In carrying on the fine tradition established last year, I will be posting my Top 10 Metal albums of 2011 periodically throughout December right here on Crushtor.net. As is customary (as customary as only one year of precedent can establish,) here are my honorable mentions.
The Bronze award goes to:
Anthrax - Worship Music
If there’s one thing Anthrax can be accused of, it’s a tendency to self-implode. As soon as their line-up approaches a soupcon of stability, it ends up collapsing as soon as the last nail is hammered in place. For Worship Music, we few metalheads can truly supplicate before it, perched upon the thrash metal altar. Soundly trumping other forays by the big four (Megadeth’s Thirteen – an admirable record yet missing drive; and Metallica’s unspeakably heinous collaboration record) Anthrax dug their way to the very core of thrash – careering with maximum brutality at breakneck speed in a quest to summon the beast himself. Some may scoff, remarking that thrash metal is intravenously and hopelessly addicted to its own past. The rejoinder? Headbanging riffs trimmed with Sunset Strip groove, plunging bass lines and badass bellows never go out of style, especially when they’re executed this well.
We approach the other side of the dias to hang the Silver award around the abstract neck of:
Within Temptation - The Unforgiving
It’s undoubtedly fashionable to port almost everything over into comic book format and The Unforgiving was spared no quarter. Based on a story that’s made unclear by my reluctance to shell out for the special edition, the band have well and truly taken a bulldozer to Mother Earth, erecting gothic monuments in its stead, neon-signs buzzing above us in the moonlight. Heart-rending, scrunch-faced acoustic touches remind us of their considerable songwriting talent; luckily the blueprints were in place long before notes were committed to hard-drive, for Within Temptation bereft of a raison d’etre is an exercise in guaranteed mediocrity. Splashing into the perilous ocean of pop, the band emerge from the muddy waters slicker and wiser with a splendid array of string-swelled metal club anthems, seething (Shot in the Dark) sumptuous (Sinead), sinister (Murder) and sensual (Faster) all proudly lead by the passion and drama of Sharon del Adel’s sublime soprano.
Now the crowd buzzes in anticipation for the Gold award winner, which is:
Amorphis - The Beginning of Times
Amorphis metamorphosed into faultless metal creatures upon the release of 2006’s Eclipse, their fealty to strident and lush psychedelic metal unwavering ever since. Tomi Joutsen snarls, swells and soothes as the band lays down arcane grooves upon resplendent 70s space rock soundscapes. It’s not all flowers, faeries and rainbows, though. There’s a helping of hulking muscle that weaves its way through tracks like My Enemy, conjuring up images of guitarists perched atop stage monitors, head banging violently in unison with the pounding riffs they’ve effortlessly condensed to a slick single that’s both uncompromisingly heavy yet still on speaking terms with pop radio deejays. Proposing they’ve stolen the pop-prog thunder of Genesis or Yes melded with cyborg-augmented Doors lightning would be a generous charge indeed, as we’re eternally grateful for their trippy, bewitching and alchemical metal brew.
Coming soon - the Top 10!