My Half-Assed End o' da Year List

[treghet]

Originally Posted by hellawaits77ny

That must've been sweet. DTW is a great album. What year was that, that they played Anthems?

They played 3 songs from Against The World when I saw them earlier this month. It's a shame they're down to 1 song from The Great Stone War. Not as good as DTW, but still a great album IMO.

It was 2008. Their set was all of Decimate the Weak except for Unbreakable, if I remember correctly.

Yeah they should play more from The Great Stone War. I think I've only seen them play two songs from it. "Classic Struggle" would be cool live.

[hellawaits77ny]

Originally Posted by treghet

It was 2008. Their set was all of Decimate the Weak except for Unbreakable, if I remember correctly.

Yeah they should play more from The Great Stone War. I think I've only seen them play two songs from it. "Classic Struggle" would be cool live.

Nice. Yeah when I saw them in '09 on the Atticus Metal Tour, they played like 8 songs, and all were DTW songs, which was cool.

And as a side note, I left before Emmure

[hellawaits77ny]

Bored, so I thought I'd include some honorable mentions (in no particular order unless noted).

Top Albums - Honorable Mention


Decapitated
Carnival Is Forever

While I'm not a fan of the new vocalist, I still liked this album quite a bit. Typical great musicianship from Vogg and crew. There are some really, really good riffs all over the place on this album. There is some filler toward the end, but songs like The Knife, the title track, and Homo Sum are quality tracks all the way around. As a side note, I've heard from a couple people that their new lead singer is awful live

[hellawaits77ny]

Pathology
Awaken To The Suffering

I didn't hate their last album (and I've never checked out any earlier stuff) but I didn't really like it a whole lot either. I saw these guys open for Grave, and they played a few songs from this album. They sounded good, so I checked it out. It's solid, quality grindcore. Like much grindcore, the songs can be difficult to distinguish the first few listens, but there are a select few that are especially good. Ingestion of Creation is probably the best song. It has a great main riff, one of my favorites from 2011. Medica Consumption is another good one.

[hellawaits77ny]

Job For A Cowboy
Gloom (EP)

Let the shit start. I really prefer the direction they went w/ Ruination, so after the first few listens, I was disappointed by this EP. It grew on me quite a bit though. Solid (almost technical?) death metal. As I said, I prefer the more straight forward death metal approach they took on Ruination, as they tried to get a little too technical and pretentious here IMO. Still a good listen. Signature of Starving Power is a solid track, vocal-wise my favorite song on the EP. Plastic Idols, for whatever reason, reminds me of the opening to Slayer's 'Show No Mercy'. JFAC seems to be losing quite a bit of their following (AKA all the dumbass deathcore kids don't like them anymore), so it will be interesting to see what they do with their full length, due later in 2012, I guess.

[jd091]

Pathology are a solid slam band. Never have a problem watching them open.

[hellawaits77ny]

Origin
Conceiving Death

A band I had never heard of, let alone checked out, until this year. Thank you, metalsetlists.com . Great death metal. The production on this album is just the way I like it. Crystal clear, but not overdone. Perfect! A great mix of technical and brutal death metal. After checking out this album and some of their past work, I'm even more bummed I couldn't see these guys open for Hate Eternal over the summer. I love how the opener starts off at 1000 mph, no intro, no buildup, just in your face. Conceiving Death is another great track.

[hellawaits77ny]

Honorable Mentions - Worst Albums


Lulu
This almost made my top 5. In the end, I just KNEW it would be a piece of shit, so I expected nothing from it, wasn't bothered when I heard it, etc. I just knew it would be garabge, therefore I'm not disappointed. W/ that being said, it's just awful, awful, awful.

[hellawaits77ny]

Between The Buried And Me
Hypersleep Dialogues

I hadn't listened to much of their stuff other than the Silent Circus, and a few songs from their covers album. I liked a lot of it (except their butchering of Cemetery Gates. UGH!!), so when I read the reviews about this EP, talking about how amazing it was, how any metal fan will love it, it's awesome, it's the best thing to happen to metal in years, blah blah blah, I was excited to check it out. I hated it. I just can't really get into progressive metal, or whatever it is these guys are. I have all the respect in the world for them as musicians, because they're quite talented. I just think of Mordecai when I hear their name. Most people will disagree, but I can't stand any of this EP (or any of their post 2007 stuff) compared to Mordecai and a few others from The Silent Circus.