Here’s another entry in the part of our annual LISTMANIA orgy where we re-post lists of metal from “big platform” web sites and print zines — the kind of places that get a lot more eyeballs on them than festering little metal-only hovels like ours.
To justify our selection of Noisey for this part of the series, consider these statistics: Noisey is the on-line music channel of Vice Media, which began as a Montreal-based print magazine in 1994 and has expanded into a global media presence. Noisey was started in 2011 and now has 1,285,404 Facebook followers and (according to this site) receives about 966,500 unique visitors and 1,411,090 page views per day.
About one week ago Noisey published its staff’s list of “The Best 100 Albums of 2017“, but due to my ongoing vacation, I overlooked it until today. By my count, 8 of those albums are metal (down from 10 last year). Six of those appear to have made the list as a result of recommendations by Noisey editor Kim Kelly, whose by-line appears on the mini-reviews that accompany those 6 picks. The other two, by Yellow Eyes and Power Trip, are accompanied by different writers’ by-lines.
For those of you who have the time and inclination to listen to genres of music other than metal, you might find some things worth exploring by reading the entire Noisey Best 100 list (here) (I, for example, made the happy discovery that Jason Isbell released a new album this year). What I’ve done is extracted the metal titles from the list, along with where they appear in the ranking — and here they are:
95. Woe – Hope Attrition
81. Sunrot – Sunnata
77. Yellow Eyes – Immersion Trench Revery (Colin Joyce)
73. Primitive Man – Caustic
36. Power Trip – Nightmare Logic (another author)
32. Ragana – You Take Nothing
22. King Woman – Created in the Image of Suffering
14. Dawn Ray’d – The Unlawful Assembly
I’ve heard all of these except the Sunrot and King Woman albums, and certainly can’t quarrel with their selection. And the list provides a bit of balance, in the sense that the excellent albums by Yellow Eyes, Primitive Man, Ragana, and Dawn Ray’d were all sadly missing from every other list we’ve re-posted in this year’s LISTMANIA series.
35 Responses to “LISTMANIA 2017: METAL ON NOISEY’S LIST OF THE BEST 100 ALBUMS of 2017”
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Oh look everybody…it’s Power Trip…
…AGAIN!
Yup. They’re now the only band that has appeared on all five of the lists we’ve re-published from other places so far in LISTMANIA 2017.
I guess I’m just missing something. I mean, this album was…okay, but that’s it…it was okay.
It seems like it’s the thrash pick for people who like thrash, but don’t really know about any other thrash releases this year
There has been a lot of great underground thrash and speed releases. I was happy enough to get a new Sable Bedlam EP: Cryptic Void, if you want some pretty wicked and weird thrash, check out ageless stranger by Sable Bedlam, their first EP. Also we got Hellripper which is Black Thrash but the best Thrash album of 2017 none the less.
Not me brother…I’ve picked up plenty of great thrash releases this year. Antichrist, Condor, Insane, Burning, Hatewölf, Bütcher..that Hellripper album you mentioned, among others.
I was commenting on the fact that people have been jocking the hell out of that Power Trip album when it’s really pretty average. It seems like people are just riding the hype train rather than being aware of the Thrash albums that actually came out this year
Butcher and Condor are both great, I got hard whenever the vocalist yelled Unstoppable Power
Also the new Inquisitor is quite dirty
Honestly didn’t like it. The music is solid, but I can’t stand Alex Wesdijk’s vocals
hahaha really? I wanted them to be even more high pitched like Walpurgis. Different taste I guess.
I would add the new Daeva EP Pulsing Dark Absorptions to that list. I agree with you about Power Trip though, I tried to give Nightmare Logic a shot but even after multiple listens there was nothing that stood out to me as being all that remarkable.
I fuckin love that Hellripper album. Need to check out Sable Beldam, as well as some of those that SurgicalBrute just identified.
Nosferatu from their first EP is bat shit crazy. Their new EP is more on the tech death/thrash side but still good (even though they lost some of their initial speed)
Based on some quick sampling, both sound outstanding.
By far, my favorite Thrash album this year, as evidence by how many times I’ve returned to it, is Madrost – The Essence of time Matches no Flesh. It’s sci-fi Death/Thrash from California, and it’s definitely my pick for Thrash of the year.(just the opinion of someone who rarely enjoys Thrash)
Have you seen them play? I think anyone making these lists who has seen them perform this year is probably biased toward them, because they absolutely destroy live (and they’ve toured their asses off in the US this year).
I didn’t get them until I saw them, which for me was similar to Gatecreeper. The true power of the music doesn’t reveal itself until you are in the middle of a giant knot of people beating the shit out of each other. But Nightmare Logic is actually a really good record that merits repeat listening. (On that note, the new Gatecreeper EP is also really, really good.)
That’s a different experience though. That says more about their energy and their presence as a band than it does about their music. Watain puts on a strong live show, so do Behemoth…hell I’ve got friends who will admit they enjoyed Machine Head in a live setting. Doesn’t change the fact that their music, when taken purely from a listening experience, is very average (at least it is to me)
The truth is, most thrash bands, when seen in a live setting, are fun as hell. It’s just the nature of the genre
Woe, so close but so far away
Yeah, just have to remember that this list only has 8 metal releases on it out of 100, which of course begs the question about how in the world you rank a list like this one. Talk about comparing apples and oranges….
FVCK YEAH DAWN RAY’D
Pretty much what I said in my head as I scrolled down and finally saw ’em here at No. 14.
Power Trip seems to be the metal standard this year, along with Pallbearer.
Weird right, Power Trip is decent but I found Pallbearer to just be bad, they tried to get all Doom-Prog on us and I feel like they fell flat on their face. Which really is sad because I fucking love Foundations of Burden.
Agree. Listened to that Power Trip album and just can’t see what the fuss is all about!
Some of my Favorite Thrash albums this year was
Warbringer
Condor
Vampire
Lich King
Havok
Overkill
Act Of Defiance
Kreator
I’m not too big into new Thrash bands though. I tend to stick to the old school classics when I get an itch for Thrash.
P.S – That Hellripper slays!
Warbringer, Vampire, Havok, Kreator kick ass.
Vampire is fucking dope, I just wish that they would put that album on bandcamp!!!!
You can always youtube them here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zjBqnZC8LA
[Insert comment about Gorguts producing the best Metal album of the year.]
Also, I happen to think that Power Trip album is a great one. Yes, it’s been cropping up on a lot of lists, but – despite being a latecomer to it (I wanted to leave all the early hype to die down a bit before I checked it out) – I found that there’s not a single weak moment on it, and it’s just, for lack of a better term… really fucking fun to listen to.
Awesome year for speed/thrash metal Stalker, Power Trip, Vulture, Entrench, Destructor, Insane, Condor, Goatmaster, Dead Head
Man, I just feel this was a bit of an off year for metal in general.
Bell Witch’s album was a masterpiece, Archspire released one of the best tech-death albums ever, Artificial Brain’s album was excellent, and Glassjaw’s first record in 15 years was one of the best surprises of the year for me, but most of the rest…
They’re not bad albums, in fact many of them are ‘very good’, but often they’re albums by bands whose previous albums were better, so I had really high expectations, and they didn’t quite meet those expectations. e.g. I really liked the new Converge album, in fact I think it’s definitely one of the year’s best metal albums, but it can’t hold a candle to AWLWLB in my view. Enslaved – E was good, but not as good as In Times, and certainly not as good as RIITIIR.
Did anyone else feel that way in general?
Hey thanks for the thrash tips… the Condor sounds pretty good. But the Hellripper lost me immediately, the first song just combines Hit the Lights and Phantom Lord, like, almost exactly, note for note. I don’t mind some inspiration, but taking notes is too much. Plus we’ve already got Kill Em All, why make another?
Power Trip’s latest was extremely average, too much of a chug fest with a lack of variation. Their debut though was quite good If i remember it right.
By far, my favorite Thrash album this year, as evidence by how many times I’ve returned to it, is Madrost – The Essence of time Matches no Flesh. It’s sci-fi Death/Thrash from California, and it’s definitely my pick for Thrash of the year.(just the opinion of someone who rarely enjoys Thrash). I urge everyone to check them out. They could use the exposure!
I really liked the Power Trip album. Its total fun. Reminds me more of Leeway and Cro-Mags then anything else.
But its also among a whole bunch of albums that were “good”. If I did a list like Andy, I’d have a huge “Good” section for this year.
But, to me, its not great. My list of “Great” was in the 40’s this year and I whittled it down to 20. Power Trip ended up very far from that standing, even though it was lots of fun.