no posts since August. . .and now, the best of 2010

. . .yeah

I don't have an excuse.

I just don't.

I wanna say I'll try next year, but I said that last year.

needless to say, this year fucking sucked.

. . . .but of course the music ruled.
. . .even if we had to watch a bunch of awesome people die while listening to it. . .sometimes, right after they made it.

well, every year is worse than the last, and the only good things we remember about the last year is the tunes. . . .so, lets just get to remember that shit right now, because it's bumming me out. . .


40. Kill the Client - Set for Extinction
maybe not as catchy as Cleptocracy, but what is??

39. Ladyscraper - Pink
in a year where Venetian Snares released a full length. . .somehow. . .he was topped. How? By a kick drum the hits you like an aluminum baseball bat. .constantly. It's so abrasive, it's damn near metal.

38. War From a Harlots Mouth - MMX
So, you just made a major improvement to your sound and snared a ton of nonbelievers with your last record. Where do you go next? Bring back some of the speed and tune lower than hell.

37. Deathspell Omega - paralectus
I don't even really have words. I can say though, that the hype is real. This doesn't sound like any black metal I've ever heard. I can't really think of what it reminds me of, honestly. It's weird as fuck, but not in that way that nu-Mayhem is weird.

36. Flourishing - a momentary sense of the immediate world
One of the most perfect combinations of Discordance Axis and Gorguts you're ever going to here.

35. Fukpig - Belief is the Death of Intelligence
one year later, still pissed the fuck off, with twice the blast

34. Black Kites - Songs Written While Things Were Changing
this band should not be flying under the radar like they have been. If you look at their last.fm profile right now, my best of post from last year is still on the page. . .and they weren't even on my list last year (because I didn't hear the album until I'd already posted the list). Here they were, one year later. This band waste no time kicking ass. Hurry up and get into it.

33. Killing Joke - Absolute Dissent
I mean it's kind of a given this is going to show up here isn't it? They took the best of the 80s stuff and the 90s stuff (well okay, nothing like Extremities. . .) andmixed it up real good.

32. Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones
like Celtic Frost never went away. . . .even though they did.

31. Thou - Summit
of the highly anticipated, heavily hyped sludge releases of 2010, this is the one that truly delivered.

30. Jesus Cröst - 010
because as far as I know yaecopsae didn't release anything this year. . . .so. . .next best thing.

29. Japanische Kampfhörspiele - Bilder Fressen Strom
just as easy to get into as the EP from last year, even with longer songs and more experimentation.

28. The Chariot - Long Live
an album a year, back to back, and the only good christian metalcore band left in existence remains killer. .without a band member overhaul no less.

27. Fear Factory - mechanize
Friends, this is one of the great comebacks of 2010. Sepultura level drama surrounds this band, but Dino and Burt got back on speaking terms and with Strapping Young Lads rhythm section no less brought us the first great Fear Factory album since Demanufacture. Cheese Burt turned down the cheese. Dino tuned down to hell. Fun was had.

26. Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire - songs of ill hope and desperation
when it comes to death/grind, I can't think of anything that came out that was as bleak as this jawn right here.

25. Circle of Dead Children - psalm of the grand destroyer
the long awaited return of the only band allowed to get away with having pig squeals. . .and you'll know why after you hear it

24. Gods And Queens - untitled
the songs still have no names, the lyrics are still bummer as fuck, and this is still the best thing you can put on on a dreary ass day. . .which there were a lot of this year.

23. Psychotic Despair - personal identity
if you're a fan of Ingrowing or Afgrund's latest album, do yourself a favor and pick this up.

22. Magrudergrind - crusher
crushING :)

21. Withered - Dualitas
this was the record where Withered won me over on CD. I already liked thier live show, but I didn't think Folie Circulair sounded quite as good as they did in a live setting. This sounds more like it, not to mention the songs are better.

20. Throats - Throats
Go figure they broke up already. Such a great record, short as it is. Hell, all they did was splits and this album. We hardly knew them. They sure did leave a path of destruction behind them though.

19. cali≠gari - janai
The first "j-rock" band to make it on to one of these lists in a LONG TIME. It's tiher mest material since Dai 7, and apparently they broke up AGAIN right after. Considering they broke up after what wasn't their best record the first time, this is a much better note to leave on.

18. The Abominable Iron Sloth - the Id Will Overcome
the Sloth bring a more traditional sludge sound than on the first record, and they do so really well.

17. Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini
I'd all but given up on this band. Thier prog side had taken over, and fun was not had. This year though, it seems they've decided to play *gasp* METAL.?! In doing so, they've given us the best "nu-enslaved" album. Yes, even with Jonas Renske impersonator keyboardist playing good cop.

16. Fistula - Goat
This is some harsh shit. I went a good two months listening to this non-stop.

15. Punished Earth - rhapsodies of decay
Did I say Circle of Dead Children were the only band allowed to have pig squeals? I meant only AMERICAN band.

14. Early Graves - GONER
The tragic death of vocalist Makh Daniels hit me pretty hard. This album, hit even harder. True, a hundred other bands made this album this year. True, the first album was better. . .but the fact is only two "entombed-core" bands were good enough to make this list. These guys made the list because they kept it high on the death(and in some cases GRIND) and low on the "n'roll".

13. Mr. Death - Death Suits You
still the best of the new old death metal bands

12. HAARP - the filth
in a year where "beard metal" was all the rage, haarp play fucking SLUDGE

11. Admiral Angry - a fire to burn down the world
The late great Daniel Krauss left us all with a little bit less than a half hour of pure, unadulterated OUCH. 23:38. You look at that, you're expecting maybe 2 minutes of song and 20 minutes of ambient what-the-fuck-ever. no. The last 7 minutes of the song are a final killing blow. A spirit bomb if you will. I really hate to cheapen such an experience with a Dragon Ball reference, but it fits.

10. Dax Riggs - say goodnight to the world
the voice. . .is. . .BACK!

9. Excrementory Grindfuckers - Headliner Der Herzen /The Left Rights - bad choice made easy
The most fun things I heard this year. Excrementory bringing the perfect combo of heaviness and being a fucking laugh riot. . .whether you know the language or not. They're no novelty band. The Left Rights returned this year, surpassing the band from which they spawned. They'd make you dance, if you weren't so busy rolling on the floor laughing your ass off.

8. Nails - unsilent death
Nails are the other "entombed-core" band that made it here. 90% of this is straight up grindcore like Trap Them used to make way back when.

7. Masakari - the profit feeds
The problem with a lot of these new d-beat bands is they're just not fast enough. This band gets it. They do what most of these kids who just discovered HM-2 pedals last week can't seem to do correctly.


6. Celeste - Morte(s) Nee(s)
I'm thinking you might not want to listen to this if you are in fact depressed. The kind of suffocating darkness emanating from this EP may not help very much. It's blacker than black metal.

5. The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza - Danza III
there's "djent" and then there's this shit. Highly anticipated, and it fucking delivered. No more laughs, just carnage. The roster overhaul that happened was actually for the better. It's so much heavier than anything they've done so far.

4. Hooded Menace - never cross the dead
This record has been stuck in my head for the entire year. It wasn't quite like that at first, but in a month, it was stuck in there and it wasn't coming out for quite some time.

3. Starkweather - this sheltering night
This is truly the unsung metal/hardcore legends finest hour. Every song crushes, and most of the interludes are more than intriguing enough that you won't just hit "next".

2. Harvey Milk - a small turn of human kindness
it was a hard fought battle, but in the end it comes down to this. The saddest record ever is number two in 2010. Oh, what? what were you gonna say? "what about a dead sinking story". . . .no, that is now obsolete. Is that album about watching your pregnant lover take her own life? NO. SIT DOWN. Normally, I hate musicals. If they made one out of this, I'd bloody go see it. It's crushingly heavy, and then it's beautifully sad, and then it's crushingly heavy again.

1. Wormed - quasineutrality
"but it's a single" SHUT UP. These are the two best songs of the year. These two songs are my favorite thing I've heard this year. I heard this in March. Okay? It came out in March. From about then, to the end of the summer, I could not listen to either of these songs just once. On repeat in the car, bouncing around in my seat. Seriously. More Sci-Fi than Fear Factory (the fucking PREDATOR IS ON VOCALS MAN!), doing Cryptopsy better than Cryptopsy have done Cryptopsy in years, and catchy as fuck to boot. Wormed, with just two songs, surpassed all the brutal death metal full lengths released since probably 2008. . .at least. They've left everyone wanting more, and I don't know how the next full album they release will measure up to this. I have some hope though.




stuff that was somehow forgotten in the shuffle of awesome music that came out this year, even though it certainly wasn't any less awesome -
Bastards - an end in and of itself(I said to look out for these guys, and then they came out with a free album right at the end of the year when I'd already made my list), Rotten Sound - Napalm, Decrepit Birth - Polarity, Isahn - After, Venetian Snares - my so called life, Jucifer - throned in blood, Intronaut - Valley of Smoke, Nevermore - the obsidian conspiracy, Emily Prentiss. . .(oops, I mean Julie Christmas) - the bad wife, Black Breath - heavy breathing, Cephalic Carnage - misled by certainty, Nile - those whom the gods detest, Ihsahn - after, Unearthly Trance - V (I'm pretty sure I'm going to wish I'd put it in the top 40 by the middle of next year), Fuck the Facts - unamed EP and 1349 - Demonoir

best songs of 2010 . . . that's gonna have to be a separate post
because there were 30 of them




best splits of 2010 (that did not involve Unearthly Trance. . .didn't they have like 5?)
Gadget/Phobia
Narrows/Heiress
Kowloon Walled City/Fight Amp/Ladder Devils
Wormrot/I Abhor
Robotosaurus/Coerce

comeback of the year (that did not make the top 40)
This year, you had 4 bands achieve major returns to form. Two of them made the top 40, the following didn't quite make the top 40. . .
Ion Dissonance: With their album Cursed, fueled by butthurt from the reaction to that piece of shit Minus the Herd, made the album they should have made two years ago. (PS - the lyrics still suck)

. . but the biggest comeback of 2010. . .
Immolation: I don't know what got into this band after Failures for Gods. They had lost it for quite some time. Plagued with overproduction and a lack of memorable riffs, 4 albums and one EP of fail commenced. A whole decade of boring crap. Then, all of a sudden, they just got it back. The modern production still does them no favors, but fuck it, they're back. The whole thing sounds like it could have been on Here in After.

disappointment of 2010: Deftones - diamond eyes. . . . . . .this is a straight up hatefest that has been brewing since the summer. *ahem*
Not since Foo Fighters jumped the shark with the Colour and the Shape has an album shrunk on me as quickly and this bad as Diamond Eyes did. What the fuck? Why the fuck does everyone like this thing? Even Stef's Meshuggah fandom could not save this record, try as he might. "this place is death" and "976-EVIL" are the only good songs. yeah, I don't even like "CMND/CNTRL" anymore. It sounds like POD with 8-string guitars. 8-string guitars, obviously, cannot save POD. . nor can they save Linkin Park, which is exactly what half of 'beauty school' sounds like. "sextape" is fucking awful. fucking awful. Seriously. I went into itunes and highlighted the song "diamond eyes", went to "get info" went to "options" and put "2:46" as the start time. I did this so it would only play the end of the song BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY FUCKING GOOD PART!!! That teaser for the Diamond Eyes video should have been the whole video, because it was just that part. Had i not heard the song already, I'd have seen that and got all excited, and then heard the whole song and said "this thing fucking sucks. . . .oh wait, there's that part. . . oh, now it sucks again. . .oh, cool, that part. . .and it's over. . this fucking sucked". I'm not gonna talk about the song that is stolen from an old Will Haven record (and not anywhere as good). I'm not gonna talk about the 4 songs where they sound like one of those bands that tries to sound like the Deftones. Saturday Night Wrist was so much better than this it is not even funny. I get people telling me "you know, they were trying to go for a more upbeat sound because of what just happened". . .well, guys, you should have gone on hiatus instead. I think the label wanted a record NOW, and you grabbed another bassist and cranked out this piece of garbage. Fuck you. You FAIL

tied for biggest disappointment of 2010: This or the Apocalypse
talk about squandered potential. god damn. awful. I already had a hatefest for this record. whatever.

little bit less of a disappointment of the year: Envy
fucking dicks. you make one good EP and two good splits and have me thinking "oh, nice, they're coming back", and then you go right the fuck back to Insomniac fucking Doze?!?! fuck you!

. . yeah, I know I hated on them in the Harvey Milk blurb already. I don't care. They're fucking overrated.

new rule for 2011: LESS Entombed/MORE GRIND
there's a couple of bands I will disown if their next record sounds anything like their last one.
I so didn't think I was going to be annoyed with the whole "everyone buy an HM-2, go to GodCity and write 20 D-beat songs that aren't fast enough" trend, and now I'm so annoyed with it I don't even listen to the albums like that that I actually liked all that much anymore.
shit.
either wake up, or start playing doom.
something.

best hip-hop
1. Heavy Barrelz - tha treachery
2. Necro - Die!
3. Meth Ghost & Rae (did anyone figure out how we're supposed to tag this yet?!?!?) - Wu massacre
4. Papoose - Papoose Season
5. Plots - So Social

someones gonna have to tell me who put out stuff besides them. I wasn't too fond of the final Camu Tao record, and Copywrites EP turned out to be from last year, and Eminem is a fucking hopeless case

I dunno man.

Motley, where are you??


so that's all for 2010. It's chirstmas eve, and I really hope nobodys gonna release anything next week.

I can't wait to burn this year to the ground. . . . .even if next year will just suck more.

right???


This time next year, I hope to be talking about Gridlink, Tombs and Disembodied.

see you all next year.

-KMFCM