Turned out to be a pretty heavy year. While I did listen to quite a bit of electronic stuff as well, nothing really grabbed me like these. Of special note is the number of records that were self-released. A telling sign of the times.
15. Absolutely - Learns To Loves Mistakes (self-released)
This Milwaukee band wallows around in the kind of arty post-hardcore that Unwound was doing early on in its career. They appear to have same infatuation with the glorious din inspired by Sonic Youth, but they also seem to be taking cues from noisy pop bands of the same era (Polvo springs to mind). It’s dissonant and abrasive when it’s not absurdly catchy.
14. Throat - Licked Inch Fur (At War with False Noise/Kaos Kontrol/Made in Kansas/Verdura Records)
This Finnish noiserock outfit gets compared to Unsane a lot, but I think that’s a bit unfair because they are anything but copycats. While Unsane traffic in a kind of unrelenting brutality, Throat’s approach is subtler and, to my mind, ultimately more effective. By slowing down the proceedings slightly and letting the arrangements breath a little, their steamroller bludgeoning is allowed to *gasp* groove a bit.
13. Control - Grabhorn C. (Science Of Sound)
Madison’s best band continues to produce riveting post-punk work. A dub-influenced rhythm section churns under all manner of guitar textures. The distance between atmospheric ethereality, crushing riffs, and angular lines is never as far as you presume it to be. Control seem to have eschewed both the sinewy guitar heroics and the Don Cab-influenced mathrock in favor of finding their own way. I can now longer think of acts to directly compare them to and that only makes me love them more.
12. KEN mode - Venerable (Profound Lore)
This record is so dense as to be almost impenetrable. But what at first seems like unrelenting brutality turns out to be a dynamics-drenched trip into hell. For every metallic riff tossed off at light speed, there is an equal and opposing detour into harrowing mood music. KEN mode speeds up the Jesus Lizard grind until it seems about to break and then pistol whips the conventions of post-metal to a bloody pulp.
11. Heavy Breath - Ugly Americans (Get Young)
These New Haven CT hardcore kids stretch the boundaries of their genre in some intriguing ways. Wrapping infectious songs with tattered shreds of metal, classic rock, and electronics they careen through these songs as if their lives depended on it. Think Snapcase if they got really high and listened to a lot of Thin Lizzy.
10. Maidens - Shallows (Error)
What the fuck Milwaukee? The great bands are crawling out of the woodwork. Maidens deliver muscular post-metal with so many interesting almost-hooks that it’s impossible not to pay attention. Unlike the current crop of Isis-aping bands, Maidens are more about the song than the atmosphere. The vaguely melodic dueling vocals are shouted into the maelstrom of grinding bass and alternately slithering and punishing guitars, pushing most songs into some sort of brutal melancholy.
9. Avalanche Ammo - Animals (self-released)
Frenetic instrumental mathrock from Kildare Ireland that is very similar in style to their countrymen And So I Watch You From Afar. However, unlike that band who failed to deliver on the promise of their early records, this EP is the real deal. It’s got all the tapping guitars and twists and turns you’d expect from mathrock these days but it’s the brilliant melodies and sometimes glitchy electronics woven throughout that really make this shine, sometimes approaching the transcendence of Tortoise or Cougar.
8. War Brides - Terminus (self-released)
This Chicago band’s post-hardcore is a screaming kick in the teeth. And that’s a good thing. It’s not all brutal buzz-saw riffing though: the songs veer into sludge and post-rock on occasion as well. I’m often reminded of two of my favorite bands of the last couple of years: Fall of Efrafa and Aussitot Mort. There’s a certain classic-rock catchiness buried deep under the surface here but when the echoey guitar lines start to soar over the chugging riffs and throat-shredding vocals, it’s nothing short of sublime catharsis.
7. Joe 4 - Enola Gay (Whosbrain)
Our Croatian tourmates played these songs night after night in Europe this summer. I never once got tired of hearing them. Their single-minded forward momentum calls to mind the gray ennui of Chicago’s Tar. The hoarse everyman vocals ride uncomfortably atop the nuanced arrangements and rhythmically sophisticated cadences. It’s a deceptively simple record that only surrenders its rewards upon repeated listens.
6. The Customary Silence - Foul Thoughts (self-released)
This Milwaukee trio seemed to spring out of nowhere full-grown and fully realized. Streamlined and coldly calculated, these songs are bludgeoning in all the right places and mathematically slippery at all the exact points they need to be. This appeals to the AmRep/Touch&Go lover in me, but not because of any slavish devotion to the form. Instead they write amazing songs with original ideas while keeping their ace influences in the back of their minds.
5. Hands Up Who Wants To Die - Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo (Richter Collective)
More Dublin-based noiserock? Yes please. The singer walks a line between David Yow’s sing-speak and Clutch frontman Neil Fallon’s bellow. The rest of the band tags along aluminum-beard-rock style with more fluidity than one usually finds among the legions of Albini-worshipers.
4. The Fucking Hotlights - High Society Torture Party (self-released)
So there’s a lot of well-deserved chatter and hype about Obits and their hybrid of classic-rock swagger and hardcore/noiserock grit. For my money, though, The Fucking Hotlights are way more visceral and rewarding. This Buffalo NY outfit ups the ante by throwing in some nods to Jesus Lizard and Circus Lupus and churns out a record that epitomizes fuck-all rock and roll. Dig it.
3. Light Bearer - Lapsus (Halo of Flies/Moment of Collapse/Alerta Antifascista)
Ex-Fall of Efrafa frontman Alex CF does another “book band.” This time he’s put together a project to explore the story of the fall of Lucifer (Latin for Light Bearer). The similarities with Efrafa extend behind the all-encompassing literary bent though. The music likewise is epic and crushing, deftly blending all the “post” genres: hardcore, metal, and rock. The lengthy compositions are are still anchored by Alex’s guttural howl but are less ragged and more sinewy — it’s monumental and yearning, stretching metal to its breaking point.
2. Ghost To Atom - Lines (self-released)
Since my favorite band broke up, I have been devastated. Now San Francisco’s Ghost To Atom fill the Unwound-shaped hole in my soul. Not content to simply ape, these fellas channel Olympia and turn in an absolutely stunning record. The beautifully jagged outbursts give way to mathy precision and languid melancholic passages. Maybe if I wasn’t such a huge fan boy, the uncanny similarities would bother me, but as it is I cannot express how happy this makes me.
1. Russian Circles - Empros (Sargent House)
The inclusion of ex-Botch/These Arms Are Snakes bass player Brian Cook has toughened up the Chicago instrumentalists’ post-rock leanings considerably. There are still plenty twists and turns here along with melodic flourishes and expansive ambience, but the fist-pumping, head-banging moments elevate Empros to truly epic status. This record is absolutely massive, though not in an overpowering volume sort of way. It fills my soul with an addictive melancholy that makes me want to puff out my chest and spit in God’s eye.
*****Singles/Splits*****
4. End Of A Year Self Defense Family - “I Heard Crime Gets You Off” & “I’m Going Through Some Shit” (Deathwish)
Two 7-inches released by a band in the process of changing their name (End Of A Year => Self Defense Family). This band is a refreshing blast of Revolution Summer, meaning that they remind me a lot of Rites of Spring which is always a good thing.
3. Canyons of Static - “Northern Highland” (self-released)
This Milwaukee band’s take on the instrumental post-rock idiom is more beautiful than most due in large part to keyboardist Aggie Severson’s deceptively simple melodies. Both songs here are haunting and yearning. “Northern Highland” especially lodges itself in your head making it instantly recognizable upon repeated listenings.
2. Aussitot Mort/Heaven In Her Arms - Split (Denovali)
Classic-rock leaning French screamniks, Aussitot Mort, team up with Envy Jr., Heaven In Her Arms, for a superb record. The sprawling tracks are so epic and so all-encompassing that my expectations for the participants’ new records are now impossibly high.
1. Griever - “The Forgetter Single” (Vitriol)
Made up of San Diego hardcore vets, Griever put out the best song I heard all year. “The Forgetter” is impossibly catchy with hooks that come tumbling one after another making me listen to the damn thing over and over and over. Still, there’s nothing precious about it with its buzzing guitars and gruffly melodic vocals anchored by insistent rhythms and a deft arrangement. The flip uses sludge and shoegaze to push hardcore into Jesu territory.
*****Not 2011*****
End Of A Year - You Are Beneath Me (Deathwish)
This was released last year, but I just discovered this Albany NY band this year after they had already changed their name to Self Defense Family (see Singles/Splits above). It’s Revolution Summer all over again.
Big’n - Dying Breed (African Tape)
African Tape released Big’n’s (how the fuck do you make that possessive?) Spare The Horses EP this year, but frankly this singles and odds’n’end comp is better. I have most of this stuff on vinyl, but it’s a nice recap of their career especially, the early years. This Chicago band pumped out uncompromising noise that had more in common with a machine shop than a rock band and this record proves that.
Le Kraken - Exalt (self-released)
I discovered this Montreal band’s 2009 record this year but it got its claws in me pretty good. On the face of it, it appears to be a color-by-numbers post-metal exercise, but damn if I don’t keep coming back to it. It somehow doesn’t fall into either the heavy-as-hell trap or the aimless and pretty trap. Either there’s some deeply buried catchiness or there’re some subliminal messages. Either way I dig it.
Isis - Live Album Series (self-released)
Post-metal kingpins Isis may have broken up but they’ve left us with five live records that span their career. The audience recordings are surprisingly good quality and the performances are uniformly great.
New Brutalism - Personal Record (self-released)
This record was written and recorded as a one-off wedding gift for a friend of the band. This year they made it available publicly. This is the best material yet from this iconoclastic Knoxville band and beautifully showcases why their single-minded devotion to minimalist angularity is without equal among their aluminum-guitar-wielding peers.
Denver appears to be a hot bed of awesome punk-influenced metal lately (see 
DW gave me the 
for Christmas and I’ve been thoroughly enthralled. The book traces the beginnings of the four critical members (Strummer, Jones, Simonon, and Headon). For every tour, every recording session, every record, every significant event, all four weigh in with their recollections and unique perspective — they all come off much smarter than I ever thought they were. The way the book is put together reminds me of the 
in that the myriad of details ends up painting a big picture and inspiring and enthralling because of it. The pictures are fabulous too. You realize why indeed they were the only band that mattered for a few short years.
