My Pretentious End of the Year List!!!
Everyone has a year-end list and here is mine. I’m not trying to show how cvlt I am by listing only the most obscure shit I can come up with, I am trying to be really honest and highlight the albums that really rocked my world this year. There is at least one that is a little embarrassing to list because some might think I am not cool enough. Fuck ‘em, it’s a fun record and I have a good time listening to it. You’ll know when you get to it. This is my definitive list…All other lists are merely someone else’s opinion! It is not really in any order and I even went with bullet points to get away from a “ranking”. (Josh Mosh)
- Napalm Death / Utilitarian – It’s like these salty bastards can do no wrong. Every album over the last 10 years or so has kicked ass. In fact most albums in the expansive catalog are ass kickers. They do not hold back on their politics, even if it might cost them a lunk-headed fan or two. Every album seems to push boundaries and this is not exception. Who would have ever thought there would be saxophones on a NAPALM DEATH album!
- Tragedy / Darker Days Ahead – I am just going to come out and say it! I’ve been kicking the idea around for a couple of weeks now but here we go… This is my favorite TRAGEDY album! It’s classic TRAGEDY and their patented melodic crust sound but I detect more metal in there than on previous efforts. This album is perfect in every sense. Amazing effort by an amazing band!
- War//Plague / One a Darker Dawn – This is how crust should be done. I love crust that proudly boasts its metallic origins and is worthy of a good head-bang. It’s dark, though provoking and heavy! All the ingredients to a punk rock pie with extra thick CRUST!
- Misery / From Where the Sun Never Shines – Haven’t ranted and raved about this album enough already? Hell no! This is the epic, crusty, king-fucking-ace! Again, another band delivering their best material decades into their existence!
- Killing Joke / MMXII – This was the biggest surprise of the year by far and I admit I didn’t catch on until about a month ago. I kind of let this one slip by even though I saw a few posts mentioning it. Finally it was the review in Decibel magazine that made me go get in the truck and gas my way down to the record store. And once I did this CD didn’t stop playing for about two weeks! There are so many journeys on this album and all the bands they have influenced come full circle and are heard in KILLING JOKE’s music. AMEBIX, NEUROSIS, MINISTRY, they are all there hidden in the notes as committed by these pioneers. Awesome, awesome album!
- Acephalix / Deathless Master – I don’t know how I missed these dudes until this album. Since my discovery of their FUCKING AWESOME brand of crusty, death metal I have gone out and acquired their two previous LPs.
- Nuclear Death Terror / Chaos Reigns – This my favorite effort of this Danish crust band. They do an amazing job of capturing that ENT sound but have allowed it to mature into a blend of their own. The production on this album is ace and really sets the bar.
- Kreator / Phantom Anti-Christ – This is getting to be a bit of a redundant theme through my list here but this is perhaps their best album…Ever! It perfectly captures the balance of melody and the brutal thrash that Mille and company are known for. They absolutely crushed it live when I saw them with fellow countrymen ACCEPT last summer. Fuck yea!
- Testament / Dark Roots of the Earth – I was so excited to see the Testy ones return with such a magnificent offering of metal superiority. Hands down the best thing they’ve done since ‘The New Order’.
- Municipal Waste / Fatal Feast – A band that I have had a love/hate relationship with but this latest slab brought back into their camp. This record is fucking fun and the band seems to be re-inspired and re-energized.
- Deviated Instinct / Liberty Crawls – And the “Heavier Than Santa’s Sack” award goes too…Fucken’ “A”!!! DEVIATED INSTICT just raze everything in their way with this one! This is an instant crust-punk classic by an already classic band and is one of my favorite releases of the year by far. It could easily go into a top 3 throw down with a few other lucky picks. This album simply destroys and makes me worship them!
- Anti-Sect / Tour EP – Anti-Sect were never happy with the sound they captured on either of their official releases back in the 80’s. Well this was their opportunity to correct this issue and so they took a couple of songs to the cleaners and polished them up. This record is the result of that and it is EXPLOSIVE! If you know what I mean. That still scares the shit out of me whenever I listen to it. Gotta’ change me drawers now. Oh, and the redone version of ‘Out From the Void’ is absolutely on fire! Listen to that fucken’ guitar! Yes!
- KISS / Monster – I didn’t want to like this record. I wanted it to suck. I reluctantly listened to it in an effort to get the constant nagging from a friend of mine to stop. Damnit! This album fuckin’ rocked and I couldn’t stop listening to it for weeks. This is serious party rock and had it been released 25 years earlier would have been huge. This is the best album they have done in a long, long time.
- Neurosis / Honor Found in Decay – NEUROSIS is a spiritual journey through audio landscapes and emotions. This is their creepiest album and is not meant as background noise. You must completely lend yourself to NEUROSIS for the duration of this album to really absorb the magic that is being shared. Not meant for everyone, but those of us that get it…Get it!
- Overkill / Electric Age – Not quite the masterpiece that ‘Ironbound’ was but a worthy follow-up none the less. I was disappointed to see that it was overlooked on some other year end lists. But that is the short end of the proverbial stick that seems to plague this band. I’ll never understand why they don’t get the respect that deserve.
- Black Breath / Sentenced to Life – Fuck yeah! Always a sucker for that ENTOMBED sound and these guys do it really well combing death and thrash metal and even some hardcore without sounding “metal-core” or “death-core” or mimicking ENTOMBED. They do an excellent job of mixing it all up into a volatile cocktail of Heavy Metal explosiveness.
- Accept / Stalingrad – HEAVY FUCKING METAL DUDE!!! I’m a dolt and didn’t buy ‘Blood of the Nations’, I need to correct this and pick up a copy. But seeing that ACCEPT was coming to town with one of my favorite thrash metal messiahs I thought I should prep for the show, fork out some worthless paper currency and grab a copy. Holy-who-the-hell-is-Udo?!!!!! Fuck straight the fuck on, HEAVY METAL! With more hooks than the Eagle Claw factory and like winners of the riff jackpot this album is a solid fuckin’ rocker through and through. Wow!
- I’m stopping here. Those are really the “new releases” that rocked my year. Sure I bought some other shit, but it just doesn’t stack up to what I’ve committed to this list and I don’t see any use in dragging it out just to hit a certain number. AGAIN – THESE ARE NOT IN ORDER!!! I don’t feel like splitting hairs trying to get that fucking anal. (I said “anal”!)
Best Re-Issues
- King Diamond / No Presents for Christmas – I’ve had the cassette since Santa was a little boy so capturing this on vinyl (picture disc even!) was quite a treat. All Hail the King!
- Rudimentary Peni / Death Church – Trying to nail down a copy on ebay is going to cost you some serious coinage. I usually would drop out of the auction around $50 – $60. I picked up this re-issue for half of that. Classic anarcho-punk.
- Judas Priest / Screaming for Vengeance CD – The only reason this is on here is because of the DVD of the US Festival. This is one of my favorite albums of all time but I own the original LP from when I was a kid, the cassette, an earlier CD re-issue, this re-issue and now even the picture disc re-issue that came out a few weeks ago. Oh…the footage of the US Festival is off the fucking hook yo! So amazing!
Top Shows / Concerts
- Roger Waters – This blew my fucking mind! I always “liked” Pink Floyd, now I am bought in hook line and sinker. My Dad sprung for tickets and took my brother and I to this mind melting, spiritual gathering. Wow!
- KISS / Motley Crue – If it had been only KISS on tour I would not have gone. Partnered up with Motley Crue (one of my all time faves) I could not resist. Even caught them twice. The second show was extra special because I went with my Dad and my daughter! 3 generations of my family with their horned hands in the air. As much as I wanted to say KISS sucked, I cant. They were good.
- Ghost – The anticipation for this show was intense. I mean the whole buzz leading up this was just fun to be part of. Everyone cranking the album, it was like being in my late teens again where certain albums were just latched on to providing a soundtrack for our existence. Their performance was magical and the sold-out crowd was left awestruck.
- Deviated Instinct / Antisect – They played together Saturday night of Chaos in Tejas and seeing either of these bands would have been a life changer but to see them together in such a setting was almost surreal. I felt really lucky to be able to have seen this and been part of it.
- The Mob – I didn’t really know what to expect but their simple, catchy and mysterious sound captured the audience in a spell. I was really emotionally moved by their performance.
- Ghoul / Municipal Waste x2 – GHOUL rules. The poor mans GWAR maybe. I was in the pit, I was covered in blood I was thrashing like a maniac. I caught them in Boulder with GWAR and then again in Texas. These two bands coupled together was a high energy, moshtasitc throw down. For MW’s set in Texas I made my buddy go down to the floor and told him that “Municipal Waste is going to fuck you up”. He was a little leery, not really bought into these guys. And as soon as they started their thrash he was taken the fuck out! Victim of stomp he was! Perhaps now he will not question their ability to fuck him up!
- Scorpions – Such a classic band and they just seemed to enjoy themselves so much. They sounded great and we were at Red Rocks which is always memorable. My daughter went to this one as well as everyone in my bad. What an awesome experience. I’ve seen them several times and I think this was the stand out performance.
- DRI (Glenwood Springs) – The Eagles Lodge in Glenwood Springs is where I saw my first show back in the 80’s. Here I am in 2012 seeing one of my all-time favorite bands in this small town, in a tiny ass venue. So FUCKING AWESOME! It almost brought a tear to my eye as I danced and sang along with the Dirty Rotten ones arm-in-arm with all my buds from high school and my early 20’s. What a trip! A walk down memory lane for sure. On the road trip there and back my buddy Mikey and broed down sharing and reliving story after story of our youth (most likely to the disdain of our companions). And then we even stayed up to 5 AM drinking beers and sharing more stories with our host and long time friend. So many memories, so many good times!
- Deadly Reign – At Beerland at Chaos in Tejas. IN-FUCKING-TENSE! They were like an atom bomb exploding on the stage and my face was melted.
Worst Concert
- Van Halen – The tickets were the same price as Roger Waters but not nearly a comparable experience. No stage show and Dave sucked. It’s really hard to even listen to Van Halen casually now since they pissed on their legacy (again?). I would never go see them again.
ThrashPunx 