OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 6

This is Part 6 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

Yesterday’s installment in this list was all Finland. Today, it’s all made in the U.S.A. (in fact, it’s all made in Ohio). I also decided to feature the songs from these two bands today because it’s New Year’s Eve. Even if you’re not planning to get obliterated tonight, the end of the year still deserves something suitably apocalyptic for your ears — something evil, something blasphemous, something that sounds like the skies are burning, but something that also makes you want to party hard, even if you’re just partying with yourself in your mind. So, here we go:

SKELETONWITCH

Forever Abomination made a slew of the year-end Best Album lists we’ve published at NCS so far. For example:  DECIBEL magazine wrote that “the band cranks up the black metal and coherently manages to amalgamate all their various influences as they rampage through one concise, blistering track after another.” Andy Synn called it “a game-changing creation of abominable power”, “as flawless a thrash record as we have seen this year”, and “as vehement a black metal album as any released by the traditional set” (and you can read Andy’s full NCS review from September here). Rev. Will called it “my black thrash metal album of 2011”.

No doubt, Forever Abomination will be remembered as the album when Skeletonwitch got their shit completely together, producing a razor-edged riff machine that’s distinctive, dangerous, and memorable. But as good as the album is, from start to finish, one song stood out as the most infectious — and we think it’s one of the most infectious extreme metal songs of the year.

That song is “The Infernal Resurrection”. To crib from Andy’s review: “Unashamedly grandiose and ambitious, the track packs a huge array of variety into its compact run-time, skin-walking between majestic melody and monstrous fury as it smoothly shifts form and function. The group have managed to make a song that feels so much greater and grander than anything they have achieved before . . . .”

“The Infernal Resurrection”

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/06-The-Infernal-Resurrection.mp3|titles=Skeletonwitch – The Infernal Resurrection]

MIDNIGHT

Midnight’s first full-length album Satanic Royalty is another record that has appeared on many year-end lists we’ve seen. I discovered it fairly late in the year (initially through an NCS reader recommendation), after having missed the various splits, EPs, and comps that preceded it in Midnight’s discography. But I got into it pretty fuckin fast. In many ways, it’s a total throwback to Venom-era black metal, but maybe it’s because it’s such a long toss backward that it sounds so goddamned fresh and invigorating.

The album serves up a fair amount of variety within its raw, feral ambit, but the faster-paced songs that call forth that wicked amalgam of blasphemous punk and thrash are the ones that stand out for me. There’s garage-band roughness and an alcoholic fury in the air when you listen to them, and you can’t help but get carried away by the mayhem of the riffage, the molten solos, and the whiskey-abraded, venom-spurting vocals.

Satanic Royalty includes a bunch of infectious, mosh-worthy tracks, but I settled on “Rip This Hell”, with “Shock ‘Til Blood” a close second. This makes for a nice New Year’s Eve anthem. Turn the shit up loud and prepare to run into something:

“Rip This Hell”

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/03-Rip-This-Hell.mp3|titles=Midnight – Rip This Hell]