#1 - Agalloch | Marrow of the Spirit

So here we are at the number one album of the year. Agalloch's Marrow of the Spirit. Although the album did only come out last month, I've still had enough time to develop something to say about this record. I tried to write something about it when it first leaked and a month and a half later here I am typing aimlessly on my blog about it and still am struggling on what to say about it and it's my goddamn album of the year and one of the best metal albums in the last 10 years and could possibly be one of the best metal albums of the next 10 years...

I'll try my best. Bear with me.

A quick introduction:

Agalloch are a rare and special band. They are maybe the most well known unknown band. They are one of the only bands I can think of recently where their entire discography is praised and spoken very highly of. Almost every band has that one or two CDs where almost all of the fan base can agree is the best record, and every band has that one CD that everyone says "...Fucking sucks, what a disappointment."

Yeah, that doesn't happen with Agalloch. The beginning, Pale Folklore, everyone loves. It's raw, unique for black metal, and is beautiful. The Mantle shows Agalloch stepping out and doing new things already, throwing in post-rock influence and even more melody. On Ashes Against the Grain Agalloch turn it up and write heavier songs with tighter production, and still, this fantastic record is not disliked by fans of music.

Not one of these CDs is their "best" cd. Any of these three could be any one's favorite. They're all incredible, diverse, and innovative on so many levels. Before I heard the new record, many people were already stating this may be their best release. I was skeptical due to that just being absurd. That was until of course I finally embarked on the journey...

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The album is meant to be a journey and it's musically obvious. Marrow of the Spirit begins with you floating in a river or creek in the middle of a frost bitten forest, literally where the album artwork displays.

A cello is heard and foreshadows later melodies throughout the CD. You can feel something huge is going to happen.

So where will this river take us?

After an abrasive analog produced drum fill we are sucked into a vortex of otherworldly and disgustingly frigid black metal. But not the black metal we heard on the previous records. I'm talking about primitive, fuck-all, black metal. When I describe this song as some sort of vortex, I literally get this imagery when hearing this song. I feel as if I'm being sucked into another dimension of music, "Into the Painted Grey".

The song basically rapes you. It penetrates you with its' powerful blast beats, and dry tremolo guitars, makes you want to cry with it's ambient seeping guitar melodies and reverb soaked tremolo guitars, holds you down and suffocates you with utterly dense bass tones and doomy chords, and frightens you with John Hauhgm's even more twisted rasping vocals than ever before and it seems to never ever end and you feel sick for never wanting it to.

This may be the best Agalloch song ever written. But there's still four more songs.

When the 13 minute song finally ends after a two minute blast beat climax, it feels as if time and reality suddenly become apparent in your life again, but you can't remember when both of these things slipped away from you. You only realize suddenly that you're ONLY just listening to music for a second until "The Watcher's Monolith" PERFECTLY introduces itself to you after the beautiful chaos of the previous track.

Somber and powerful melodic doom blankets you, and it's a very, very heavy blanket. It's almost night time and you're walking through the woods. The raw guitar tones sound like their being amplified by the trees. The grass grows out toward you, and the last beams of sun slip through the canopy atop. The depths of nature are composing a song for you.

This song sounds familiar for Agalloch but has a more mature and confident feel to it. One moment, it's heartbreaking, and the next it's triumphant. It's slower, and constructed with perfection, and is phenomenal. It's almost midnight, crickets chirp, and a haunting piano melody plays as the song concludes.

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There are certain AWEsome aspects of life where our brains capacity is reached when we try to comprehend them. This mostly happens for the idea of life itself and trying to figure out who we are and why we are.

When one person is challenged to write about one of the greatest songs of all time, that person may not have the intelligence required to deliver such a feat. One of those people is me.

If you know me you know that when I love something, I love it. I'm PASSIONATE about things, and you can hear it in my voice when I talk about them. The only way I could express my feelings for a song such as "Black Lake Nidstang" by Agalloch would be if I were in the early stages of alcoholism.

Although, I'd make the song sound quite pretentious by doing that, I'd at least get SOMETHING out.

So let me grab a drink...

"Written in the waters..."

"Black Lake Nidstang" is a journey on its own; an 18 minute journey through a forest upon a mountain at midnight that leads to a lake of the dead. The sound of drums echo in the distance through the trees. It sounds like a warning of sorts, or some kind of calling. It could be a warning for what you're about to experience.

The song transitions from a dark and rather sinister introduction of acoustic guitar to seamlessly heart wrenching melodies and seeping wails of ambient guitars until opening up into the main section of the song.

Whispers from the dead occupy the first verse and the melodies are still only a taste of the despair you're about to witness via music.

Literally, the middle of this song is one of the greatest moments in music ever. It resides nearby the last few minutes of "Lateralus" the song by Tool. Except this part doesn't make me want to tear out of my body and become some sort of super being. The middle part of this song is one of the most devastatingly emotional moments you may ever hear. It is the equivalent of watching the saddest scene in a movie, but instead, listening to the most despairingly powerful moment.

As John Haughm's depressive black metal vocals shock your ears, his guitar plays the earlier leads but slightly off tune, just to make the part that much more fucked up. I can't help but get chills every time this part consumes me. It takes me lower and lower with the sludging of the bass line, and shrieking of the guitars. The vocals still overwhelm me every time. I cannot fathom how one recorded these vocals without having tears in his eye. The sound of the Nidstang shrieking out through the night, "YOU CREATED THE STARS AND GAVE BIRTH TO ALL THE HEAVENS; THE DARKNESS OF SPACE AND TIME. SO GO TO THE NIGHTSIDE END BELOW!!!"

Heaven. The darkness of space and time. Quite possibly the imagery you get when the moog sets in moments later, and suddenly a cascading of spacial guitars seeps in, like the edges of nebulas suddenly to fill in the void. Are we still listening to Agalloch? The trance inducing guitars, what sounds like five of them on the most gorgeous of looping reverb suddenly is halted by an onslaught of heavy bass and tremolo and we're brought to the conclusion of this masterpiece. The drums transition several times to heighten the already dramatic and suddenly triumphant melodies and the song finally explodes. The delay guitars over the nighttime crickets fade out the final seconds.

The only issue with this song is that no matter what, the next two tracks could never live up to what you just endured. But you keep moving on, now through snow filled woods to find out that "Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires" is a pleasantly classic sounding piece, filled with post-punk-esque, twinkly guitars. The track sounds like a combination of Pale Folklore and Alcest.

Once the track ends, the journey's end is closing in on us as we're back in the cold waters from the opening track, but this time it's different. "To Drown" clearly is trying to represent the sound of drowning in musical form. The somber acoustic guitars and cello sound remorseful as if they know what's about to happen to you. Suddenly they twist and turn and drag you deeper beneath the ice cold water, the intensity of the cello's strings heightening as your inability to hold your breath becomes stronger. This section of the song sounds like Godspeed You! Black Emperor decided to stop by the studio for a session. Finally the song concludes with you washing up on shore, the combination of the lake and the lakes ripples softly crashing on land, an oddly incredibly satisfying sound to end Marrow of the Spirit.

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So there you have it. The album of the year. Now, I admit, this post was more of a babbling like my original Envy, Recitation post was a couple months ago when I first heard that. It wasn't until I had some extra time with it that I was able to somehow connect with that record on a more personal level other than just really enjoying it. That may never happen with this record, so for now, you got to hear me just express my admiration for the quality of unbelievable musicianship and song writing on Marrow of the Spirit. Maybe one day down the road I'll put this record on my mp3 player and wander deep into the woods at night and have something more personal and interesting to read. But for now, this album is just better than anything else that came out this year and you should no doubt listen to this if you're a fan of music at all.

Happy New Year everybody!

#2 - Envy | Recitation

Recitation

— n
1.	the act of reciting from memory, or a formal reading of verse before an audience.

"Patterns connect the red-starry skies.
The shadow of an evening calm surfaces while I close my eyes.

The warmth came along and I trusted its voice.
Pile up my thoughts on exploited scenery.
The eyes sense the warmth of regrets.
Respected ambiguous words harbored.
The sealed look has vanished.
Smell of the beginning of night.
You once were a vision, but you have recovered over the days.
And learned the whereabouts of an inverted future.
A gaze passes into oblivion.
Lines of people block my sight ahead.
Proof of the days of consolation.
Words of admonition in many ways.
Seven voices I carry, descending.
I tip my shoe up but the contradicting guidance still does not change.
Light and darkness.
Sunlight and the sound of the night.
Dark sky and the surface of water.
They all passed us by and are ahead of us.
A drop of rain announces the beginning."

- "Guidance" | Envy

A good friend of mine and I were recently discussing how particular songs of melodies or just certain music can somehow trigger a memory deep inside of your mind for reasons you aren't aware of. It's something rare but certain albums or songs give me this sense of utter nostalgia to a point where it nearly makes me feel sick with a sense of longing for no apparent reason.

Certain melodies bring me back to certain visions of dreams or thoughts I had when I was very young. One of them being a small house on a small hill. The grass is almost too green. The house is yellow and cute. The yard overlooks the ocean and the sky is blue and perfect. I had a dream I lived in this house and I have no idea why. I hadn't thought of this dream for years. Why would I? What would being this memory back to me?

One day Isis' Wavering Radiant dripped onto the internet. Listening properly and ever so intently, I got to "20 Minutes/40 Years". It wasn't until about 30 seconds in when all three guitars enter the song when suddenly I was hit full force with the feeling of standing on that very hill overlooking the house with the blue ocean back-set and the huge sky over-top of me. I cannot even begin to explain why this happened but it felt amazing and depressing all at the same time.

Besides this, I sometimes get this vision of a landscape I thought up in my head when I was about 4 years old of a beautiful orange-ish, pinkish sunset sky overt-op a vast horizon of ice, with literally nothing else to be seen. I randomly get this vision while listening to various Jakob songs. Again, I have no idea why and at times the music literally takes me there and breaks my heart.

When I first acquired Recitation, I loved it. Envy are one of my favorite bands of all time and I was very excited to be listening to their new record, especially after they released one of my favorite records of all time, Insomniac Doze. You may remember my enormous 'review' about it when I first got it months before everyone else. I was basically just posting premature thoughts on it after a 3rd or so listen. People thanked me and got pissed at me simultaneously. Sorry about that.

It wasn't until a few months later after I was viciously listening to my yet to be number 1 album of the year (TEE HEE) that I returned to Recitation one night just as I was ready to lay down to go to sleep.

Instantly the melodies from "Guidance" sounded more beautiful than I ever remembered. Sure, the melodies on this entire record are some of Envy's best, and most precious, but for some reason, instantly this particular melody affected me more than it ever has.

Then "Last Hours of Eternity" came on, and again, I was blown away but how out of nowhere, the progressions and layers of instrumentation and brilliantly crafted melodies was breaking my tired heart and body.

Next came "Rain Clouds Running In a Holy Night", one of my already favorite songs on the CD. I don't know why this happened but especially the intro, middle section of three gorgeous guitars intertwining the main notes, and the outro made me nearly weep due to the memory they conjured up.

Maybe my first memory I've ever had of my mother was her and I sitting on our living room couch together in upstate New York. Our couch was against the living room window and we sat on it backwards with our knees in the cushions and our arms leaning over the top of the couch gazing out the window. We were looking at the clouds. They were all kinds of different shapes and sizes. I don't remember how long we did this for. It may have just been for a minute, or maybe 5. But I barely think of this memory and it's one I should try to remember more often.

For whatever strange reason, the melodies in "Rain Clouds..." brought me back to that exact moment and I couldn't deal with the sinking feeling of nostalgia I suddenly felt in my heart and stomach. There are tons of songs and bands that give me a sense of nostalgia, just because their music in general gives you that sort of vibe, but it's different when particular melodies literally bring you BACK to specific times or thoughts in your life so vividly that you FEEL it in your stomach. The outro of this song brings me there full force. I can barely even.

After those first three songs, I don't get that feeling too much more, which may be a good thing. I don't think I could handle a full record of songs that make me feel like that.

Beyond that, Recitation is an incredible record full of diverse yet gorgeous music that's consistent throughout its long duration. I'm not sure if Fukagawa has a concept at all for this CD but I get this sense that a lot of these songs, especially the intro and outro, "Guidance" and "Your Hand" are random memories he's had spoken out by female. There is more spoken word on this Envy CD than any before and I think all those moments are connected in some way.

If you want a more analyzed write up about this CD, go back and just find my random blabbering about it when I was just heard it. There's no sense in my explaining how great this band is or how great this CD is. If you know who Envy are, you know they cannot do wrong at this point. This CD is no exception.

"We have repeatedly felt the grief of separation.
Profound fingertips were supposed to have arrived.
The beat of the rain is quick. I recite sorrow into it.
The immortal temperature dwells in blessing hands.
A moment's profile is falling asleep with a dim field of vision.
Felt a faint heart beat, and heard your whisper.
I carry my dragging feet as I turn to go.
The shaking voice has long been forgotten.
Discovered that we have lost the end of a precious feast.
Gentle breath wrapped in Spring.
A sunbeam loop streams through leaves of trees in Summer.
Fallen leaves sway and connect with each other in Autumn.
The morning calm repeats farewells in Winter.
The change of the seasons reminds me of words I never knew.
The steps are even, as they go on. A sign of an end."

- "Your Hand" | Envy

#3 - Rosetta | A Determinism of Morality

After Isis broke up I was clearly more devastated than I ever imagined I would be. When the band released Oceanic in 2002, people claimed it was the creation of 'post-metal', a genre combining their sludge sound with post-rock elements. I like to just say it's post-rock with sludge moments, but Isis were never just that typical.

Around the time the band broke up, you could sense the ending of the genre in general. Not just because Isis were leaving us, but because it's something that not many bands could nail anymore without just repeating the formula over and over.

Although Rosetta are ultimately post-metal, any time they release something, it still sounds refreshing and new. Their qualities are unlike any other band in sludge. It drives me crazy when people lump Rosetta into the "Neurisis" category because maybe 5% of Rosetta's music sound anything like those two bands.

With A Determinism of Morality, I get the feeling that Rosetta can be the next big thing for music combining softer elements with sludge. Although their unique tones and qualities are back on this cd, and maybe in a more aggressive manner, there is something about the guitars that make me feel like this is the first great shoegaze/sludge fusion album.

Matt's guitars on this CD are INCREDIBLE. The guitars themselves, before Armine's sampling, could give you the spacious, atmospheric imagery that occurs when listening to this band. The leads in "Je n'en connais pas la fin" (which by the way, may be THE best Rosetta song), sound like star beams racing across the night sky, while the overlapping ambiance in "Release" under the clean vocals sounds like Slowdive performing on the moon.

The main guitar melodies throughout "Revolve" are some of the most beautiful you will hear in any post-rock influenced band. The tone is reminiscent of The Cure, one of the bands biggest inspirations, and I feel on this CD, that inspiration is more blatant throughout, let alone this one song.

So why is this number 3 of 2010? Because I listen to this record and want to cry at nearly one point in each song. Although this record isn't as brilliant as Wake/Lift, I feel the overall melodies on this CD are the best the band has crafted. I'm a sucker for melancholic guitar leads, and Matt Weed has put like 4 in each song on this CD, making this one hell of a record up my alley.

Oh yeah, and the bass work, and drumming are fucking out of this world (get it?) awesome throughout and Armine's vocals are the most emotional they've ever been yet (See: The end of "Release", and the title track. Holy FUCK).

Seriously get into this band if you haven't yet. They are truly something unique for heavy music. Don't let Matt Dyess tell you otherwise (asshole).

#4 - Alcest | Écailles de lune

Some time ago when I first endeavored starting my very own band, I planned out an entire conceptual record based around a timeline of me being with people I love in a place that I loved. That place was the ocean. Not too long after I remember reading an article about an upcoming Alcest record. Neige had mentioned that the CD was strongly influenced by the ocean. The opening song I had written for this CD I entitled "Pier" was actually about a time my friends and I walked out onto the ocean pier very late at night and stared out into the eerie black nothingness.

I remember time stopping, and it seemed that everyone around me suddenly weren't in the same dimension of thought I was in. All sound paused besides the sound of the waves crashing into the old wooded pillars holding us up above the cold black water. I stared out into the void for 10 minutes thinking about how mysterious and scary the ocean can be, yet at the same time, is such a place of joy for people, especially when you can actually see where you are.

I thought about how powerful the ocean was, and how it could take your life away so quickly. I thought about what lives beneath the depths of it; the fact that there nearly is another world down there, and still undiscovered areas with who knows what living in the trenches.

I thought about how shitty human beings are, and how we still manage to ruin this planet even though most of it is made up of ocean, and I wondered what the world would be like if there were even less plates of land for us to live and shit on and just more salty mass. I thought of the idea of being trapped in the middle of the ocean at night and suddenly I got so goddamn startled by that thought that I snapped out of it and back into reality. My friends were all still around me, laughing, gazing out, taking pictures, and smiling, and I stood there with my heart beating viciously. It was if I had some kind of connection with the water, and with its' power. The moon was out that night and I realized how much it can alter the ocean, and our bodies. And that was out I suddenly got the idea for the CD.

I'm not too bummed out it never happened. There are already enough ocean inspired albums, one of my favorite being Isis' Oceanic, which at times literally gives the listener the imagery of being crushed by the ocean's weight and floating helplessly through it, without air.

On Écailles de lune, Neige gives the listener imagery of the ocean but in a different light. The gorgeous classic post-punk guitar tones literally sound like they could resonate throughout the ocean's body, deep in some mysterious trench below unknown areas. His somber vocals give you a sense of nostalgia yet solace and relaxation, and the second part of the two part title track brings me back to that moment I was out on the pier late at night. So curious and dumbfounded at what really lies beyond our sight, just feet beyond the damp wood.

To say I have a connection with the atmosphere of this record is an understatement. But simply, the first three tracks of this CD are FLAWLESS and composed with astonishing brilliance. Although the latter half of the album is rather short, it's still fantastic, with the shoegazey, Slowdive-esque "Solar Song", and melancholic and powerful closer "Sur l'ocean couleur de fer".

I'm struggling to find much else to say besides the fact that Neige is becoming one of the more inspiring musicians to me personally, and is also becoming one of my favorite vocalists in general.

I love this CD and I imagine you would too if you listened to it. It's truly something special.

#5 - Heaven In Her Arms | Paraselene

Heaven In Her Arms have become a well known and somewhat accomplished japanese screamo band, yet still in the shadow of Envy, who are clearly still the kings. One of the reasons for this is the fact that their releases would all sound like angry Envy b-sides, and there wasn't too much from this band that they could truly call their own.

That was until Paraselene was unleashed to our ears.

This record is one of the darkest, most brooding and dynamic screamo records ever. In fact, it's so dynamic that it's tough to actually call it a screamo record. Every song has it's own unique qualities that are daring enough to do just about anything.

Never before have I heard this much doom in this genre, or this much drone, or this much dissonance, and yes, at some points, this much depressive BLACK METAL.

The pacing of Paraselene is incredible as well. As a whole, the record sounds like it could be one huge ass song. Every track for the most part does indeed transition very smoothly into one another, but what's odd about this CD is that it seems that every song gets BETTER AND FUCKING BETTER as the CD progresses toward the end.

There are no teases on this record. If you're listening to the middle of "Echoic Cold Wrist" and you feel that you're in for something special, you'd be correct. "Halcyon" EXPLODES with agony and aggression and a million chord progressions that all somehow work and make you want to cry. "Halcyon" seeps into "Butterfly in Right Helicoid" which COULD be the strongest track on the record, with a massive middle section of post-rock fused with black metal.

What continues to emotionally destroy me about this CD is the way it totally concludes with "Veritas". This is one of the best performances I've heard from a violin since a Godspeed You! Black Emperor track. This song gives me the imagery of walking through the rain at night in a small town trying to find a place to stay. I'm not sure why. It has SOMETHING to do with the sample of rainfall during the intro, but the rest is history. But nonetheless, this song is soul crushing.

In all, Heaven In Her Arms have totally set themselves apart with Paraselene. The feedback I've seen for this record has definitely been great and I'm proud that people are 'getting' this. In that sense Heaven In Her Arms fans > Eluvium fans.

#6 - Eluvium | Similes

"OMG GET YOUR FUCKING VOCALS OUT OF MY MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That was generally the overall response to Similes when it first came out early this year. You see this more and more every few years where fans cannot cope with change and compromise to music they enjoy.

It's just like any Tool or Dredg fan who says something moronic like "This band will never be good unless they write another AEnima or El Cielo!" Clearly not true. And although this is a cliche response, why in the fuck would you want a band to continuously write the same shit over and over again you piece of shit asshole human being?

*sigh*

With Similes, Matthew Cooper decided to do a few things differently. For one, there is percussion on this record and that is a first for Eluvium. I think for the most part fans can deal with percussion. There are many minimalistic ambient bands who have songs with some kind of subtle tempo in the background, this is nothing too new.

What really ticked off fans is that Cooper SINGS on this record, and this is definitely the first time there have been lyrics and legitimate vocals on any Eluvium CD.

Now not everybody is going to enjoy his voice, but I'm nearly certain that wasn't even the point. The fact that there were even vocals at all, just in general, pissed people off because it's unique and different for Eluvium and there's apparently some kind of law against any use of the voice box for this project and changing things up a bit is a quality of a musician who needs to spend time in Hell.

Don't listen to any of these people.

Similes encompasses emotion and feeling in music, and a lot of that emotion actually comes from Cooper's words and vocal lines in these songs. The music is as gorgeous as it ever has been, but let's be honest, would "The Motion Makes Me Last" be as incredibly hopeful and depressing at the same time if it didn't have gorgeous vocal lines and lyrics like this?:

"What is it that has my mind so hypnotized?
Evolving on a thought that you've half realized
Life is real only when I am, I am surprised
That shapes are for looking at
And their colors create my mood.

I'm a vessel between two places I've never been."

The answer is no and the consistently great quality of emotion and gorgeous melodies doesn't end there. "Weird Creatures" and "Making Up Minds" are just as great, as well as the ending ambient/drone closer "Cease to Know".

What also pisses me off is that when Eluvium released Static Nocturne only a couple months ago (Which also made my top 10, yes that's right, two Eluvium CDs in the top 10 of 20 goddamn 10), fans joked saying that release was an apology to the fans or a rebound of sorts due to the onslaught of negative feedback from Similes.

NNnno.

That's not how an artist, especially in this style of music works. He or she or the group of people working on this music does not make the music for you, but mostly for themselves. If anything, he wrote Similes for me personally due to the fact that I've fallen asleep to this CD more than any other CD this year.

I hope the next Eluvium CD has more vocals on it. And then I hope he gets signed to Starbucks Records.

Or that he releases THREE CDs per year so I can file them all into my top 10 of next year.

#7 - Anathema | We're Here Because We're Here

Could you tell Steven Wilson had something to do with this CD?

Porcupine Tree references aside (for now), this album is fucking unbelievably uplifting, refreshing, and brilliant. Over the last two years of my life I find myself scrolling through the list of bands and end up stopping on something that I know makes me feel. Those bands more than likely write melancholic music.

The first time I heard We're Here Because We're Here I was so overwhelmed by how optimistic the music sounded, and how inspirational the lyrics were. It was the first time I had heard anything like this since a Kaddisfly track, and we know that's been a long time. I found my musical moods constantly changing 'cause in the midst of wanting to hear something depressingly beautiful, I wanted to also hear this album, which is beautiful in a completely different way. In a way that made me look at music in a different way for the first time in awhile.

There is not a weak moment on this cd, although some of the earlier songs are clearly better than the later tracks. "Summernight Horizon" and "Angels Walk Among Us" are both highlights but track three, "Dreaming Light" is easy in my top 5 songs of the year. Unbearably gorgeous. It sounds like a combination of Porcupine Tree's "Lazarus" meets shoegaze.

"And you shine inside and love stills my mind like the sunrise"

I cannot

EVEN!