THE BEST OF THE OUTSIDE: A 2025 LIST BY NEILL JAMESON

 LISTMANIA 2025  3 Responses »
Dec 172025
 


photo by Kassandra Carmona

(One of the perennial highlights of our year-end LISTMANIA series are the articles Neill Jameson (of Krieg) has contributed, and we’re very happy that he’s doing so again this year.)

If you’ve paid any attention over the last few years the first thing you’ll notice is my hair looks fucking wonderful, thank you. You’ll also notice this is my only list for the site this year. It’s actually my only list for any site besides my Substack, where the entirety of my list is, for better or worse. Since you asked, I’ve spent the better part of the year trying to carve that out as my main place where I drop the shit that falls out of my head. And what a year it’s been. Jesus Christ.

I don’t need to really tell the readers of this site why this year has been a motherfucker because I’m pretty sure the bulk of you didn’t vote for it. But it just seems like 2025, more than most, will not make too many “best years of my/your life” lists, whenever those get posted, April probably.

If we want to focus on whatever “positives” came out of this year, the main theme has been a massive flow of quality music, regardless of what genre you’re into. I don’t really remember a year starting so strongly and finishing with the same gusto, or zest if you will. I could have had a top 40 by fucking May. But the subtheme (minor to this year’s major? I haven’t slept in two days) is the amount of outsider records that came through the gates, artists who really stopped giving a fuck about convention and decided that rules were merely a suggestion, which can either be intoxicating or infuriating, especially if you have no patience for whimsy like me.

So for my contribution to the grand tradition of No Clean Singing lists which, frankly, are always outsider to the norms of the metal journalistic masses anyway, I wanted to focus on bands who colored outside the lines, either in their forms or in what expectations people may have had for them. 

And with that, let’s get cracking. Continue reading »

THANK GOD IT’S ONLY THREE PARTS THIS YEAR: NEILL JAMESON’S BEST OF THE BEST 2024

 LISTMANIA 2024  2 Responses »
Dec 202024
 


photo by Alyssa Lorenzon

(Below is the third installment of Neill Jameson‘s year-end list for NCS, and we thank him again for sharing it with us and you.)

I could have spread this out a little more this year by posting a whole bunch of ambient I’ve been enjoying from various Youtube channels or maybe going into some of the great reissues that 2024 included, like the first three Blood records so nicely done through Nuclear War Now!. I could have even written about the “Schizophrenia” rerecording the Cavalera brothers released (which I did enjoy quite a bit). But, as I get older, I’m striving to figure out how to say more with less, to be more impactful. 

That made my head hurt just typing it. I’ve been having to lead a lot of corporate training and that kind of phrasing just sticks with you like some obscure STD you probably got sitting on a toilet at work, ironically enough. Everything connects, it’s fucking spiritual. 

So, what have I been up to recently? Glad you asked. I’ve undertaken a new project, Fuck Music, which is initially just going to be a Substack where I write about, you guessed it, music. What a fucking shocking reveal. I’ve considered podcasting but it’s a lot easier on the ears to just read my inane shit without listening to me trail off, searching for ghosts. Plus I’m shit with followthrough, so let’s just see if I stick with this one, ok?

So, this is the end. [Editor’s note: It actually isn’t… tune in again next Monday.] These are the truly special releases in a year that was shockingly packed full of them. I said before I had a really difficult time figuring out a top ten elsewhere and, especially from my second list, any of the releases I wrote about could have ended up here. For a year that felt like an unenthusiastic handjob, given with no love, it was a truly stellar year for music. Here’s my favorites: Continue reading »

JESUS CHRIST WILL HE JUST GO AWAY? NEILL JAMESON’S 2024 LISTS PT II

 LISTMANIA 2024  1 Response »
Dec 192024
 


photo by Hillarie Jason

(Here’s the second installment of year-end lists compiled for NCS by Neill Jameson (Krieg), with a couple more yet to come.)

Remember how I said things weren’t in any kind of order, until the end, in our last get together? I wasn’t entirely truthful. That list was really more the warm-up because this year I had incredible difficulty putting together a top ten list for my yearly what-have-you with Invisible Oranges, where I had to solidify it just so I could walk away without constantly wanting to move things around. We’ll start seeing those records I left out of the top in here.

I realize there’s several releases that I’m including in these lists that just came out within the last few weeks, which seems to happen every year. Does that mean I had enough time to truly sit with them? I’d like to think so, but it doesn’t seem likely. So I went back to years prior to see if I still felt strongly about late year releases I’d written about before, with a nearly perfect success rate, which was all scientifically calculated. So, in short, fuck off – they’re worth shedding light on.

I doubt anyone truly cares but that seemed like a good internal conversation. Continue reading »

JESUS CHRIST WILL HE JUST GO AWAY? NEILL JAMESON’S 2024 LISTS PT I

 LISTMANIA 2024  No Responses »
Dec 182024
 


photo by Hillarie Jason

(One of the perennial highlights of our year-end LISTMANIA series are the articles Neill Jameson has contributed, and we’re very happy that he’s doing so again this year. This one is the first of three four installments we’ll be publishing. To be clear, Neill wrote the title of this feature himself.)

What a fucking ridiculous year. Between wars, threats of wars, the election, that fucking girl who’s famous for a joke about dick spittings and whatever new allegations your favorite band has against them it’s just been an exhausting twelve months. What better way to cap that off than by reading a bunch of assholes telling you what you should have listened to this year instead of whatever meandering bullshit you actually did. Unless it was Krieg’s split with Withdrawal, you obviously have exquisite taste. 

After all, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, right?

Last year I skipped the genre format for my lists and just threw everything together, with the obviously subjective “best” saved for last. I did this mostly out of laziness but I think we’ve built a new tradition, like picking out who not to send Christmas cards to this year because they did something to publicly shame the family, like supporting RFK. 

Sure the comments section will be measured and forgiving after that one.

So this’ll be a few parts, depending on how much I can write while tucked away in my office hiding from my employees. Here’s part one: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BØNES, FUMES, KRIEG, WITHDRAWAL, LYCOPOLIS, NECRODEATH, PILLAR AMONGST WILLOWS, PLAGUEWIELDER, TER ZIELE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 082024
 

I had time to pull together a large collection of music for this usual Sunday post, but not enough time to pull together the usual long-winded introduction. So we’ll just have to get right to it (please, stop applauding).

As I did in yesterday’s roundup, I organized the choices in alphabetical order by band name. Continue reading »

NEILL JAMESON WON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP: BEST OF 2023

 LISTMANIA 2023  1 Response »
Jan 022024
 

(Today we present the fifth and final installment of Neill Jameson‘s 2023 year-end list. You can find the first four Parts by hitting this link and scrolling down.)

See the subtle change in the title? I’m building a narrative, I’m told that’s a good idea in writing. As far as I can tell (from constantly Googling myself), I’ve been doing year-end lists here since 2014. Initially I would only pick a few records each year, mostly because I was trying to shed light on things that other people may not have noticed throughout the year, which would grow somewhat each year until we made it to 2018, one of the most miserable years I’d had in a moment, and it showed in the lack of anything approaching enthusiasm in my writing. But once 2019 hit, it was like something opened up in me and I was actually interested in seeking out new music, the closest to approaching being passionate about anything I’d been in years. And from there I haven’t slowed down. 

I understand that these lists are read for a variety of reasons, to see if your band was in it, to disagree with it, to tell me I’m either an SJW cuck or a nazi, or (and this is the lowest number) to actually seek out new music that might interest you. Regardless of your reason, I hope you’ve found something you’re looking for out of this. I don’t really want to hear about it either way.

These were my favorite releases of the year not covered by my Invisible Oranges list, which was all album based. There’s a few here too, sure, but this is mostly EPs, demos etc. Not a lot of surprises if you’ve read any previous years. This will probably be wordy, even for me (“long winded” is another description I’ve read about myself) Enough from me, here’s the list: Continue reading »

NEILL JAMESON CAN’T SHUT THE FUCK UP: A 2023 LIST III

 LISTMANIA 2023  1 Response »
Dec 222023
 


photo by Hillarie Jason

(One of the perennial highlights of our year-end LISTMANIA series are the articles Neill Jameson has contributed, and we’re very happy that he’s doing so again this year. This one is the third of five Parts we’ll be publishing. To be clear, Neill wrote the title of this feature himself. And hey, you should check out Krieg‘s new album Ruiner too.)

Five. There’s five of these things in total. This is the third one.

These are getting more and more difficult to write because I’ve always taken a minute or two to refresh my memory on what I’m writing about but this year I’ve found myself just drifting off and listening to more and more of each release, which causes a slowdown in my progress. 

This is all fascinating to you, I’m sure. I’ve let my tea grow cold, let’s dive into it before I write more about my old womanly habits. Continue reading »

NEILL JAMESON CAN’T SHUT THE FUCK UP: A 2023 LIST II

 LISTMANIA 2023  1 Response »
Dec 212023
 


photo by Hillarie Jason

(One of the perennial highlights of our year-end LISTMANIA series are the articles Neill Jameson has contributed, and we’re very happy that he’s doing so again this year. This one is the second of a handful of Parts we’ll be publishing. To be clear, Neill wrote the title of this feature himself. And hey, you should check out Krieg‘s new album Ruiner too.)

Still here? Good. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed your chance to call me a nazi or SJW cuck, depending on your obviously refined perspective. Here’s the next batch of releases from 2023 you should check out. 

Your band probably isn’t here. Maybe next list. Continue reading »

NEILL JAMESON CAN’T SHUT THE FUCK UP: 2023 LIST I

 LISTMANIA 2023  3 Responses »
Dec 202023
 

photo by Hillarie Jason

(One of the perennial highlights of our year-end LISTMANIA series are the articles Neill Jameson has contributed, and we’re very happy that he’s doing so again this year. This one is the first of a handful of Parts we’ll be publishing. To be clear, Neill wrote the title of this feature himself. And hey, you should check out Krieg‘s new album Ruiner too.)

I’m getting a later start on these this year, meaning I’ve already seen a lot of year-end lists, mostly due to checking to see if my last album made any of them. And because of this I could easily make the joke that most journalists have Helen Keller’s musical taste. I’d like to think I’m above such low hanging fruit, however.

In years past I’ve sectioned these lists off by demos, albums and dungeon synth. This year I’m ignoring that format in favor of dumping a ton of unrelated genres together outside of the final one, which will be the traditional “best of” list. Why am I doing this? I’m glad you asked and showed sincere curiosity: in the customer service industry we’ve begun using the phrase “surprise and delight the customer” and I’d like to take this wonderful philosophy into my writing. 

Or I’m just lazier than usual this year. Because fuck the customer.  Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KRIEG, DREAM UNENDING, WORM

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 222023
 


Krieg photo by Kassandra Carmona

In a departure from what I usually do for these columns I decided not to string together a bunch of singles from forthcoming records, but instead to write about two albums, one of them a split.

Both of them are already out, so what’s the point of writing about albums you can already hear for yourselves? You might ask that question about almost everything with my name on it, because I almost never scribble review-ish words without including the music streams. Same goes for a lot of the other scribblers around here.

The idea is that the words might induce some people to check out music they weren’t aware of, or decided to pass by. I hope that will happen today. Other motivations: Writing voluntarily can be fun, even when it’s hard. And it’s just good manners to thank someone for making music that resonates in the soul or the muscles or the mush between the ears.

So, with thanks to Krieg, Dream Unending, and Worm, here we go. Continue reading »

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