As part of our annual NCS LISTMANIA extravaganza we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites that appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unwashed masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.
One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that “is broadly cast on all things pop culture”, including “music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”.
As in past years, today PopMatters published a list of “The Best Metal of 2017” under the by-lines of Dean Brown and Spyros Stasis (in previous years the list was compiled by Adrien Begrand), although Dean Brown explains in his introduction that the “list is a collaborative effort by writers with different tastes”, whose names are identified in the commentary accompanying each selection.
There are again 20 albums on the PopMatters list, as follows:
20. Cloak: To Venomous Depths (Season of Mist)
19. Mastodon: Emperor of Sand (Reprise)
18. Succumb: Succumb (The Flenser)
17. Ex Eye: Ex Eye (Relapse)
16. Royal Thunder: WICK (Spinefarm)
15. Spirit Adrift: Curse of Conception (20 Buck Spin)
14. Elder: Reflections of a Floating World (Armageddon Record Shop)
13. Aosoth: V: The Inside Scriptures (Agonia)
12. Power Trip: Nightmare Logic (Southern Lord)
11. Code Orange: Forever (Roadrunner)
10. Akercocke: Renaissance in Extremis (Peaceville)
9. Enslaved: E (Nuclear Blast)
8. Dodecahedron: Kwintessens (Season of Mist)
7. Spectral Voice: Eroded Corridors of Unbeing (Dark Descent)
6. Endon: Through the Mirror (Hydra Head)
5. Rebirth of Nefast: Tabernaculum (Norma Evangelium Diaboli)
4. Pyrrhon: What Passes for Survival (Willowtip)
3. Converge: The Dusk in Us (Deathwish)
2. Pallbearer: Heartless (Profound Lore/Nuclear Blast)
1. Bell Witch: Mirror Reaper (Profound Lore)
Compared to PopMatters lists in previous years, this one strikes me as much more devoted to extreme and underground music from a much larger group of bands that aren’t household names outside of metal (or even inside it) — perhaps you’ll remember that last year’s list named Metallica’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct as the year’s best album (as just one example of what I was referring to), and one that seems less geared toward appealing to the site’s very broad audience base.
I’m especially happy to see my friends in Seattle’s Bell Witch snag the No. 1 spot on the list, but equally happy to see more than a dozen other names here whose albums I also think are worthy of high praise.
For fun, I compared this list to the earlier Top 40 list from DECIBEL (which I re-posted here), since these are the first two lists from prominent zines or “big platform” web sites I’ve seen this season. I found 11 overlaps between the two lists: Pyrrhon, Power Trip, Cloak, Akercocke, Enslaved, Dodecahedron, Bell Witch, Converge, Spectral Voice, Spirit Adrift, and Pallbearer. On the other hand, the rankings are different — Pallbearer is the only band whose album appears in the Top 5 of both lists, and the other four in DECIBEL’S Top 5 aren’t on the PopMatters list at all.
So, with that, I’ll turn this over to you for your reactions in our Comment section.
21 Responses to “LISTMANIA 2017: THE POPMATTERS LIST OF “THE BEST METAL OF 2017””
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“Bell Witch? That’s laughable! Gorguts put out the best METAL album this year – don’t deny it. Stop trying to be different – you’re only appealing to hipsters. Have fun with that. I thought i’d found a credible metal music site to frequent. Apparently not – laters!”
SO IT BEGINS
Oh gawd… here we go again…
The best album of 2017 is, as always, 2012’s Periphery II. No contest.
pfft, everyone knows its Gojira’s Sea Shepherd EP
no clouds?
😀
Bell Witch has got to be the most boring band on the planet. I’m sorry, I actually bought “Four Phantoms” and have tried as hard as I could to force myself to like it, but it’s meandering and narcolepsy inducing to my ears. The new album was no different. Someone out there must like these guys, but I don’t understand why.
Probably not the best comment to follow then, since I picked “Four Phantoms” as one of the best albums of 2015, and nothing since then has made me regret that decision.
They will have a very hard time topping that one. For a bunch of reasons, it’s their pinnacle in my mind. Yet I admire what they’ve done with this new one too.
I can only surmise that your reaction is a function of your own particular musical yearnings, as my own is. I don’t want “Four Phantoms” all the time, but for certain times, it’s exactly the right thing, and peerless for what it does.
I agree. They bore the crap out of me, sadly.
More Pallbearer? weird.
not a terrible list….although putting that Bell Witch at number one is odd, I mean not a bad album to space out to after taking some codeine cough syrup, but then again that Aosoth pick gives me hope! is it just me, or is that new Akercocke boring as shit….IMHO. I think the 2 Oranssi Pazuzu e.p.’s released here in 2017 deserve a place on any list…..just saying. \,,,/ (- -) \,,,/
Yeah I’m gonna have to agree. That Akercocke album was quite underwhelming
Aosoth, Spectral Voice, Rebirth of Nefast and Bell Witch…
This must have come from the part of the collaboration that actually knows what it’s talking about
Happy to see Dodec get such a high spot. I loved it when it came out, and I’ve been revisiting it just in the past few days and I still do.
Though for that whole “utterly inhospitable skronk metal” genre, I think John Frum leads the pack this year. Even over Dodec, Ulsect and Pyrrhon.
No Hypergiant. Fail.
Hypergiant is great, but I don’t expect to see it on a lot of top lists. It deserves it, but it’s a little too unknown, I think.
No Primitive Man? After seeing all the hype their new album got, I am kinda surprised.
Well, its an odd list to be sure, but there are some highlights. That Dodecahedron album rips and I’m glad it’s getting recognition.
I refuse to believe we are already at this time of year.