LISTMANIA 2024: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 YEAR-END LIST

 LISTMANIA 2024  5 Responses »
Dec 162024
 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s presentation of his Top 20 list for 2024.)

The world did not end in 2024, but unless inter-dimensional beings intervene, humanity might find ourselves reaping the consequences of our actions in the year to come. This is the tone of music I was drawn to this year. My taste in sonic darkness showed a dark shift in sounds that held at least a sardonic slant, more often than not a celebration of misanthropy.

I care less about how fast a band play or how low they tune, and more about what an album has to say. As a teenager, I didn’t mind lyrics composed of pseudo-occult garbage. Live and learn, after all, occult means hidden, and subtly goes a long way. If they were serious about the Left-Hand Path the music would make you feel it. I want to hear the inner darkness and ugliness you have inside come out in your music, not a pantomime of what darkness looks like in movies.

Granted with death metal, a little “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is fine if it’s just empty calories, but I expect more from black metal in this regard. Continue reading »

DEADFORM: “ENTRENCHED IN HELL”

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Oct 082024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s enthusiastic review of the debut album by Oakland-based Deadform, which is set for release by the Tankcrimes label on October 25th.)

Entrenched in Hell is the first full-length from this Oakland-based trio. If you are a fan of crust punk, this should be considered the upper crust of the genre.

Dino Sommese from Dystopia is playing drums and sharing vocal duties with Brian Clouse from Stormcrow. Clouse is playing bass in this project, with Judd Hawk (ex-Laudanum) laying down the guitars.

Hawk cranks out a vicious guitar tone, and phrases his riffs in a manner that gives you everything one might want from the grim world-ending metal. The production is raw, but feels like you are in their practice space having your eardrums ruptured. It certainly highlights the things I love about this sub-genre as it carries a stormy fury but grooves into the dark apocalyptic mood of the songs. The disdain projected into these songs makes for the perfect soundtrack to the world around us, with lyrics shattering the false hopes we try to fool ourselves with. Continue reading »

SURRENDER TO DEATH: A HISTORY OF THE ATLANTA METAL UNDERGROUND VOL. 1

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Aug 232024
 

(In the following article our contributor Wil Cifer, who spent a lot of years in Atlanta, comments on a compilation set for release on September 6th by Boris Records and Deanwell Global Music which serves as a retrospective of the Atlanta metal underground from 1982 to 1999. It includes remastered original recordings by more than 20 bands from the area.)

In the ’80s Norway was not the bustling mecca for metal the media tries to portray it as today, so even Atlanta, Ga was impressive to me at 12 years old when I began visiting my grandparents in the States for a few weeks in the summers at their Stateside home just outside the city limits of Atlanta. My first exposure to what the music scene in America was like in the flesh is captured in Surrender To Death: A History of the Atlanta Metal Underground Vol. 1, a compilation by Boris Records and Deanwell Global Music. For me, it’s a fun indulgence of nostalgia for those summers spent venturing into the city for all-ages shows. Continue reading »

CANOPY: “EMPTY LIGHT”

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Jul 292024
 

(Wil Cifer wrote the following review of a new EP by Canopy from Georgia (U.S.), which was independently released earlier this month.)

Sludge has reached its peak, with a few bands still carrying that torch while others move toward the other sub-genres rising in popularity. Canopy is an Atlanta band that has persevered for over a decade and their new EP finds the band going above and beyond by reaching a balance of sonic intensity and eerie melancholy.

What keeps me listening to these songs is not screamed vocals or weighty accents they chug into, but how the chords ring out with emotion. Just being heavy for the sake of being heavy is an easy task, but pouring your pain and depression into your instruments and tangibly conveying them is more nuanced. The band has a penchant for post-rock phrasings balancing out their monolithic crunch. This allows for plenty of breathing room for the songs to flourish. Continue reading »

SARS: “NOTHING HURTS QUITE LIKE LIFE”

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Jul 032024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the debut album by the Finnish band SARS, which is due for release on July 12th by Time To Kill Records )

With their new album Nothing Hurts Quite Like Life Finland’s SARS teach a master class in what is metallic hardcore and what is “metalcore”.

Perhaps it‘s the long dark winters of their homeland, and the high depression rate of their homeland, as there is nothing hopeful or anthemic about the sonic beatings they are dishing out here. Continue reading »

CANDY: “IT’S INSIDE YOU”

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May 282024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by the U.S. metallic hardcore band Candy in advance of its June 7th release by Relapse Records.)

It’s cool for a metallic hardcore band like Knocked Loose to be able to ride the hype machine on their way to becoming the next big thing, but Candy’s new album kicks you in the face harder with the kind of experimentation I expected to find on You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To. This should not be a surprise as Candy’s 2022 album Heaven is Here was one of my favorite heavy albums of that year. Continue reading »

GLASSING: “FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR”

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Apr 302024
 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Austin-based Glassing, which was released last week by Pelagic Records.)

Twin Dream was a perfect album. Glassing are perfecting the art of perfection with From the Other Side of the Mirror. The heaviness here is more biting. The melodies are more textured and haunting. These are conclusions I came to only four songs in.

Granted, a piece like “Sallow” is more of an ambient interlude, but “Defacer” has serious sonic teeth, and can have you head-banging before your second cup of coffee. With Twin Dream what they were doing was more easily defined. It had hardcore kids making atmospheric sludge. This time around more colors of sound are being explored. Continue reading »

DÅÅTH: “THE DECEIVERS”

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Apr 092024
 

(Below we present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new comeback album from Atlanta-based Dååth, which will be released by Metal Blade on May 3rd.)

After a decade-long hiatus bands often return to a musical landscape that has shifted. With metal, the stakes are higher. Headbangers are like addicts who build a tolerance requiring an ever-increasing level of sonic stimulus to get the same results. This leaves musicians with the choice of either cashing in on nostalgia or trying to find their place in the new musical climate. Producer/ guitarist Eyal Levi finds a balance between the two with Dååth‘s new album. Levi might be the sole original member, but he brought long-time growling machine Sean Z along for the ride. Sean’s multitracked performance lends to this album’s massive sound. Continue reading »

ATROPHY: “ASYLUM”

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Mar 202024
 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of the first Atrophy album in 34 years, recently released by Massacre Records.)

Despite growing up on it in the ’80s I do not cover much thrash. Most of the new thrash bands just fetishize the sound of Combat Records bands circa 1985. While that was a pivotal time for metal, nostalgia only goes so far. Arizona thrashers Atrophy were never a household name when it came to thrash, but their 1988 album Socialized Hate was an overlooked classic. I gave the album an overdue revisiting, before diving into the band’s first album in 34 years.

The first thing that is evident here is that, at 59 years of age, sole founding member Brian Zimmerman’s voice has held up extremely well, for a vocalist who has not been all that active over the years. His delivery on this album carries the familiar narrative of their earlier work, though it seems he has spent some time thinking about what he did on those albums, as the phrasing is more nuanced.

The session players Zimmerman gathered to make this album might not be big names of thrash, but hungry players who took the opportunity and stepped up to show they were just as capable as any of the veteran thrash bands out there. Continue reading »

METH. — “SHAME”

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Feb 062024
 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s intriguing review of an album by the Chicago band meth. that was released last Friday by Prosthetic Records.)

Imagine a band that does not feel the need to adhere to any of the conventions we have heard a thousand times over from all the other bands that push the limits of heavy. Chicago’s meth. is such a band.

Less unsettling evil haunts their new album Shame than say a band like Portrayal of Guilt, who are not far removed from their sonic zip code. You can pinpoint the sub-genres they touch upon, such as the deliberate pound of dense distortion that could be called sludge. Most of their vocalist’s screams carry an anguish that is similar to what we hear from black metal vocalists. Yet unlike those bands, they do not just relegate themselves to doing it throughout the entirety of a song much less the entire album. Continue reading »

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