Albums I Missed in 2019

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so eager and excited, yet also hitting myself so much, to write about music I didn’t write about last year. Weirdly, I knew about the vast majority of these projects at the very least and for whatever reason, I just didn’t get around to hearing them until this year, some of which I am very disappointed in myself for missing last year and even for not getting the chance to include them in my best-of list, but that’s what this is for, eh. Anyway, here are the albums I wish I talked about last year.

Lice-Woe Betide You

Nikolas Kvarforth and Teitanblood linked up last year for an album of unstable character. Shifting from soothing ambient black metal to more self-loathing varieties within the genre, Lice only really establish a liquidy planting in black metal, but do alright in surveying the genre through Kvarforth’s ever-committed vocal performances.

Northlane-Alien

Northlane broke through the djenty metalcore ceiling on this album with a combination of tastefully enhanced electronic production, more cleans to balance the screams, and the evolved knack for the sick riffs and calculated breakdowns that any band needs to thrive in the genre. While not every song is a banger, Alien’s is an overwhelmingly stacked track list, and I recommend it enthusiastically.

Humanity’s Last Breath-Abyssal

This is the album that would’ve made my year-end honor list. Humanity’s Last Breath have carved out an interesting little niche for themselves within deathcore and made quite the improvement upon it even without much selective pressure. The band takes a pretty gratuitously turned-up and up-to-date techdeathy approach to deathcore, but their industrial effects-laden grooves and pedalboard-dancing breakdowns have given them a unique identity within deathcore, and on Abyssal, the Swedes put all their chips in the middle and hone in on what makes them difficult. And it’s a winning hand; Abyssal is packed with angular, groovy bangers and creative breakdowns that show that the band are clearly up to date with the fresh rhythm styles of both deathcore and metallic hardcore. Honestly, it’s just an addictive, delicious crop of bangers, and I wish I got to it last year. It’s made quite the addition to my workout playlist though.

Diocletian-Amongst the Flames of a Bvrning God

Apocalyptically war-minded New Zealanders Diocletian made an unfortunately pretty underwhelming return from their brief hiatus, but somewhat lengthy, studio absence through Profound Lore with the chaotic, but aimless blackened grindcore. Aesthetically and productionally it has a lot going for it, but the completely one-note, everything-at-the-wall approach leaves the album with few standout moments and feeling like a vague recollection.

Uniform & The Body-Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back

Uniform & The Body linked up again for another underwhelming collaboration of halfway-committed material last year. I enjoyed both artists’ most recent albums, but after the disappointing diminishing returns of the pair’s Mental Wounds Not Healing the previous year, I wasn’t exactly thirsty for another jam session between the two just a year later. And the second joint effort once again earns the term “effort” rather generously.

Mesarthim-Ghost Condensate

The sole release of the ordinarily far more prolific Australia-based solo studio project Mesarthim, Ghost Condensate’s moderate forty-minute offering split only into two twenty-minute pieces follows the same format of ambient black metal that draws its atmosphere from a very gradual and synthy push and pull. I reviewed the project’s two releases this year and found the spacy sound quite to my liking actually. Ghost Condensate, though, with its much more predictable compositional plot, simply doesn’t reach the same highs as Planet NineorThe Degenerate Era did this year.

This Gift Is a Curse-A Throne of Ash

Honestly, the generic title and generically occult imagery of the album cover kind of put me off and kept me from giving this album a listen until this year. Despite its superficially orthodox look, A Throne of Ash combines a lot of unorthodox sounds and compositional choices to make for a pretty thrilling, unique, and vibrant blackened death metal album.

Dawn Ray’d-Behold Sedition Plainsong

Ireland’s anti-fascist black metal stalwarts, Dawn Ray’d, have always delivered their message through rather subtle means on face value, but through the kind of second-wave-influenced atmospheric black metal that should reach the fans of the scenes they intend to combat. Though perhaps a little too evolved and “Deafheaven-y” for the average chud to get into (though it’s closer to something like Wolves in the Throne Room), Behold Sedition Plainsong is a fine example of the genre and a noble project that deserves support and respect at the very least for helping black metal not be as uniformly of a hotbed of shitty music and even shittier ideology.

The Deathtrip-Demon Solar Totem

Definitely one of the more dynamic black metal albums of last year, Demon Solar Totem takes the dark ethereal sounds of the second wave and today’s sprawling naturalistic atmospheric black metal on a progressive trip. The album does fall into a few typical ruts here and there, but at least it’s a variety of them, making for an interesting enough black metal voyage.

Haunt-If Icarus Could Fly

While the band’s second album felt like a bit of a step down from their beautifully melodic debut, I wish I had covered it last year when it came out, and covered Haunt in general earlier, given that they started up basically when I started this blog up and I’ve enjoyed their output pretty enthusiastically since hearing them. The old-school revivalists burst onto the scene with their full-length debut, Burst into Flames, in 2018 after a few splits and an EPs. I loved the refined melodic approach to the old guard style that the band made on that album. It captures the aesthetic of the time with the informed influence of the modern metal musician’s expanded melodic arsenal. And while “sophomore slump” might be a harsh term for an album that still accomplishes rather well what it set out to do, there’s a clear dialing back of the types of modern influences that the debut had on If Icarus Could Fly in an attempt to more deeply emulate the sound of old, which I don’t really think was necessary to boost the band’s aesthetic. Thankfully they rebounded pretty well this year with the one-two punch of Mind FreezeandFlashback.

Year of the Knife-Ultimate Aggression

This was the quick, but effective 25-minute debut hardcore slugfest from the Delaware-based quintet whose hastily followed-up sophomore album this August I found disappointingly less thrilling. Even in a Code Orange world of metallic hardcore taking charge and stealing the spotlight through industrial means, Year of the Knife follow more closely in the footsteps of bands like Harm’s Way and Knocked Loose, who may not be toying with electronic elements too much but who have taken keen note of the effectiveness of livening up the approach to hardcore’s groove. And Year of the Knife captures that ethos and that approach rather well on Ultimate Aggression, making me wish not just I had covered it in February, but that I had its energy in my workout playlist all year.

Cloudkicker-Unending

Another full-length from the prolific studio project, Cloudkicker, Unending is a pretty unsurprising, but fulfilling the soothing instrumental prog/post-metal album for the purpose it serves. There are few lovely little licks here and there and the album carries a general air of relief very well, so it does work very well for what it is.

Mortiferum-Disgorged from Psychotic Depths

The Washington band’s debut full-length is a decent contribution to the ultra growly, glacially heavy death/doom genre, but unfortunately without a lot of imaginative composition or stylistic shake-up, Disgorged from Psychotic Depths only just checks a bunch of boxes on the rubric. That being said, the album does offer a few glimpses of potential creativity that I do hope to hear more of in this band’s future.

Kmac2021-IMPOSTER

Internet funnyman Kmac2021 is more well known for his home-production tips and tricks to help bedroom djent kids get that savory Misha tone everyone wants and for his comprehensive countdown list of the top ten numbers of all time. But last year Kmac directed some of his talents away from his YouTube memelording and into a candid EP of the djenty deathcore he lovingly goofs on in his videos. The results were pretty standard melodic proggy djentcore, but quite respectable enough to earn Kmac some applause for his juggling of instrumental responsibilities and vocal techniques. I do want to highlight and shout out the title track though, which deals with the specific emotional distress of imposter syndrome, a very personally relevant phenomenon for me this year, and it’s been encouraging to hear a djenty anthem about overcoming that specific form of self-doubt.

The Acacia Strain-It Comes in Waves

The Acacia Strain rather quietly and abruptly released this quick batch of songs just before the end of last year, and it didn’t really flinch anyone. Thankfully the band’s follow-up this year was much more revitalized and got them back on track, but It Comes in Waves was concerningly unexciting for a band actively putting so much hardcore energy into their music.

Fever 333-Strength in Numb333rs

In their externally ascribed quest to be this generation’s Rage Against the Machine, Fever 333 on their debut album hit all the contemporary political notes and issues that they need to, but musically slip a bit too often into becoming a new version of Linkin Park. “Prey for Me/3” and “The Innocent” are absolutely fist-raising anthems for a fight for a more just world, and the rest of the album’s lyrical content, while rather simple and straightforward, is very in touch and aware of what lies at the root of so many problems these days. And while I hope the band kind of weed out those compositional tendencies that make some songs sound more peppy than they should, the concentrated fire they pack into their performances makes me excited to hear where they go from here.

Worm-Gloomlord

This came out just at the tail end of last year, but I wish I had heard it then because I think I would have liked to shout out its nasty, slimy, slow-dripping death sludge, which seems to be pretty in vogue at the moment with prominent acts like Undergang, Primitive Man, and Warp Chamber getting a lot of love lately. Gloomlord is the Floridian band’s second album, and for as ambiguous as its one-word title is, I feel like it lives up to it. The slowly trudging distorted riffs that allow the percussive highlights to feel like they knock you around in a despressed trance that the ominous atmospheric guitar work lays down capture that first part of the compound word, while the punchy, monolithic death metal core gives the music its lordship. Definitely worth a listen for any fan of slow, doomy death metal that hasn’t heard it yet.

The Hu-The Gereg

The Hu’s brooding and unique form of folk metal made The Gereg arguably the breakout debut album of last year. I’ve personally always loved traditional Mongolian folk music (if it’s not a misnomer to call it folk music), and I’ve always thought that the low-register string arrangements and chants and throat singing would sound really good in a metallic setting. Unlike most European or American folk metal, The Gereg is generally more shadowy and gradual, not that it is entirely without its unifying fun moments. But it’s generally more atmospheric in the ways that most listeners of European and American metal would be familiar with. And it does stay generally within these more meditative atmospheric bounds, never getting too heavy or overbearing, using subtle metallic textures to enhance its traditional instrumentation. It’s definitely an interesting listen at the very least and worthwhile for all to check out for its uniqueness.