Natrlhi's 2011 End of Year List Orgy

[JRA]

Full Metal Jacket.

[Natrlhi]

Originally Posted by ImmortalEmperor

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you. You can come over to my house and fuck my sister (if I had one).

Nice.

Originally Posted by JRA

Full Metal Jacket.

Exactamundo.

[Wizard in Black 666]

BUHMPUH

[Natrlhi]

Originally Posted by Wizard in Black 666

BUHMPUH

Well, now that the resident crazyperson has asked, I guess I actually have to finish this thing.

But seriously, I've been almost completely out of the loop for a while recently, and on the first day I come back to the forum to check out how things are going, this thread gets bumped after several weeks of inactivity.

I'm taking it as a sign.

(Plus, if I start now and do like four or five per day, I can finish it before the year is halfway through. )

[dcmetal108]

At this point do you even remember what order everything was in.

[Natrlhi]

Originally Posted by dcmetal108

At this point do you even remember what order everything was in.

The sad part is, I've had the finalized list in a spreadsheet since before the first of the year. The only thing I haven't had the time to do is post all of the damn mini-reviews (partly due to the fact that I actually listen to each album again while I'm writing, so the review actually makes sense to how I feel about the album and not my distant memory of it).

So the short answer is, "yes".

[Natrlhi]

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

#46 is a sludge / doom album by a band that I've been trying to like for a while now, and this year's release finally did it for me.

Originally Posted by Seventhzealot

#46 - YOB

Not quite, but close. Witness:

46. Rwake - Rest

So as I mentioned in my hint, I’ve been trying to like Rwake for a while now, and their 2011 release finally did it for me. Maybe it was the extra touch of the well-placed atmospheric parts in between the crushing parts, or maybe it was the creative use of things like acoustic guitar here and there, or maybe nothing at all has changed about this band’s sound and I was simply in a better mood or a more open frame of mind when I listened to it, but one way or another, this album managed to not only capture but also hold my interest for many repeated listens. I wouldn’t really expect a sludge outfit from Arkansas to sound like this, but then again I don’t know if I can really say what a sludge outfit from Arkansas “should” sound like. I just know I like this album a lot. It’s crushing and brutal in many places. In others, it is heavy yet beautiful at the same time. At times, it reminds me of Neurosis, and at other times I hear bands like Mastodon at work (in fact, the epic track “The Culling” is at times quite reminiscent of “Hearts Alive”). At any rate, in my humble opinion, this is Rwake’s finest work to date.

[Natrlhi]

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

#45 is another doom album, by a band that I had never heard of before last year, and whom I'm really sorry I missed on tour in 2011.

Originally Posted by Seventhzealot

#45 - Rwake

Again, close, but no cigar. As mentioned in the previous mini-review, I had heard Rwake before, but they just hadn’t clicked with me yet. On the other hand, until last year, I had never heard of this band:

45. Dark Castle - Surrender to All Life Beyond Form

…and had I heard this colossal album prior to their tour last year with YOB, I definitely would have tried my best to attend the show. Holy fuck. Just, holy fucking fuck. This band absolutely rocks, and what’s more, there are only two people in it. Much like Black Cobra, Jucifer and a few other two-person outfits, Dark Castle manage to make enough noise for about four or five folks. Not only that, but the music is compelling as all get-out. It’s not just your standard run-of-the-mill straightforward doom. It’s more like SubRosa and a handful of other excellent doom bands that know when to be somewhat quiet, and when to knock your fucking socks off. There are dramatic changes in pace, volume and tone throughout this album, but through it all, Dark Castle easily manage to keep the listener’s attention by crafting music that’s so interesting that it’s impossible to lose one's focus on it. On the one hand, the bone-grinding riff that pervades “Seeing Through Time”, one of the album’s most crushing tracks, is simply awesome. On the other hand, there are tracks such as the synth-driven “To Hide Is to Die”, which rely on an eerie sense of mysterious atmospherics punctuated by some truly haunting spoken-word vocals from the mega-talented Stevie Floyd to convey an equally serious sense of dread. All in all, this album is only thirty-three minutes long (perhaps one of the few aspects with which I might take issue), yet it feels like a journey of epic proportions whenever I listen to it. Awesome stuff.

[kalfitegrdan]

[Natrlhi]

Originally Posted by kalfitegrdan

I feel like I'm in the Special Olympics and people are parked at the finish line cheering way louder than is necessary just because it looks like I might finish the race.