Dark Tranquillity Guitarist Fredrik Johansson Dies
A moment of silence for one of our fallen brothers in the mighty Dark Tranquillity, guitarist Fredrik Johansson.
Which songs will you be blasting this weekend in his honor? Share his music so we can all enjoy his contributions to our beloved subgenre, melodic death metal. May they echo in eternity.
There are always a lot of songs worth appreciating at the end of the year, way more than 25, and I have done like 90-song lists before, which is nuts. But I’m trying to not go utterly insane this year; it’s been insane enough on its own. I’m keeping this one kind of on the short side so that I can put more energy not the top albums I want to highlight. As with each list, the weird, picky compulsive side of me has a weird selection process that basically tries to exclude stand-alone singles that could be featured more fully as part of an album in the future, like Gojira’s “Another World”. It’s not perfect, but it feels weird to include songs like that here when they could make a future list as part of an album too. So here they are, my 25 favorite metal songs of the year:
25.An Autumn for Crippled Children - “Silver”
One of the most ethereal and human moments on an ambient black metal album this year, “Silver” in all its fuzzily produced glory captures the genre at its most vulnerable in a rather succinct package and I can only love and respect it.
24.Sylosis - “Arms Like a Noose”
Another standout among many, “Arms Like a Noose” finds the UK act bringing a metalcore influence to modern melodic thrash, and a retro-flavored breakdown that, in better times, would undoubtedly make the pit explode into a frenzy and the rest of the crowd headbang in full unified swing.
Meshing a marching palm-muted chugging rhythm with unhinged, anxiety-inducing piano chords, the title track to the ever-theatrical Dutchmen’s sixth album is an much of a bop as a menacing symphonic black metal track can be.
22.The Acacia Strain - “Crippling Poison”
With a sick, stomp-dancing riff at its core, this song is a furious deathcore chugger that captures the hardcore ethos that makes The Acacia Strain such a powerful force in deathcore when they’re at their best the way they were on this past album.
21.Trivium - “The Defiant”
This one seemed to be the under-the-radar hit for the band this year, in a few of the same ways “Caustic Are the Ties That Bind” was on In Waves. Indeed the two sound kind of like sister songs in their emotive guitar-powered melodies (the harmonious solo here seemingly taking a bit of a cue from Khemmis) and anthemic catharsis. It ends on a pretty bright and hopeful note, that I was a little cold on at first, but have really come to appreciate now. It’s a bold, beautiful track that captures Trivium at their best.
20.Suicide Silence - “Two Steps”
After the embarrassment of their self-titled album in 2017, Suicide Silence came back hard with the lead single to this year’s redemptive Become the Hunter, which reinvested in the band’s knack for combining tasty grooves and scary breakdowns that made them such a force to be feared in the deathcore world.
19.Undeath - “Entranced by the Pendulum”
It was hard to pick a favorite from the uniformly filthy and delicious Lesions of a Different Kind, but I really liked the vocal hooks, the drum accents, and variety of riffs (especially the low-string-bending at the bridge) of “Entranced by the Pendulum”, which made a consistent standout as I came back to the album over and over again after it came out.
18.Alestorm - “Tortuga”
The way the true Scottish pirate metal outfit expanded their sound to involve trap, electronic music elements, and a rap feature on this absolute party of a song give me hope that there is plenty of treasure left in Alestorm’s chest and that the band will defy all the expectations of those who thought they would run out of ways to make music about the pirate’s life.
17.Lamb of God - “Resurrection Man”
Lamb of God’s self-titled effort this year was a pretty low-risk affair, but “Resurrection Man” was stark exception in the middle of the track list, its more scowling first half exploring a variety of unusual guitar styles for the band to build the tension that breaks into a more quick-paced headbang-fest and an absolutely slamming breakdown that makes it hands down the highlight of the album.
16.Carnation - “Iron Discipline”
The Belgians kicked off their practically illegally heavy sophomore release with an energetic, infectious, growl-along banger that certainly captures their emphatic no-bullshit approach to death metal at its most diplomatic, offering a chance to join in the vicious death metal attack before it blasts every in front of it to death.
15.Humavoid - “Aluminum Rain”
Stirring together off-kilter rhythms, jazzy piano chords, a tasty central Meshuggah-esque eight-string groove into a wicked, and a groovy synth-driven bridge into a dizzying prog banger maybe even too mad scientist for Devin Townsend, “Aluminum Rain” stands out as a bolstering highlight in the Finnish outfit’s breakout LP among several tracks of ambitious modern progressive metal.
14.Nearea - “Carriers”
Another solid cut on an album of gems, I found myself coming back to “Carriers” the most out of any track on Nearea’s self-titled album this year for how it kind of just has it all in terms of what made the band’s comeback album this year so exciting. Combining melodic death metal at its most furious with metalcore at its punchiest, it is a sharp, deadly ripper of a track.
13.Avatar - “A Secret Door”
The highlight anthem from the band’s most recent theatrical musical release, Avatar go big and high-soaring on “A Secret Door”, with a pretty palpable power metal influence that absolutely blows the house down.
12.Khemmis - “Down in a Hole”
The thriving Denver doom optimists released a little compilation EP this year whose lead single was a glorious and synthless cover of Dio’s iconic inspirational synth metal anthem, “Rainbow in the Dark”. But the band put out three cover versions this year, and that was not the cover that blew me away the most. Khemmis took part in a multi-artist tribute to Alice in Chains’ grunge cornerstone, Dirt, and they got to cover the albums depressive acoustic ballad, “Down in a Hole”. While Code Orange were getting props for going acoustic for their live cover of the song earlier this year and doing a pretty good job, Khemmis kept the amps on and the results were stunning. The band make the song come to them and the grungy depression that Alice in Chain poured into the writing of the song pairs so unbelievably with Khemmis’ solemn, but hopeful doom metal; it’s an utterly goosebumps-inducing cover, and I can’t urge everyone enough to check it out.
11.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Oikeamielisten sali”
After its lengthy, but warped string intro’s serving as a breather from all the psychedelic mayhem preceding it, “Oikeamielisten sali” plunges Oranssi Pazuzu’s psychedelic black metal magnum opus into a spinning, spiraling world of flashing lights and disorienting sounds that feel like an unreal, but vivid nightmare’s plunge into a tunnel to hell.
10.End - “Pariah”
The pit-karate-inducing highlight of what I think has to be the metallic hardcore album of the year, End show just why their no-bells-and-whistles approach to the sound is so potent on the fiery and crushing “Pariah”, whose concluding breakdown brings the already chaotic and technically impressive track to a deservedly violent climax.
9.Ulcerate - “Inversion”
Similarly to how the self-titled Nearea album was hard to choose from, picking a favorite off Stare into Death and Be Still was a wonderfully difficult task because the band hit the mark with each song in kind of the same way. The guitar playing across the album is incredibly creative and emotional for such thick, titanium-clad death metal, and the band indeed surrenders not a shred of what makes the genre so great to listen to in its more simplistic forms, which I think the particularly heart-wrenching guitar work on “Inversion” demonstrates the most. It’s a good taster for anyone who might be skeptical that death metal can manage to resonate with your innermost melancholic ponderings on death while still firing on all cylinders.
8.August Burns Red - “Three Fountains”
The grand, gorgeous, and heartfelt metalcore closer to the band’s ninth full-length builds up through already-emotional guitar melodies to a glorious sing-along climax that rounds the album off on such an inspiring note.
7.Emmure - “(F)inally (U)nderstanding (N)othing”
Frankie Palmeri and company went hard this year, and I think the opening track from Hindsight best captures the band’s singular directive of making concussion-inducing, furious bangers from front to back and making everything as aggressive and punchy as possible. There’s no one to push around here at home, but that central riff, that verse beat, and that groovy bridge rhythm all make me go fucking stupid wherever I am. Absolute unit of a song.
6.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Ilmestys”
The slow-building and spooky intro track to Oranssi Pazuzu’s masterpiece, “Ilmestys” captures the band’s impeccable form and creative evolution in its subtle, understated opening passage that ultimately opens up like a blooming kaleidoscopic flower into the colorful climax that sees the track out. It’s a stunning, hypnotizing track that manages to encapsulate everything that the Finnish visionaries have been working toward with their psychedelic black metal sound in one seven-minute bite. Crazy to think that that’s just the first song on the album too.
5.Red - “The War We Made”
2000’s alternative metal often gets a bit of a bad rep and is treated like it’s not welcome here anymore in the metal world, at least among the critic class. Well I’m not in that class so I get to enjoy the open-hearted catharsis of alternative metal anthems like “The War We Made”. And it really is one of the band’s best songs and a great example of the genre in general. I dare anyone to honestly stand in front of those strings, those power chords, and that soaring vocal delivery and not feel something resonating in the core of what makes them human. It’s a beautiful song in such simple ways that don’t really beckon much contemporary critical dissection, but that simple openness has been the style’s biggest strength, which Red show wholeheartedly on this song.
4.Code Orange - “Underneath”
The album it came from may have found the Pittsburgh metalcore visionaries in a bit of a phase of growing pains as they try to enhance the industrial aspect of their metallic hardcore sound, but the closing title track of Underneath showed none of it, finishing the album off on a confident, swaggering, and effectively heavy note that packs the hardcore punch they’ve built their reputation on into an infectious alt metal structure without losing any potency. They may not have nabbed album of the year again or even the metalcore album of the year this year, but Code Orange definitely come away with the year’s best standalone metalcore song.
3.Imperial Triumphant - “Atomic Age”
Capturing perhaps the best on the album the deliriously foreboding forest of towers of the big apple, “Atomic Age” spirals down and around through experimentally jazz-infused and nightmarish angular guitar leads in the back of terrifying screams and growls that only add to the psychosis. It feels like being dropped from the top of the Empire State Building over and over and over again and scrambling for safety as the windows of the countless stories rush by.
2.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Uusi teknokratia”
Not that any song on Mestarin Kynsi is particularly lacking for its length or anything, they’re all incredible acid trips of dizzying black metal, but the album’s longest and most dynamic song has to be the most freakish, deceptively welcoming, and other-worldly of the bunch. This song really does take you to another world and entangle your senses there.
1.Deadspace - “A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars” (parts 1 and 2)
Deadspace hit an incredible new high with their sole full-length this year, and the title track in its two phases perhaps best captures the shivering, transfixing power of their more unshackled depressive sound. Everything about it, the drawn-out screams and bellows; the somber clean guitar passages; the depressive distorted chords; the heavenly choir, all sounds like the chilling but undeniably compelling farewell of a long-suffering soul finally seeing the glimpse of peace and release in its welcoming of an afterlife. It’s a song that confronts the heavy concept that DSBM deals with in the kind of candid and forthright manner that makes it so compelling when done well. The song’s abstract lyrics deal with the general sorrow that has surrounded the band’s music and the way the band as a whole has made use of their scars for their art. Deadspace announced their disbandment with the release of this album back in March, and the lyrics portray this act as one of bowing out through suicide (as a band, by disbanding, not literal suicide) to represent the finality of what they have sung about so much throughout their career. While not pairing with a literal death, this album, and this song serve as part of the departing act the way Blackstar served as David Bowie’s farewell and the way Purple Mountains served as David Berman’s suicide note. A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars and its title track is Deadspace’s suicide note as an art project, and one that comes fittingly after a gradual refinement of their sound that mirrored the depressed mind’s spiral from melancholic sorrow to malignant despair, ending their career on a chillingly glorious high note. Being that I’m giving an incredibly dark, DSBM song my top spot, I’d just like to clarify that I’m not suicidal in any way right now, nor advocating it. My top song in 2018 was Andrew W.K.’s “Music Is Worth Living For”, and all the music this year, despite its crushing atmosphere on all of us, and as dark as much of that music is, still is. It’s just, 2020, you know.
With a healthy dose of 90’s groove metal influences (as well as some of the industrial and electronic elements their homeland has become famous for, which includes an at least curious dubstep bridge breakdown) to vary up their At the Gates-esque melodic death metal, German six-piece Eraser have burst out of the gate with a brilliantly balanced and head-turning independent debut album that I’m sure will land them on a label in no time. Boasting that sharp, fire-blackened death metal melody that both hooks you in and ties you to the alter it’s about to sacrifice you upon, A Deal with the Devil grooves so infectiously that you’ll find yourself nodding your head in rhythm as it sets the wood you’re strapped to ablaze. I think the band have some ironing out to do when it comes to a sound they want to cultivate, but they’ve laid a fine groundwork in what they’re capable of on this debut here, which is certainly an enthusiastic one that will catch you off your guard, well done.
I first was introduced to Insomnium with 2014′s Shadows of the Dying Sun, which was an excellent example of melodic death metal done properly. I was looking forward to this record, but was completely unprepared for what was to come. In short, Winter’s Gate is the kind of record that transcends the typical year-end list and defines a genre. It is one of the best epic progressive death metal albums ever recorded.
The closest comparison is Edge of Sanity’s landmark Crimson record, which has stood the test of time as a genre classic 20 years later (full disclosure: it is also one of my favorite records of all time). Winter’s Gate is less progressive and a bit less ambitious, but they are very similar in style. The band even brought in Dan Swano himself to mix and master the record!
The album consists of one 40-minute-long track, which is broken up into 7 parts on digital releases. As in Crimson, there are musical themes that are revisited several times throughout the piece, which helps to ground the listener to the overarching theme of the album (in this case, a group of Vikings setting out to explore the unknown sea) and keep from losing focus over a such a long track. As one would expect musically with Insomnium, it’s top-notch melodeath that is better than just about anyone else in the genre. The vocals are a near-perfect mix of harsh and clean that fits the lyrical theme like a glove.
The first time that I heard Crimson, I vividly remember being unready for it to end and immediately starting it over again. I had it on a CD in my car that I listened to for days on end, letting it repeat over and over again. No matter how many times I hear it, it sucks me in every time: I never tire of hearing it. Winter’s Gate is the first album I’ve heard since that elicits the same feeling. It’s the kind of record that I will listen to for years to come, and one that you simply must hear if you’re even remotely a fan of the genre. In the best year for music that I can recall, this was head-and-shoulders above everything else.
Dark Tranquillity Guitarist Fredrik Johansson Dies
A moment of silence for one of our fallen brothers in the mighty Dark Tranquillity, guitarist Fredrik Johansson.
Which songs will you be blasting this weekend in his honor? Share his music so we can all enjoy his contributions to our beloved subgenre, melodic death metal. May they echo in eternity.
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