Friday, December 30, 2011

Shady`s Top 5 EP`s, Some Honorable Mentions And Biggest Disappointments 


Boris The Blade - Tides Of Damnation 
Genre: Deathcore 
This could`ve been my Deathcore release of the year if it was, you know, a full length. Straight up, in your face, balls to the walls type of deathcore so done right. It gets technical at times, but mostly the drums are the only technical thing about this. And even though it`s not super technical deathcore, it isn`t also chugcore fest. Technical enough to keep you up in your feet. And breakdowns are here and there but they`re mostly "short breakdowns" but don`t worry , there`s also enough balls busting breakdowns for us core fags.

Blotted Science - The Animation Of Entomology 
Genre: Instrumental Technical Death Metal/Progressive
A supergroup playing different stuff from their original bands, and I honestly like this better than all of their original groups combined. Face-melting technical death metal with some jazzy stuff here and there at its finest. They even made some special videos for a few songs from the ep, taking movies and kinda making them their own so a +1 for that. You would think a voice to this type of stuff is needed, but these guys play this stuff so well , a voice would ruin the musicianship for me.

Substructures - Monolith 
Genre: Progressive Deathcore
When I first heard of these guys, I went:"Blah another prog deathcore/djent band".Boy was I wrong...Although the guitar tone gets "djenty" at times, it`s not djeneric progcore stuff. These guys pull off the spacy theme better than everyone in this genre and it`s not technical polyrythm junk for the sake of being technical, it`s just really good atmospheric stuff while still keeping it`s heavyness and great musicianship. I imagine these guys are only gonna get more experimental with their sound with each release and climb to the top of this now-stale realm of "progcore".

Love Through Cannibalism - Enma Ai 
Genre: 8-Bit/Breakcore/Nintendocore
Such a short EP but this is one my favorite releases of this dude that makes awesome 8-bit breakcore. Inspired by some chick in an anime, it has this vibe that other releases from his doesn`t have, it`s like an eerie vibe, I just love it.

Oscillator - Experiment XIII 
Genre:Technical Death Metal/Deathcore/Experimental
This could very well be my número 1of favorite ep`s this year. Fast, heavy, brutal all the way through and still being technical complicated stuff. The vocoders gives it this alien-y vibe to everything and these guys incorporate some really weird stuff (at least very weird for this genre) that gets my approval. And the breakdowns...holy shit, I think these guys get also my Breakdowns Of The Year award lol. This could be in my AOTY list (and rank very high also) but it`s not a full length.

Albums That I Also Loved But Lacked Something Or Had A Few Faults (also called Honorable Mentions) 

*shels - Plains Of The Purple Buffalo 
Genre: Post Metal/Progressive/Experimental
So good. First of all, a beautiful album cover. Second, this is near epic status in terms of music. So why it didn`t get on my Top 10? Well first, it gets "too quiet" very often. I realize that it`s part of the build-up but very often I thought that the album ended and then BOOM!! music pops out. At least when the music pops out, it`s plain beautiful stuff that could make you shed a tear or two. Another thing that kinda bothered me is, it`s too long. It feels like it`s being dragged on and on.  But besides all of that, this is an album that gets played every few days, it`s THAT good.

The Last Ten Seconds Of Life - Know Your Exits 
Genre: Deathcore 
I fucking love this album. Plain heavy chuggy chunky deathcore so done well and the album cover gets a +1 for me, it has a rustic feel to it that I love. So if I`m jizzing because of this album, why it gets honorable mention instead of being in my big list? Quite simple really, I just loved everything else a bit more haha. It does have its faults though. I think it`s too long for a deathcore album (I like my deathcore short and sweet) so it feels like it`s being dragged on a bit and gets repetitive, although it`s deathcore so the repetitiveness it`s to be expected. Overall a great album if you want chuggy deathcore with no fancy crap.

Ever Forthright - Ever Forthright 
Genre: Progressive Math Metal/Experimental 
This kinda surprised me. I expected yet another djent release or whatever but it surprised me. Yeah the core of this is technically another Periphery with the technicality and junk. But these guys take that to another level. Super jazzy instrumentals with sax in the mix, better vocals ( I still dislike strongly the cleans but they`re better than Periphery`s for me) lengthy songs and overall superb musicianship. And the breakdowns will hit like a ton of bricks. But like I said before, the vox sometimes ruin it for me and it kinda looses some steam mid-way through where it feels like you heard this before. And not to mention they add some stuff that feels out of place like in song I heard some rapping? Yeck, but anyways it picks up the pace again with the last 2 songs, the last one being a great end to this awesome album.

Biggest Disappointments Of 2011 (for me)

Protest The Hero - Scurrilous 
Genre: Progressive Metal 
WOAH!! hold on there br0t4t0. How does PTH get biggest disappointment and a genericore band like Dr. Acula gets big list honors? First of all, it`s my list so shut up. Now I`ll explain why it`s here. It feels really bland to me, it`s super repetitive and it has that Brain Drill feel to it where they are being technical for the sake of being technical. PTH has always been a band with great musicianship but they always showed it in a tasteful manner, whereas here it feels like shredding for the sake of shredding. The vocals get super cheesy a lot of times and no harsh vocals!! I just find this super boring. And if you think PTH being in my disappointment list is prepostrous, wait til you see the other big disappointment...

The Human Abstract - Digital Veil 
Genre: Progressive Deathcore 
Although I liked this album better than Scurrilous, it still felt like a huge disappointment. Sure it feels like a vast improvement over their previous effort "Midheaven" and it`s the return of founding member and lead guitarist AJ Minette, but it feels just bland. There is no song here that made me go "wow", it`s super short and although the new singer does the growling/highs really well, it`s just another singer who does that, whereas the old singer had his own flair and gave it an unique feel to the band.


So yeah, that covers everything I wanted to do to my list. Hopefully you read both this list and my AOTY list and if you did, then you deserve...my thanks I guess haha. I'm poor nigga, I can`t afford to give you guys anything.

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