Music this annoying can't possibly be this beautiful, but the facts are the facts. In general Jute Gyte is a musical experiment in testing the bounds of human patience and at times the very nature of that razor-thin gap between music and a garbage truck going downhill, no brakes (who cut the line?) and smashing into a bell foundry. So I get some people not being "into it." But, speaking as the horribly underpaid shift manager in said bell foundry, I can use the break from real life + it sounds fucking awesome.

85. Odz Manouk – Ծ​ո​ւ​ռ (Tzurr) (Blood Coloured Beast) [2023]

That whole thing of music as spiritual ritual, I don't actually do that. I experience music as a spiritual experience, to be sure, and there are many ways in which music props up my entire being. But the idea of a "church" of music and the ritualistic ideas that sometimes boringly abound around metal music are useless to me. And then I encounter music that really can't be understood in any other way, art that is both terrifying and uplifting, the kind that only makes sense in a ritualistic, maybe even communal way. This one of those very rare occasions. I still don't know how this album happened, or why, but am very glad (and slightly scared) it did.

84. Indricothere – Extruded Nonlocality Immersion (Independent) (2024)

So, a 14-hour ride through a bleak ambient landscape is not anyone's idea of fun, and, thus, it would be a pretty hard sell for me to come out and describe the Nonlocality Immersion listening experience as easy or something you should and/or can do every day. Not a daily thing, hell, might not even be a monthly thing. What I do know, however, is that if you need to strip your humanity bare and walk into the cosmos defenseless, aimless, and completely exposed, if you need to recharge that sense of you that is embedded in you not having a single fucking clue as to who or what you are, then listen to Colin Martson's ambient masterclass is like taking a bath in a tub of ayahuasca, fear, and love. Being a nebula ain't easy folks, but it must be done.

83. Daggers – Neon Noir Erotica (Throatruiner Records) [2020]

Where am I? Man, this list is fucked. I realize you're reading this as the first or one of the first entries in this list, but I have been at it for – ah – something like a few months now, and I'm kind of blind. And you would expect an album this down the list (relatively speaking, it's still one of my faves of the decade so far) to garner tame praise, but goddamit is this not one of the best shits ever. No album this technically rock-n-roll should be this metal. I've said this about Daggers more than once, probably too many times, but the magic they mine out of relatively mild rock is basically like reverse engineering the reason metal even exists. Electric, Machine-Head like rock worship that morphs into filthy almost-metal or even supra-metal.

82. Cave Sermon – Divine Laughter (Independent) [2024]

In some ways Divine Laughter is a minor album. Not in the "not important" way, of course, but in its goals or what it sets out to do. It expresses a single human experience, mostly along the color palette of sadness and isolation, and does so through the relatively familiar medium of, shall we say, post-metal infused with dissonant death metal, or the other way around. But, like a sunny-side-up egg fried to perfection, the yolk oozing like golden nectar on some nice toast and maybe a dash of hot sauce, what is achieved with these small things is something you can never get enough of. It's powerful, well-paced, and fried to perfection.

81. Derhead – The Grey Zone Phobia (Brucia Records) [2023]

Perhaps THE unsung black metal artist of this decade. Every release has been damn-near perfect – writing, feel, execution, emotion – but this one got me listening on repeat and questioning my own mortality. A masterclass in black metal songwriting that feels attacking and biting and all that stuff people like about violent music, but deeply felt and magically delivered. A thing of beauty.

80. Anna von Hausswolff – All Thoughts Fly (Southern Lord) [2020]

I just want to start this very serious, very professional blurb/review/comment by noting that I had only now realized Anna von Hausswolff was standing in the gaping mouth of the creature featured on the cover of this beautiful album. It's very tempting for me to grab that random fact and run with it toward a metaphor, one that would focus on the elusive humanity and sense of individual expression that stamps this otherwise grand statement of artistic purpose. But I'm not going to do that. All I will do, or write, in fact, since writing ain't doing (trust me, I know), is that All Thoughts Fly is a masterpiece in that weird in-between space of drone, ambient, and neo-classical/modern classical music that prods you and ruins you as it sends to to sleep. That is what I'll say.

79. Woe – Legacies of Frailty (Vendetta Records) [2023]

Getting the sweet stuff right is hard. I'm not saying there's anything sweet about Woe's apocalyptic melodic black metal, as seen in what appears to be a burning Washington Square on its cover. But Woe does dabble, and has dabbled increasingly, in creating good songs that sound good, are played well (almost wrote "good" there, but even I have my limits), and feel good. You can call it "melodic," but that's not really it, or it is it but along the vein of something like Panopticon where the sweet is served to counter the rough and bitter. Legacies of Frailty took some time to grow on me for that reason precisely – where its predecessor Hope Attrition (interview!) was heavier on the dark stuff, Legacies, musically at least, leaned into, well, the "good." But the more I listened to it, the more it grabbed me, to the point where I might not consider it to be a superior album to Hope, but as a worthy counterpart or even a kind of attached-at-the-hip sequel, a ying to it's yang. I'm listening to it right now, and it just keeps getting better.

78. Cryptae – Capsule (Sentient Ruin Laboratories) [2022] 

Say you're  driving down the highway and suddenly the traffic slows for no reason and you don't know what's what until you realize there's been a horrible accident on the opposite lane and you keep cursing out people's morbid curiosity and why can't people just drive eyes straight instead of getting caught in the freak show of human pain that's the voyeuristic peeping show of death. And then you pass the wreck yourself and you stare at all the jagged edges and the door bring slammed in, and the stretchers, and maybe even a stain of blood and time grinds to a halt and you can't take your eyes off of the bleeding disaster and at the same time can't stop wondering who those people were and how your own body would look like, limp and solid under a white sheet. And then the beeping commences behind you, and you realize you're holding up traffic. That sums up Capsule, i think. Ah, and the interview.

77. Victory Over the Sun – Dance You Monster To My Soft Song! (Independent) [2023]

I franky could have chosen every single one of Vivian Tylinska's unreal full-length releases, since they all represent not really stages of development but different and strange aspects of the creative nightmare that is Victory Over the Sun. But I chose Dance You Monster just because it might be the somewhat more underrated of the three (all relative terms, of course, the audience for microtonal experimental metal isn't the arena-sized behemoth you might thing it is), and because it feels like the best produced and, I guess, most well-rounded. But, again, they are all amazing and all sound like listening to the future.

76. Eyelet – The Devil Shining Out Your Eyes (Zegema Beach) [2020]

One of the best and most memorable screamo-esque releases thus far this decade, and one of my most listened-to albums of that span. There was a time in my life there in, say, the first half of 2021 that I could only listen to this. Understandable given how varied and atmospheric The Devil is, providing ample twists and turns without ever losing grip of that screamo heart and never really slipping into complete post-rock/territory. A fantastic album from a fantastic band.

75. Worm – Bluenothing (20 Buck Spin) [2022]

I could have, and perhaps should have, put Forevergalde here, because that's an amazing album and it's pretty across-the-board loved, and that would have been fine. But Bluenothing makes me feel like only a couple of albums have ever made me feel, and the Marty Friedman-worship that Phil Tougas pulls here is just too much for my Megadeth-nerd heart to take. The melodies are all-encasing, the riffs are unbearably heavy, and it all just sounds and feels too good. Almost too perfect for this world.

74. Defacement – Defacement (I, Voidhanger Records) [2021] 

The other day (in fact, this was yesterday), we had an air-raid siren go off at around 11PM. The wife took our two year-old, and it was up to me to wake up the ten-year old and pick up the six-year-old. My oldest is quite anxious, in general, and very anxious when it comes to war-related things (the question "We're not going to die tonight, right" has been asked many a times this past year). And so I was sure she'd basically shoot out of bed when the siren went off, but she didn't. In fact, it took me a whole while to wake her up, and even when she did you could tell she was so deeply asleep that she was kind of still out of it. So, sitting there (this is the building bomb shelter now), blinking awake, weirdly calm about a situation I know she would in any other time be petrified by), she just sat there, looking around. As if she found this middle place between being awake and being asleep, between life and death, that she was OK with. That middle place is what I feel when I'm listening to any Defacement album, but probably this one the most.

73. Biesy – Transsatanizm (Godz ov War Productions) [2020]

The Polish scene is so fascinating to me on the one hand and so weirdly inbred at the same time (at least the interesting parts of that scene seem to be) that it forces false comparisons sometimes. And the benchmark to which all weird Polish releases is going to be compared to, mine at least, is Odraza's  Esperalem tkane. However, that band went to a large extent away from the weirdness that made that album as magical as it was, and opted for a more straight-forward approach. Other bands, however, made sure to keep things weird. Transsatanizm thus became the new high-water mark of Polish experimental weirdness in the decade to come. It was ferocious when it needed to be, absolutely out there when it needed to be, and retained that sense of absolute artistic expression that makes the Polish scene as arresting as it is. Art that matters.

72. Papangu – Holoceno (Repose Records) [2021]

Creative, brilliant, and kind people who happen to be from Brazil have played a surprisingly significant part of my writing/listening life these past few years. To the point of me just, I don't know, loving Brazil now, despite never having been there and despite the fact that I actually just know around ten people and there's a good chance, as with all places, that I wouldn't hit it off with the rest of the **checks** 215 million people. And Holoceno as well as, naturally, Papangu have played a big role in that love affair. Music made by people who are obviously obsessed with music and art but seem far less concerned with what others might make of their own art. I think that's the best combination, one that leads to the creation of albums as refreshingly naive, open, and welcoming (as well as confusing and crushing) as this.

71. Emptiness – Vide (Season of Mist) [2021]

Belgium's Masters of "Making Riffs Melt into a Silly Pool of No Meaning"™ have a history of making mind-bending shit. Vide might not be my favorite Emptiness album, but it's sure a hell their most disturbing. Maybe because it hinges on the idea that in order to fuck one up one does not need to spray one with bullets or collapsing high-rise buildings but to go inside and think about the abnormal things that make up normal life. Vide is life not enhanced but played in a horrid slow motion that makes you realize just how beautiful and horrible everything actually is. Oh, and it makes you feel drunk (especially when reading interviews).

70. Sea Mosquito – Fire, Magic & Venom (Onism Productions) [2021]

English project/chemical-experiment-gone-horribly-wrong Sea Mosquito are without a doubt one of the strangest, most inspiring black-metal-esque things to have happened. And while their wonderful full-length album Igitur was indeed that – wonderful – there's something so unexpected and gripping about the wild drama and violence unleashed in Fire, Magic & Venom that it's impossible for me to resist putting it here. Nor should I have to resist, it's only me here. Who am I resisting? Anyhow, a must-listen journey into darkness.

69. Nubivagant – Roaring Eye (Amor Fati Productions) [2020]

The album that opened the door into the starlit, smokey, incense-stinky world of wondrous repetitiveness and incantation-like vocals that is Nubivagant. This album was a slow-ride love at first sight, and the privilage of seeing these tracks live and feeling their power and almost epic-doom-like quality just added a whole other layer of beauty. A unique project, and an unforgettable album.

68. Wake – Devouring Ruin (Translation Loss Records) [2020]

A monster made up of equal parts ferocity and melancholy, Devouring Ruin found Wake just as they were transitioning from the grindcore evisceration of their earlier releases to the most post-metal sound to come. It's here that they strike the perfect, Converge-like balance in which even the most violent parts feel heartfelt, and even the most atmospheric bits sound like they're about to burst with energy. Very few albums in this general vibe even come close to how perfect Wake are here, two of which being other members of this questionable list (see: Cave Sermon, Cloud Rat).

67. Cloud Rat – Threshhold (Artoffact Records) [2022] 

Cloud Rat's legacy as the grindcore band that is so fucking grinding that they transcend the genre into some weird plaid zone in which grinding still happens but you also miss your family and maybe weep a bit on the side is untouched. You'll mosh, you'll rage and yet an unending silence undercuts all, the kind you get from existentialist books or black and white films in a Northern European language. There was never any band like them, and there probably will never be anyone close to what they do. And there's probably an interview here somewhere too.

66. Sxuperion – Omniscient Pulse (Bloodymountain Records) [2020]

I could have honestly chosen any one of the many BMR projects, such as the brilliant Cabinet and Oreamnos, but Sxuperion and specifically this album has too much of a place in my almost-dead heart. Astral-projection death metal that sounds like what would happen if you plunked Drawing Down the Mood-style of weirdo production on a brutal-yet-spacey hunk of death metal, with glorious droning riffs and a manic vocal performance. Nothing like it, anywhere, which is also why there's an interview!

65. Skythala – Boreal Despair (I, Voidhanger Records) [2022] 

In the merging of classical, or, better said neo-classical impulses with extreme music, this brainchild of many children (Primeval Well, Vile Haint, Sunken Basilica, Sken Tension etc) is about as good as it gets. A delicate cake, the base of which is a very black metal sensibility and type of movement, and the top of which is toxic air made of slight dissonances. And it tastes, if you were wondering, absolutely horrible. That is, of course, if by "absolutely horrible" you mean "being dizzied into another world. I loved it, still love it, and there's a sizable interview about it and the other related projects.

64. Vastum – Inward to Gethsemane (20 Buck Spin) [2023]

An earlier version of this list didn't actually have this album, and I was on the fence about the whole thing. It was with the aid of revisiting it and some encouragement from friends (hey Theo) that turned the whole thing around. No, this is not my favorite Vastum album and, no, it wasn't really what I had hoped would come after their basically undefeated string of death metal masterpieces (including the one I interviewed them about). But, thing is, even when Vastum isn't really 100 percent there for me  it's still the best death metal band of the modern era, and one of the best ever. So, all things considered, it deserved to be here.

63. VoidCeremony – Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel (20 Buck Spin) [2020]

An album that sits well within the mold-breaking tradition of progressive, out-of-this-solar-system death metal along with a couple of other members of this questionable list (Afterbirth and Solipnosis come to mind). Astral bass lines, lunar riffing, astroid-studded vocals, and some of the most head-spinning, mind-changing twists and turns that somehow never diminish the absolute savage heaviness of the whole thing. A monument to artistic freedom while death metalling.

62. Genital Shame – Chronic Illness Wish (The Garrote) [2024]

I feel about this album kinda-sorta the way I felt about Lingua Ignota's Caligula when I first heard it and decided – even before it was officially released – that it was one of the greatest albums of the previous decade (thus this interview). That feeling has to do with saying to oneself "it really should be way too early to call this a classic but it feels like I'm listening to a seed of something that will only grow more and more in my mind until it forms an oak or a dandelion of beauty without which I cannot imagine my life." This is the definition of what music is for me – sprouting horror, mirroring horror and offering a strange sense of getting past it or at the very least living with it. The real deal.

61. Spectral Lore – 11 Days (Throne Records) [2023] 

Ayloss isn't an idle man. He makes music, that's what he does. I don't know if he eats or sleeps, I suppose he has to every now and again. But, what I do know is that making music is at the essence of who he is. And while the 2010s saw him focus mostly on his mothership project Spectral Lore, the 2020s were and are a time of incessant rediscovery and branching out, as evident in such projects as Mystras, Clarent Blade, Auriferous Flame, and others, all of which expand the palette of his black metal-based vision. And I love and appreciate those projects, to be sure, and certainly respect the desire for variety – that's the lifeblood of anything good in life. But, having said that, when he sits down and really focuses on the trunk of that family tree he is almost untouchable in terms of what he can do with that thing we call atmospheric black metal. I assume for many people the magnum opus of the 2020s so far from him would be his sprawling collaborative album with the great Mare Cogitum, Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine. And I get that. It has the scope and the magic that is the combination of those two visionaries of the craft. But 11 Days, to me, is the most focused and accomplished he's been in a very long time, and one of the most brilliant gems in his unreal jewelry box of sound and political sensibility.

60. Funeral Mist – Deiform (NoEvDia) [2021]

Impossibly, Funeral Mist have maintained their immaculate discography by effectively finding the experimental space that reveals itself when you don't do anything experimental at all. This is as orthodox as it gets, as straight-forward as it gets, as "gee Man, I guess I'm evil now!" as it gets. Zero irony, zero fuckey, zero bending the rules to see what comes out – nothing but black metal. And yet by supposedly repeating the pattern as tightly as they do, Funeral Mist somehow sound weirded and more experimental, and more intense than any conscious attempt to make black metal into some new shape or sound. It shouldn't work as well as it does, and yet here we are.

59. Choshech – A Journey into Silence (999 Cuts) [2024]

Music, like most art, is something that happens when nothing else works and the pressure keeps building until you might explode. And that's one way of looking at this incredible record, as a way to do something so as to not explode given the actually mental and an emotional impossibility of being a feeling person who lives in a painful place. But another thing music and art are is the train ride going the other way – the complete and utter desperation of any means of conveying anything, art included. That's also a good way of describing the aptly titled A Journey into Silence. Not as a means to showing art's ability to transcend personal (and in this case collective) pain, but just letting everything go into a puddle of almost nothing. Some of the best art ever is almost nothing. [Interview]

58. Ulthar – Providence (20 Buck Spin) [2020] 

Steve Peacock can do no wrong, and has done very little wrong with his little plot of crazy otherwise known as Ulthar. While he reserves some of his more genre-specific expression of his art elsewhere (speedy black metal with Spirit Posession, world-ending mindfuckery with Mastery, as just two examples), it seems that Ulthar is that maximalist nightmare that serves as a loose vessel for every gross sound or riff lodged into his sick mind. Complete freedom, complete artistic freakout, and utterly fascinating music from an impossibly gifted musician.

57. Extra Life – The Sacred Vowel (Independent) [2024]

Charlie Looker is such a weird fucker, seriously. At one and the same time the most annoyingly pretentious and knowingly talented people on earth. Which means he's a gift from the gods, and boy does he know it. But you know one other thing about Charlie Looker? He might put his pants on just like everyone else, but when his pants are on he makes jagged masterpieces and filth-filled, shamed-filled, frustration-crowded beauty that resemble in their seeming randomness and explicit brilliance something like what it's like to be human. To just any human, that job is left for others, but what it's like to try and outline the blurry, confusing definition of what the human ever is. Music for the 2022nd century, that will, then too, be ahead of its time.

56. Sermon of Flames – I Have Seen the Light and It was Repulsive (I, Voidhanger Records) [2021]

Rarely has music been as absolutely brutal as this and yet somehow – and I'm not clear on how – as beautiful as this. Death metal packed with noise packed with black metal packed with such a bizarre absolute disregard for any potential audience that it borders on contempt for said audience, and yet somehow some of the catchiest, most unforgiving music ever made.

55. The Ruins of Beverast + Mourning Beloveth – Don't Walk on the Mass Graves (Ván Records) [2020]

I loved The Thule Grimoires, but this release includes my favorite The Ruins of Beverast track of the decade (so far) along with an absolutely gut-wrenching, inspiring track from Mourning Beloveth. There isn't a whole lot of what could pass as "doom" on this list, for whatever reason, but this is not only one of the best doom releases in recent memory it's probably the best split in that time as well.

54. Inferno – Paradeigma (Phosphenes of Aphotic Eternity) (Debemur Morti Productions) [2021]

I guess this would count as my borderline edgy pick of the list. Not because I'm a edgy person – I think it's quite evident that I like to spend my time doused in grindcore and touchy-feely experimental music. But Inferno's 2021 black metal masterclass is where I guess one could say I dip my toes into the murky waters of **checks notes** scary music made by shadowy figures. Or something. Thing is, you can rationalize all you like about these things and consciously push stuff away, but when some weird magic takes hold of your skull you let it fucking happen. Paradeigma is one of those albums, a pool so cloudy and obscure you want to keep away but you end up drowning every time. Black metal magic.

53. Solipnosis – Clarividencia, Introspecci​ó​n, Retrospecci​ó​n (Shrine of the Silent Serpent Productions and Emanaciones Abisales) [2021]

One of two Chilean entries into these hallowed halls of music that scratches the weirdest itches, and, not unlike its companion (over at number 31) an expression of the progressive side to the almost bestial, percussive Chilean flavor. Which is to say, it's as nasty and as punchy as many of the wonderful bands that arid strip of land has gifted this earth, but also completely bat-shit-crazy insane, bursting with so many ideas it almost seems to overwhelm itself. I would challenge you to find anything like it – heavy, proggy, smart, dumb, and endlessly inspiring [interview].

52. Silver Knife – Unyielding / Unseeing (Amor Fati Productions) [2020]

Some of the best minds in "making you feel things through the misty swamp candy that is atmospheric black metal" converged in one place (or many places, who knows) and just randomly released one of the greatest examples of the genre of the whole decade. Minor chords plucked to tear-jerking, life-reflecting perfection, with some of the most dynamic, gut-bursting vocal performances one can hope to hear in this life. Also, as a side note, a leading candidate for "longsleeve of the decade" that tragically shrunk in the dryer and was thus temporarily used as my wife's maternity shirt when she was pregnant with our youngest. So, not only cool riffs but a belly filled with what turned out to be one cute kid and some love too.

51. Impetuous Ritual – Iniquitous Barbarik Synthesis (Profound Lore Records) [2023]

I love watching YouTube reaction videos and one of the GOATs of the genre, Lost in Vegas, said something very wise once, perhaps in the context of Megadeth (not sure, but pretty sure). The line was something like: "You don't have to know anything about basketball to see Michael Jordan highlights and realize you're seeing something great." And while that's not a completely true statement (because context is needed, always, at least to varying degrees), I find myself thinking that general idea when I listen to Impetuous Ritual. You'll press "play" like you would any album, that's just the reality of Internet-based music consumption/exploration. But what happens when you do isn't normal. And even as you put on your "what the fuck is actually going on?!" face, you know. You know what's going on, and you know it's incredible.

50. Chepang – Chatta – भुईचालो! (Nerve Altar) [2020]

A high water mark of contemporary grindcore, yes. That's true. But also one of the most creative and just flat-out weird albums of the decade so far and an endlessly inspiring listen, every time. You could, of course, argue it's too short. But my counter for that claim is that if Chatta is too short then maybe life is too long.

49. Malokarpatan – Krupinské ohne (Invictus Productions) [2020]

Pressing "play" on a Malokarpatan album isn't a choice one takes lightly. I mean, I could choose quite lightly to, say, listen to Grieving Birth because the point of listening to Grieving Birth is to eliminate that part of me that is human or thinking or feeling and reduce me to a thing of flesh and violence. To open up the portal of Malokarpatan is, on the other hand, is to step into a whole universe that feels alien, magical, and threatening. It's instantaneous, that feeling, of being sucked into another world, maybe even the lush forests of Slovakia, packed with demons, witches, and Iron Maiden-esque riffs. I don't press that button often, but when I do I'm suddenly thrown on a thing of hay and I smell like magic. Sometimes, often, I think Nordkarpatland is their masterpiece [and there's an interview about that one here]. But this might be the one.

48. Mortiferum – Preserved in Torment (Profound Lore Records) [2021]

I'm basically word-drunk making this list, so this might not make a whole lot of sense (what day is it?), but Mortiferum has yet to miss. They released a perfect demo (Altar of Decay, if you know, you know), a prefect debut Disgorged from Psychotic Depths (if you know. you know), and the prefect sophomore album in Preserved. Their compositions are so tight, their instrumentation so immaculate, and the oppressive atmospheres they create so, well, oppressive that I just wish we could all hang out and be friends. Are you reading this, Mortiferum? Will you be my friends? (I write this thinking of a very touching part of Celine's Journey to the End of the Night¹).

47. Verwoerd – The Mother (Argento Records / Wolves of Hades) [2024]

The "Utrecht sound" is something that has really taken over my consciousness at some point, also represented in one other astonishing album on this infernal list (infernal not for its content but for its very existence). And while it's always silly to sum up the sound of an entire city just because some bands happened to exist in it, there's something of a profound emotional and intellectually melancholy that seems to float like a dirty mist over a lot of the black metal that comes out of that quite pretty town. Verwoerd had already made a major (and quite sad) statement along those lines with their wonderful De Val. However, The Mother is a whole other level. Music for funerals, but not in the "this is how I want to be sent into the nether realm" sense but in the "I think I might be dead and surrounded by my loved ones" sense.

46. Ultha – All That Has Never Been True (Vendetta Records) [2023] 

That sound! I mean, just listen to that flood of, ah, sound. Like a mist slowly clearing the wet morning river, just as a fleet of viking ships burns some town to the right, and the pillar of smoke rises, and shifts with the wind to the left. And none of it has to do with rivers or even vikings, just emotions. But the sound is so big, and the instrumentation and performances so huge, you'd be excused to mistake this raid on the mind as a full-on raid on the body.

45. Predatory Light – Death and the Twilight Hours (20 Buck Spin) [2022]

That wing of black metal made up of reverb-packed sing-songy melodies that feel like the spiritual manifestation of heavy metal as filtered through medieval fantasy has its classics, for sure. Negative Plane's Stained Glass Reverberations, is probably THE masterpiece, but followed by other gems such as Malokarpatan's Nordkarpatland and, Spectral Lore's Gnosis and naturally, Funereal Presence's Achatius. You wouldn't expect to see Predatory Light on that list, but you would be wrong. An absolutely stunning album, and probably the best representation of said made-up tradition this decade thus far.

44. <Code> – Flyblown Prince (Karisma and Dark Essence Records) [2021]

I guess this would count for one of the few "legacy" bands on this list. But the "legacy" in question isn't just "keepin' on keepin' on," it's somehow, not sure how, maintaining the spirit of musical excellence and intellectual curiosity that marked <Code> as a legendary project basically from day one. If there ever was "a poetry reading black metal" in the very English sense, <Code> are and have always been the epitome of whatever that is. And Flyblown Prince, with its incessant drama and dynamic riffs, is a worthy gem in the crown of their achievement.

43. Trhä – rhejde qhaominvac tla aglhaonam​ë​c (Independent) [2023]

Much like Krallice (see further down the spiral), no real point in choosing anything. I was happy enough to get to have a meaningful conversation with Damian about his work, I'm happy I got to do that. I listen to his music and am often just amazed. There are instruments playing, that much is very true, a lot of what makes his music magic is the instruments and the singing, that's great. But what we creates once his pants are on (that skit will live in my brain forever) is golden moments of pure humanity, like a child crying or laughing. Like pure innocence and pure rage. How the fuck do you do that?

42. Gorrch – Introvertere (Duplicate Records) [2020]

There are a few slow climbers on this list, but Gorrch has to be one of the craziest ones. I mentioned it briefly when it came out, it came up in an interview with Defacement, they came up in the Nero di Marte interview, came up again when my friend Alex mentioned it (did you? I think you did), and I was like OK the fuck, I liked it too but what's all this hype? The hype is real. A truly sick and demented descent into a nihilistic nothingness where nothing grows and there is no light but somehow riffs exist.

41. Pyrrhon – Abscess Time (Willowtip Records) [2020]

It took me a bit of a while to "get it" with Pyrrhon. Maybe I was confused by, you know, all the confusing stuff – the blending of brutal death metal, experimental flourishes, and the prominent presence of an almost artsy noise rock sensibility that makes them sound like Wormed filtered through thick layers of Jesus Lizard and 80s Swans. But then I realized that, well, being confused was the whole thing, that you were along for the ride and decide what you thought of said ride moments after it hurled you to the ground and left your head banging. And that's where I not only started to appreciate, but truly love  Pyrrhon. If not for the music, which is amazing, but for the fact that they even exist.

40. Panopticon – The Rime of Memory (Bindrune Recordings) [2023]

Just when I was ready to count Panopticon as a modern legacy band (not that I had anything against their recent output, I don't really think they've released anything bad, just not anything glorious), here come the Austin Lunn Center for Emotional Expression Through Blast Beat Drumming™ and fucks it all up. Again. I actually think Austin and Co. used the previous few releases to learn and think, which is what all great artists do, only to come back with a greater sense of variety and amped sense of urgency and cohesion, including some truly sick doom metal. Doom metal Panopticon is here to stay, right? Right? Oh, and a great interview, promise. One of my faves.

39. Dola – Czasy (Pirhana Records) [2021]

If black metal was a lake at dusk then Czasy is a flash of lightning in the middle of the night, illuminating a bit of the lake, and disappearing into darkness as that image, now gone, has been marked into your soul. You look out into the dark and don't see the lake anymore, and yet it exists in the physical world out there, and more importantly it continues to linger as a dream in your soul. If you even made it this far in this description and have yet to throw up, this is the album you may have needed but never knew you needed.

38. Ŭkcheănsălâwit – Tekip​û​k (His Wounds) [2020]

A demo, I guess, but still one of the most unique, magical black metal releases of the last few years. I guess one way to describe its sound is What if Trhä was somehow even more in love with the cosmos but also simultaneously much more sad. Beautiful and raw, for my money it's the best they've ever done, despite having some great EPs and an album later on (and, apparently, no longer exist). Anyhow, I chose the original artwork that appeared on the tape since I like it more than whatever they did with this later on.

37. Antichrist Siege Machine – Purifying Blade (Profound Lore Records) [2021]

People think fucking shit up and murdering guitars is easy. It ain't easy. To make music that you can kind of say shit like: "I could play that shit!" is in fact one of the hardest things to do in existence, and even harder to make it as flawless and as flowing and as – yes – smart as this. There are other super-violent albums on this list, some of them higher than this one. But this is definitive metal at the highest levels of the art. Now shut your face and zip up my full-body leather rage suit.

36. Cult of Luna – The Long Road North (Metal Blade) [2022]

Having a classic album in three consecutive decades is a pretty wild achievement. They have it in the 2000s (take your pick, but probably Eternal Kingdom or Salvation), they have it in the 2010s (Vertikal, of course, interview here), and now they have one in the 2020s. The Long Road North isn't just another fantastic CoL album, it's one of their best ever, and it mines and expands on that eerie, unearthly part of their sound that I'm not so sure has ever been duly explored. A lot of credit in that goes to the brilliant idea of having Colin Stetson on the album, whose echoy, haunting broken melodies turned the Swedish masters in a distinctly more bleak and almost abstract direction.

35. Demoniac – So it Goes (Edged Circle Productions) [2021]

I don't like to talk in terms of "definitive" because I always end up looking bad, but if there was a definitive "thrash" album of the 2020s, then so far it's this one. Not even trying to redo anything that's been done, So it Goes is that rare thing that leans heavily on a certain tradition while making anything else made in that tradition patently obsolete. An ambitious, creative-almost-to-a-fault masterpiece of rage and emotion.

34. Forlesen – Hierophant Violent (Hypnotic Dirge Records) [2020]

A love affair of many chapters began when I first listened to this drop-dead gorgeous, somber, etherial-yet-crushing piece of music wonderment and love. They have since released a whole other album (with another on the way), a split, donated a beautiful Type O Negative cover to our most recent (and last?) compilation, and just in general have done it all right. But just like every opening of any album is judged against how I felt when I first heard the opening to "Blackened" thus I shall forever think of this slow- burn-out-of-hell when I think of "Following Light." Like air, if air was heartbreak and screaming. And yes, and interview!

33. Messa – Close (Svart Records) [2022]

I left this space (the one for text) blank for the longest time while editing other parts of this list, just because I couldn't manage putting into words what this album has done for me and to me over the years.  You put this on when everything seems senseless and you allow yourself to be taken atop the crest of the wave that is Sara's tidal-force of a voice until you both accept your fate and feel sorrow for all mankind. It's not an album, it's a study in pain and beauty.

32. Afterbirth – Four-Dimensional Flesh (Unique Leader Records) [2020]

Before getting to the music – did I or did I not add a hyphen to the album title? I did in fact do that. Apologies. The more important part about this album is that it's probably the most brutal, convoluted, gut-punching, brilliant, muddy, weird, and eviscerating death metal album of the bunch. And as an added bonus, it's as entertaining as all hell, all while killing you.

31. Defeated Sanity – The Sanguinary Impetus (Willowtip Records) [2020]

Death metal so creative, so intricate, so intelligent, and so motherfucking brutal that it transcends its own gross roots and turns into something like meditation music for people with ADHD. I'm no brutal connoisseur, but there sure are bands that strike that sweet spot between idiocy and Yehudi Menuhin-levels of craft and skill – Wormed, Origin, etc – that is just boggles the mind. I can see this album being number one of lists similar to mine (if anyone is dumb enough to make one, of course). A three-Michelin- Star meal of deconstructed metal and duck blood. I should probably stop writing.

30. Dødheimsgard – Black Medium Current (Peaceville Records) [2023] 

I can float on the dark Dødheimsgard undercurrent my whole life. On the one hand it's an album – much like Vemod's later down the list – devoid of any single pointy peak. A rhizomatic² album, if you will. But that peakless flatland or web of horizontal interconnections eventually grabs a hold on you – who am I kidding with this "eventually," it's immediate – and drowns you in your own blood like a python of musical emotion and dread.

29. Krallice – Porous Resonance Abyss (P2) [2023]

There isn't a point of picking a Krallice album here because they're all great and also somewhat weirdly always getting better. I look at a Krallice album cover and all I see is love and the absolutely incessant and dogged attempt to push forward. But, if I had to pick one it would probably be Porous Resonance Abyss, but that's probably not right. I think it might be, though. It might. Who knows. Listen to Krallice, that is all. Oh, and there's an interview too, yes.

28. 夢遊病者 – Noč Na Krayu Sveta (Sentient Ruin Laboratories) [2021]

This is not a time in my life in which I can stay objective about matters of the heart and matters of the sound. Nor will I ever be accused of "objectivity" in whatever it is that I pursue in this car-puke of a website. But I just can't even attempt that fake shit here. Sleepwalker is the music of the soul, is music that is soul, and is probably closer (perhaps along with the next entry) to music so extreme and so original that it somehow approaches the frames of folk. Folk in the deeper sense, in the idea of a music emerging from the ground up. You might say "Whatever ground emits 夢遊病者 must be some fucked ground," to which I would say: "Have you ever stepped on un-fucked ground?" 

27. Plebeian Grandstand – Rien ne suffit (Debemur Morti Productions) [2021]

When I make that common yet human mistake of putting music on a pedestal that's usually a recipe for certain death and disappointment. Except in some very elite company (Yellow Eyes, say), me adoring your shit automatically sets the clock for future despair. Plebeian Grandstand made matters much worse by taking as long as they did to release a follow up to their decade-defining masterpiece, False Highs, True Lows, only further ramping up whatever insane expectations I had. And then they come out and just casually released another decade-defining masterpiece, one that, I suspect, will only grow in influence and importance until whenever it is they decide to change everything up, again.

26. Grey Aura – Zwart Vierkant (Onism Productions) [2021]

It would be a cliche I think to discuss an album revolving around the theme of modern art in terms of modern art, but I'm probably not going to be alive much so cliche it is. Every riff is an angle, every scream a strange line, with drumming that more than nods at jazz (some of those fills, I fucking swear). When I think of this album I think of a pretty shitty time in our lives when we had to move to my sister in law's because my kids were too spooked by air-raid sirens. But somehow that doesn't tarnish how I feel about this record – that it's one of the most unique, creative and beautiful black metal albums ever. Lucky I interviewed them about it!

25. Carcinoma – Labascation (Rat King Records) [2021]

There's a class of albums I listen to in order to get my mind straight or pick me up. Funnily enough, and yet not quite surprisingly, none of those albums are what you would call "feel-good" in the common sense. I can't tell you how many times Domination picked me up from the metaphysical urinal floor of life, for instance. Or, conversely Abyssal's Antikatastaseis. Of, and every Skáphe ever. Well, add Labascation to that select and horrid list. Is it the pyroclastic-cloud riffing? It might. Is it the "I'm falling into a well of demons" vocal performance? Is it the crystal-clear drums that not only pin you down but provide artistic and emotional grace? Perhaps. Whatever it is, Labascation is extreme metal at its best: dominating, intimidating, and suffocating enough to break you down and just weird to make you believe again.

24. Liturgy – 93696 (Thrill Jockey Records)[2023]

In the grand mathematics of being, along the illuminated, God-kissed illusion of linearity, every new Liturgy album is the best Liturgy album. The fantastic thing about that already fantastical statement is that the starting-off point was so weirdly high to begin with. And yet, despite the absolute brilliance of Liturgy's earlier experimentations with black metal and/or what makes black metal angry, the Hunter-Hendrix-led troupe (interviewed here) has incessantly fine-tuned their sound while always shifting into uncomfortable new places. 93696 finds them both at their most cohesive (Liturgy discovers taking a fucking break every once in a while!) and ambitious. I can't fathom how they will be able to top this, but they'll find a way.

23. Neptunian Maximalism – Éons (I, Voidhanger Records) [2020]

What is the use of life if you can’t make a two-hour-eight-minute monstrosity of improvised chaos that feels like soundtracking a movie with no plot and super-fuzzy editing that also feels like no time has passed the world has not change, the trees are still trees, but you yourself have changed into something you both fear and admire? No point. An album that isn't really an album, more like souls being emitted from their shells and taking on strange, frightening, and fascinating shapes. I was lucky enough to interview those shapes once. 

22. Serpent Column – Endless Detainment (Mystískaos) [2020]

I had to choose one release that encapsulates whatever the fuck it is Serpent Column/Theophonos did to my soul, and I guess I'm going with this one, despite the fact that all of the albums/EPs that had come under either name/project is basically brilliant. The essence is, of course, rage. You can think about it like those YouTube clips of people eating shit that's way too spicy – Serpent Column is the essence of spicy, not diluted in any way. But I think that here, as elsewhere (a good example is Mirror in Darkness, which is the subject of this interview), there's just enough melody and, I don't know, an almost post-hardcore kind of surging energy that makes the harsh parts even harsher, and also prettier.

21. 40 Watt Sun – Little Weight (Fisher's Folly) [2024]

Patrick Walker is an internal organ in my body, which is weird because I don't usually interview my organs. I have a liver, I'm pretty sure I have a heart (checks pulse), and I know for damn sure I have a gut. And somewhere, nestled between my those ingredients there's a part of me that links that nasty web (evident on the artwork of Apex Profane) and that somehow elevates its nastiness into the sense of laying back on some grass, looking at the clouds (it's a little known fact that clouds automatically manifest as soon as your hear Walker's voice, the grey kind), and reflect on all the stupid and beautiful shit that makes you you. Naturally, Walker isn't singing about me, that would be dumb, he's singing for and to himself. But in those sacred seconds you feel him channeling away everything, the beauty, the horror, into one cohesive and melancholy whole. This is by far his best album since The Inside Room, and probably, if I'm fair, since Watching from a Distance.

20. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media Records) [2024]

Death metal isn't really an uplifting genre, as a whole. Where thrash metal tells you "the man is screwing you over and also btw aliens" and black metal tells you "the trees are actually your friends and/or Norse gods and btw did you notice the Jews?" death metal is the reality of the flesh (and the power it holds) as it rots and leaves you in a world without sense or meaning, only bones and, as they so oh so love to say – "viscera." Blood Incantation were never a meat-and-potatoes death metal band in that way, always looking to the stars for inspiration while, presumably, their flesh rots off their bones, etc. etc. That's exactly what made Starspawn (interview here) such a special album. Absolute Elsewhere is that rare album in that genre that transcends that limited view of, well, everything and hurls you not into a star-gazing position but into the actual stars. A work of art that sends you away and makes you wish, when it's over, that you were still there. Instead of being here, all sticky and rotty. In that way, in my mind, this album is closer in spirit/feel to a band like Morbus Chron or Horrnedous than it is to anything out-right proggy.

19. Ch'ahom – Knots of Abhorrence (Sentient Ruin Laboratories) [2023]

Maybe it's the quiet deception of an abstract cover art, or the multi-layered, dynamic quality of the music itself, but as much as I adore this album I completely forget how fucking ruthless it is. Equal parts Black Curse-like insanity and spiritual, dare I say "progressive," drug-taking, Knots of Abhorrence is one of the most unique and, yes, throat-slitting releases of the young-ish decade and a masterstroke of fucking shit up in style.

18. Vemod – The Deepening (Prophecy Productions) [2024]

Sometimes your door lock doesn't work, and it's still morning, and you have the somehow get three kids to their pre/school not being able to either lock or unlock the door and you call your mom last minute and she comes in and then you manage to get everyone to those dear places they need to be, and you hug them very hard before they go, even though you're in a rush because you still need to get back home and fix your life, because it's that kind of life we lead here, the life of hoping this isn't the last time you see your kid, or that this moment, rushed and ordinary as it is, might be your last happy moment together, one you might want to hold onto, and then you manage everything, you thank your mom for her trouble, you appreciate her as well (though you don't say that as much as you do), and the lock guy comes and he's a decent dude and you talk about your flavor of concentrated fruit drink for whatever reason (apple) and the door locks fine, and you go grocery shopping, and you set everything in its place and you get a message that you might want to talk to this or that publisher since there's a chance your next book will get a press, and it's fine. The air-con is on, and it's just fine. Life is OK, as in that precious, singular unreal treasure of having an OK day. That's this Vemod album.

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17. Kaatayra – Inpariquipê (Mospharic / Repose Records) [2021]

I mean, keeping it real and all, Caio is a dear friend and a wonderful soul, as well as being one of the very first interviewees in my music-appreciation series. But aside from him being a dear friend and a wonderful soul he also just so happens to be one of the most brilliant creative minds working in any media at any given time. He could, if he so chose, rip your fucking head off with black metal that kicks and bites, and is more prone to do that in his electronic-based black metal project, Brii. But as time goes by he seems less interested in doing that and more in getting to the particle level of sound, to the quantum physics of the soul, where everything changes, is deceptive, and never what it seems. Fluid magic.

16. Portal – Avow (Profound Lore Records) [2021]

In Portal’s newest release the Australian legends remain the world’s scariest band. It’s just that they’re scary for different reasons. Gone (well, almost) are the waterfalls of crooked riffs only to be replaced by waterfalls of crooked riffs that are so abstract and noise-like that they sound like what it might be like to listen to a real-life disaster. And yet Portal, like their cousins in Impetuous Ritual, have the magic touch that creates pyroclastic clouds of nothing sound like music played by a band. Somehow. The more I listen to this monster the higher it climbs the ridiculous ladder that is Portal's discography.

15. Internal Rot – Grieving Birth (Iron Lung Records & 625 Thrashcore) [2020] 

Very few albums have done pure chaotic violence better than Grieving Birth. And in fact, judging from the albums that I placed higher than it on this truly idiotic list, it ranks in my mind as the best "pure" grindcore album of the decade so far, and one that stands as one of the true bona-fide grindcore masterpieces of all time, alongside albums like The Inalienable Dreamless or The Blind Hole. Add to that fact that this came out the same year as Faceless Burial's incredible Speciation (Max Kohane appears in both, vocals and drums, respectively) and it just becomes even more unreal. A masterpiece of world-ending music.

14. Bríi – Último Ancestral Comum (Flowing Downward) [2023]

Caio Lemos, as we have already established, could vomit on my children and it would somehow still form some trailblazing new form of artistic expression, later to be released on tape via Flowing Downward. I'm a fan, what can I say, and there's very little reason for me to stop being a fan when he insists on releasing increasingly more, ah, good music. He's already elsewhere on this list, but where the wonderful Kaatayra has gone further and further into the metaphysical jungle of experimental heaven, Bríi has slowly become Lemos' Orpheus, jumping into hell carrying the instruments of the divine.

13. Aeviterne – The Ailing Facade (Profound Lore Records) [2022]

You put on The Ailing Facade because you want to vibe with something that feels abstract and menacing (this also goes to this album spiritual’s sibling, Luminous Vault’s Animate the Emptiness), and eventually, not unlike other fuzzed-out, crushing musical experiences, break down crying and/or mean-mugging the sky. An avalanche of emotion and deceptive simplicity that was one of my albums of the year of 2022, which resulted in this wonderful discussion/interview with Ian. 

12. Kostnatění – Oheň ho​ř​í tam, kde padl (Mystískaos) [2022]

This choice, of course, doesn’t really make sense. It’s basically a longish EP of Turkish folk music filtered through the simple filter of D.L.’s mind and hands (both featured in this big-ass interview). But that filter, like a carpaccio of made of human brain slices, includes in its slippery borders some of the most twisted-yet-human roadmaps of creativity known to have existed or that will exist. And so, this release is really the answer to a question: What happens when a genius brain carpaccio tries to do a simple thing? It does this.

11. Skáphe – Sk​á​phe³ (Mystískaos) [2020]

Skáphe has changed the way I view the world with every release, and that's not hyperbole, just a fact. Every time you think (maybe I) that your soul has been refreshed with enough creativity and malice you then encounter a new Skáphe album and realize you know nothing. Out of the much-too-many Albums of the Decade Interviews, the part from my conversation with Alex Poole about Sk​á​phe² where he describes the meandering bass line on Soundgarden's "Limo Wreck" is one of the more illuminating and inspiring art-related morsels I have ever been fed. Irregardless, a timeless project by a timeless artists and another timeless album.

10B. Scarcity – Aveilut (The Flenser) [2022]

Aside from the fact that the interview I did with Brendan and Doug for this album is one of my favorite, and that they are without a doubt one of my favorite humans who happen to be musicians in the world, this is the sound of the human attempting to reassemble itself into human form, almost successfully. I guess that makes it the Wallace Stevens of metal albums. The poem must resist the intellect, almost successfully. The thing is that might be one of the hardest things to do, ever. To attempt to build something and to in fact succeed in said building through an utter failure to complete the task. 

10A. Scarcity – The Promise of Rain (The Flenser) [2024]

The two Scarcity albums seems inseparable to me, so this placing does not necessarily mean that The Promise is a better album than Aveilut, though, it truth it might. What it does mean is that I think Brendon Randall-Myers is doing to black metal or, shall we say, black-metal-like music is taking the kind of approach a composer would to either a symphony or a body of work. In the same way that in any ususal album, or any good one, the one track is never the statement but the piece as a whole, whole albums aren't the one statement for Scarcity but part of an yet-to-be-completed whole that will only become clear when either Scarcity or BRM stops (good health to both). The sunlit hill that is The Promise is then only understood when still connected to the dark valley that Aveilut was, which, by the way, is also why Scarcity as a project, as an entity, is as high up the list as it is. All we can do really is postpone our sense of getting any kind of meaning any time soon and thank whomever it is to be thanked that Scarcity exist.

9. Black Curse – Endless Wound (Sepulchral Voice Records) [2020]

Let's be brutal, for a few seconds. I don’t know if this counts as war metal. Does it? I don’t actually care. I don’t know if this is death metal. Is it? Who knows. It’s not black metal, is it? Oh, I know what it is – I’m being a silly boy – it’s one of the greatest, most beautifully articulated expressions of human violence, ever. The performances are perfect, the production is perfect, the songs are so violent and short that you could be led to believe they were somehow easy to write to make or whatever, but reveal themselves to be endlessly fascinating moments, fleeting as they may be, of musical mastery. A modern classic of metal music.

8. Kali Malone – Living Torch (Portraits GRM) [2022]

Kali Malone to me is as if György Ligeti recorded a 2000s Ulver album. Ligeti because I feel scared and alone and yet somehow still held by a warm entity that doesn't reassure more as much as it just holds me – held – through a maze of disorienting and alienating spaces. And Ulver because it does do under the deceptively simple veneer of slow-moving, glacial sounds. For my money she has yet to compose a whole second of bad music, and Living Torch might just be a personal preference, but personal preferences reign supreme – and Kali Malone is its queen.

7. Turia – Degen van Licht (Eisenwald) [2020]

Putting this album on is like pressing a "I'm going to be OK button" somewhere, not sure where. Maybe in the magical keyboard of the mind – "(Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.)"² – while being held over a cliff. The cliff is steep, the fall is harsh, but you won't fall. You'll just, for a moment, feel released of a burden and also very afraid (it's a fucking cliff).

6. Miasmatic Necrosis – Apex Profane (Goatgrind Records) [2020]

I have this running gag/serious theory according to which I consider grindcore to be a brand of modern classical music. It’s an issue I have raised both in my interview with Discordance Axis as well as with Orchid. Pretty sure it also came up with my interview with Ian, who’s temporal force is a big part of what makes this record (and another one in this list, down below) as massive as it is. Well, listening to Miasmatic Necrosis is nothing like listening to classical music. If anything, it’s like zombies eating the orchestra while it tunes its instrumnets. A world of only disgust and brute force that is in fact so brutal and gross that, somehow, it transcends itself and turns into timeless art. 

5. Ustalost – Before the Glinting Spell Unvests (Gilead Media) [2021]

My love for all things Skarstad has really overtaken just the music aspect of things, in a way that is reserved to the best art in my life. I love their music and I love the way their music makes me feel, whether it’s through the pillar of life that is Yellow Eyes (interview here), the perfect melancholy of Patriot Sunrise Motion, or through Yellow Eyes' spiritual offshoot in Ustalost. But Ustalost, at least this most recent album from Will’s side of the family (yet still very much a family affair), is one of the best out of the whole bunch. If there ever was an album that feels like the sun setting on your life, a moment of both end and splendor, it is surely this masterpiece of painful brilliance.

4. Suffering Hour – The Cyclic Reckoning (Profound Lore Records) [2021]

Suffering Hour is like a flame that melts metal music like a piece of cheap wax, allowing it to bend into surprising, and often startling, new shapes. Suffering Hour is the fog that prevents you from seeing your family standing right there, but allows you to feel their warmth. Suffering Hour is the moon that blocks the sun – which kind of sucks because sunlight is great – but that also allows you to see those wicked tongues of fire lashing out from its burning center. The Cyclic Reckoning is Suffering Hour doing all that. And it isn’t even their best record. Imagine that. 

3. Fleshvessel – Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed (I, Voidhanger Records) [2023] 

Fleshvessel’s tour de force is perhaps an unintentional hymn to absolute fantasy. For some, absolute fantasy is a dragon taking a dump of gold on a hairy gnome (forgive the detail, I am not versed in this field). But to me fantasy is a much more earthly thing, and involves humans trying to think themselves out of their own humanity and, in doing so, anchoring themselves that much firmly into their own humanity. For, what is more human than trying to quit that shit? The miracle that is that balancing act is the miracle of this album (I interviewed them about it here). Both human and more human than human.

2. Ad Nauseam – Imperative Imperceptible Impulse (Total Dissonant Worship / Avantgarde Music) [2021]

Much has been said of dissonant death metal and whether it’s actually dissonant (hey Calder). That’s fine. Imperative Imperceptible Impulse may, in fact, not be dissonant at all. What it is, however, is the gold standard of that form of meandering with distorted strings and freaky drumming in this decade thus far, and to me a likely candidate for one of the best death metal albums to have ever been recorded, dissonant or not. It’s wild, yes, and if you actually stop and take notice of what’s happening you will probably get a tumor inside your brain. But much like most masterpieces of any kind, the complexity isn’t the main focus, though a prominent feature, but just how fucking catchy that weird shit becomes. The White Album of taking music apart. 

And you know what, I just thought of something and I feel like it fits here, though it might be applicable elsewhere as well. When I was a kind I remember seeing Fred Astair dancing on the ceiling in The Royal Wedding on TV.  We didn't have a whole lot of TV to watch back then, and oldies (M*A*S*H, 50s Woody the Woodpecker cartoons, etc.) were very much part of the diet. And I remember seeing him dance like he does, beautifully, and then just effortlessly dancing on the walls and then on the ceiling and its just floored me (pun very much intended). I always wonder about where it was that I decided that unexpected, dramatic left turns were a thing I enjoy in the art I read/view/observe/create, and it just occurred to me – mostly because I hadn't even thought of that scene for so many years – that that moment encapsulates so much of what appears on this list. Sometimes its just weird. But sometimes, as is, I think, the case with Imperative Imperceptible Impulse and others albums on this list, it isn't just that you've entered the nether regions of an emotional inferno, it's that you never expected to arrive where you did given where you started. Dancing on the floor, dancing on the walls, and dancing on the ceiling.

1. Sweven – The Eternal Resonance (Ván Records) [2020]

There really isn’t a point about writing about this album anymore, at least not for me. A favorite album isn’t just about how good it is, though it is naturally about that as well, but about a fusing that takes place between that great album and your life. The Eternal Resonance has, simply put, inserted itself into my life, into how I see the world, and into how I love my family, into how I find immediate comfort when I'm alone in a strange city, and when I dance with my two-year old in the living room. As such it isn’t just one of the most singular artistic achievements of this decade but, for me, one of the greatest albums of all time, and probably better than a lot of the albums I grew up idolizing. And is there an interview, you ask? Yes, there indeed is. Music that not only emanates from the soul, but emerges from the kind of soul that needs to get it right before it fully explodes into other minds.

Notes

¹ "Good, admirable Molly, if ever she reads these lines in some place I never heard of, I want her to know that my feelings for her haven't changed, that I still love her and always will in my own way, that she can come here any time she pleases and share my bread and furtive destiny. If she's no longer beautiful, hell, that's all right too! We'll manage. I've kept so much of her beauty in me, so living and so warm, that I've plenty for both of us, to last at least twenty years, the rest of our lives." Louis-Ferdinand Céline (a very talented piece of human shit), Journey to the End of the Night (1932).

² Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980).

³ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), 4«