Personal analysis of 2014 in metal

The end of this year came, which means it‘s time for everyone’s personal or non-personal annual lists with the best releases for the last twelve months. Many people stigmatize this year as one of the weakest in our favourite music… and partly they are right. Besides that this period gave us some great, monumental albums which, I guarantee, will be remembered for a long time. Here’s some of them in my humble opinion.

                10. Primordial – Where Greater Men Have Fallen

The Irish heathens announced their new album at the very beginning of the year, thus awakening our hunger for more pagan metal. With “Where Greater Men Have Fallen” Primordial didn’t surprised anyone and that’s not necessary. Following their working formula of eight songs, standing at overall long length, each one of them filled with epicness and heroism, they showed us that the quality in their music is constant.

                09. Vallenfyre – Splinters

Paradise Lost’s Gregor Mackintosh created this side-project in a very good time for us a few years ago. It’s practically a supergroup containing At The Gates and My Dying Bride members. It’s used by him to release his anger and to show us that his love for extreme metal haven’t faded. This release is a blessed old school death metal filled with punk attitude, fast tempos (which are slowing here and there in the laws of doom metal) and some great rasping guitars.

                08. Decapitated – Blood Mantra

“Blood Mantra” continues the musical road taken in Decapitated’s previous album “Carnival Is Forever”. With it Vogg and the others moved away even further from the typical technical death showed in their earlier releases and started to sound more and more like a more extreme version of Meshuggah. For some people this was a disappointing decision. Not for me. Besides that I really do like Rafal “Rasta” Piotrowski’s vocals more.

                07. Septicflesh – Titan

Symphonies, orchestrations and death metal? One of the first associations without a doubt is the Greek band Septicflesh. The compositions in “Titan” are extreme enough from the point of view of metal music and at the same time eccentric and epic enough as seen from their symphonic side. Without being pompous at all, Septicflesh are climbing to the top bravely with their different look in music.

                06. Misery Index – Killing Gods

“The Killing Gods” is a step away from Misery Index’s typical deathgrind, known in their earlier works. Instead of that it’s much more straightforward death metal. Ignoring that, the album is still a relentless punch in the face for the listener. Now we wait for Dying Fetus’ answer.

                05. Sinister – The Post-Apocalyptic Servant

The music in this release may be not innovative but I’ll be damned if it’s not one of the best death metal releases I’ve heard recently. There is something which grabs the listener for the throat. Songs like “The Macabre God”, “The Masquerade Of An Angel”, “The Saviour”, “The Burden Of Mayhem” are one of those which you either absolutely love or hate.

                04. Incantation – Dirges Of Elysium

It’s impossible for these American blasphemers to disappoint their fans. John McEntee’s growls are now even more deep and low, the tempo is still varied – from furious blast beats to a much slower doom drumming and riffing. Just pay attention to the closer “Elysium (Eternity is Nigh) – over 16 minutes of bliss and darkness.

                03. Behemoth – The Satanist

Nergal succeeded in the battle with leukemia and thanks to all gave us probably his best work. Not without the help of Orion and Inferno, of course. “The Satanist” is a lesson how to make an extreme music, without being ultra fast, technical or brutal in musical point of view. This album is an art.

                02. Bloodbath – Grand Morbid Funeral

I’ve awaited with such an eager only one album - “13” by Black Sabbath last year. Until the announcement of Bloodbath’s “Grand Morbid Funeral”. This is a pure Swedish saw-mill. With a new vocalist in the face of Nick Holmes, the swedes look at their strongest level. This release show us how to play an old school death metal in 2014 without falling in citing or self-citing. It shows us that no one is irreplaceable; shows is that Holmes’ death grunts are intact. Four Swedish guys and one British “Old Nick” created a dark and rotten masterpiece. And I thank them for that. 

                01. Triptykon – Melana Chasmata

Only one album can take the first place from Bloodbath – “Melana Chasmata”. Dark, heavy, hopeless, filled with despair, in the same time beautiful and touching. That’s Triptykon’s art. No matter how happy and bright person you are, you’ll fade at least for a while after listening this work. Even with that in mind you want more and more. Darkness shall rule!


                And since it’s not easy to mention only ten titles, even in a weaker year as this, I will make a short analysis as I saw the rest releases in 2014.
                Cannibal Corpse gave us another great album containing their good old material. Another good death metal works for the last twelve months were given from Aborted, Acheron, Hour Of Penance, Origin, Vader, Autopsy, Cannabis Corpse. The thrash veterans Overkill showed us that it’s not necessary to be young in being a good thrasher. Steve “Zetro” Souza’s return to Exodus was marked with the release of “Blood In, Blood Out”. Even though it’s not a bad album, it’s kinda disappointing.

                This year we saw also the return of At the Gates, whose “At War With Reality” turns out to be a great disc, but somehow became a victim of fans’ high expectations. Another good albums we heard from 1349, Kampfar, Origin, Mayhem, Novembers Doom, Taake, Winterfylleth, Insomnium.
                Judas Priest and Accept released also a strong works. “Redeemer Of Souls” may be far from Priest’s best, but it’s still a very solid album. While with “Blind Rage” Wolf Hoffman, Peter Baltes, Mark Tornillo and rest had proven once again that they’re getting stronger and stronger every year.

                Now it’s time to mention some of the disappointments. On first place here it’s Obituary. For a band which’ve created an eternal masterpieces like “Cause Of Death” and “Slowly We Rot”, such mediocre releases like “Inked In Blood” and it’s predecessors is kind of unusual, and to be honest, unnecessary. We saw also another AC/DC album which musically is more of the same stuff, only with a lower quality. Besides that, the illness of Malcolm Young and the legal problems of Phil Rudd is adding more sault to our wounds. Opeth, Agalloch and Burzum also released questionable works, but still Varg’s ambient have some nice moments.

                Getting out of the metal boundaries we saw nice albums from Pink Floyd and the former metal band Anathema. In folk and neofolk scenes Adrian Von Ziegler, Sonne Hagal and Sol Invictus also contributed with good music.

Triptykon - Melana Chasmata (english)

When your name is Tom Gabriel Fischer, better known as Tom Warrior, every news about an album or any other activity around you, is really something important for the metal society. One of extreme metal’s fathers came back this year releasing this monster of an album “Melana Chasmata”. Mr. Warrior is strictly continuing the formula which he started alongside Martin Eric Ain in the final years of Celtic Frost with the unhuman “Monotheist”. He kept the heavy sound, combining almost every extreme subgenres in music and creates the legacy of Celtic Frost under the name of Triptykon.

                After the release of the incredibly strong debut “Eparistera Daimones” (2010) the questions were simple: is Tom able to keep his music high-qualified? The answer is also quite simple: goddamn yes! The darkness, depressive mood and the heavy music (both literally and figuratively) are marked with a distinguish presence in “Melana Chasmata”. Besides the music the lyrical content is also heavy. The lyrics are circling around topics such as depression, darkness, despair, pain – all of them are inexhaustible source to our world. We have even a song named after the estate Boleskine House, owned by the occultist Aleister Crowley. What’s more mystic and darker than that?

                When you listen to this album the changes in the mood are inevitable. As a start let’s take a look at the cover – another beautiful surrealist painting by H. R. Giger, the good old friend of Tom Warrior, who tragically died earlier this year. Even this cover matches with the dark mood and music pretty well. The listener is slowly wrapped in black. Just like in a metal manual.

                One can say that in “Melana Chasmata” there is a piece for everyone. Those who like the faster and more aggressive side of Tom’s music (early Hellhammer and Celtic Frost) will find their in songs like the opener “Tree of Suffocating Souls” or in “Breathing”, which have some pretty heavy doom metal riff in the beginning. Despite the speed in these songs, the album’s center is in the slower tempos. Because tracks like “Altar of Deceit”, “Black Snow”, “Demon Pact” are filled with ominous atmosphere and down-tuned riffs in the laws of doom metal.

                The nice surprise was the song “Aurorae”. I see it as a crucial moment in the album. With this track the listener travels in some other worlds, dimensions; it sends him to a beautiful, distant gothic castle. This is how I feel when I listen to it. The gothic feel in the whole release is mostly present in this exact song. I also want to mention the return of, like I love to call them, whining vocals of the Tom Warrior, present in “In The Sleep of Death”. With “whining” I mean the clean vocals in the Celtic Frost’s classic “Into The Pandemonium”. Listen to “Mesmerized”, “Caress Into Oblivion”, “Sorrows of The Moon”. “Babylon Fell” from that album and you’ll hear them. What to say about the end? “Waiting” is one beautiful, psychedelic-like, atmospheric track, which closes this beast called “Melana Chasmata” properly and calms it down.

                Generally the darkness and despair are strongly included both as a feelings and as a topics. The rest of the band are also giving their best for this release, especially the second guitarist V. Santura, who also provides some of the vocal parts. I highly recommend this release to those who doesn’t like borders and labels in metal music. If you are a suicidal kind of a guy, you’ll like it too. For me this creation, lacking of any optimism and light, is definitely one of the best for this year.

97/100