Archive for the ‘Beats & Pieces’ Category

Noiseweek: Hope Drone, Neurosis, Swans and KU?KA

Saturday, May 30th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

Every Tuesday is now Record Store Day, sort of, thanks to the American Association of Independent Music. Participating retailers will now devote the second day of the working week to specialty vinyl releases, new vinyl pre-releases ahead of other formats, reissues and special pressings.

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Alex Griffin — who you might know as a life is noise contributor, Tiny Mix Tapes writer, Ermine Coat player or just a general top bloke — has launched his own zine talking about all things musical over at Bonzerzine. He’s kicked it off with a review of Perth outfit Verge Collection and an interview with the fine folk of Shit Narnia. Dig it.

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In jealousy-inducing festival news, Riot Fest has revealed the bulk of the line-up for the 2015 iteration which takes place in Chicago, Denver and Toronto over three weekends in August and September. Iggy Pop and Motorhead get top billing at multiple stops, while the festival’s biggest leg in Chicago appearances from Faith No More, Drive Like Jehu, L7, Echo & The Bunnymen, Death, Indian Handcrafts and a slew of yet-to-be-announced acts. You can check the full line-up at riotfest.org.

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Seoul is now host to a tremendous public vinyl library with over 10,000 records. The venture is the latest in a series of library projects by credit company HyundaiCard and follows on from their Design and Travel Libraries. The Music Library also carries over 3,000 books and every issue of Rolling Stone from the last half-century. You can check out the website here. [via FACT]

READ

Why Swans Whipped Sheet Metal and Licked CBGB’s Floor to Make ‘Filth’ | Rolling Stone

“Although the band’s initial release, 1982’s Swans EP, built off of the city’s dying no-wave scene, the ensemble came into its own with its debut full-length, Filth, the following year. Full of lumbering rhythms created by two bassists, two drummers, one guitar, a whipped metal table and some suffocating tape loops, the record is primal art rock at its most vitriolic, anticipating industrial, sludge and noise-rock in one fell thump. More threatening, Gira intermittently snarls imperatives about power – “Flex your muscles!” “Take control and keep it!” “Don’t talk until you’re spoken to!” – in a way that made Henry Rollins sound like Olivia Newton-John at the time, as the band dismantled rock to its most threadbare essentials.”

Feurio!!!! The Strange World Of Einstürzende Neubauten | The Quietus

“There are many legendary bands who name is a shibboleth for a certain kind of taste or knowing insiderism, but whose recorded output is less adequately attended to than it deserves to be. High on that list of bands are avant-noise German collective Einstürzende Neubauten, a band from West Berlin born from the apocalyptic Cold War paranoia that gripped that city for decades, whose music is famous for the explosive din produced its unusual and repurposed instrumentation. Over their three and a half decades of operation this has included jackhammers, sheet metal and fire, an instrumentation perfectly suited to the broken terrain of a city smashed into submission and never properly rebuilt.”

LISTEN

KU?KA — Flux 98

Is Laura Jane Lowther synesthetic? The intensely lush textures that fill every space of Lowther and company’s songs are so rich in sensory detail that it feels like she’s almost translating the taste of colour into soundwaves. Flux 98 is the third single from her forthcoming EP, Unconditional, and channels sounds from above the clouds and below the ocean’s surface, awash in high-end synths and Lowther’s distinctive heightened falsetto. Unconditional is out August 14 through Midnight Feature.

Hope Drone — Every End Is Fated In Its Beginning

Australia’s Hope Drone — who you may have heard are now signed to Relapse fucking Records — have released the first taste of their forthcoming long-player, Cloak of Ash, which is due out July 14. The 9-and-a-half minute track is brimming with the ecstatic dread, marrying ferocious black metal intensity with hazy ambience over a daunting two-chord refrain. Expect big things.

WATCH

Neurosis — Times of Grace at Maryland Death Fest

MDF is consistently one of the strongest heavy festivals of the year. If you’ve been following the LIN Facebook, you probably saw our commander-in-chief’s live updates from the front lines with YOB, Conan, Ufomammut, Melt Banana, Full of Hell, Inter Arma and a metric fuckton of metal’s finest. Professional live footage has been hard to come by, but this crowd clip from Neurosis’ set is nothing to sneeze at. Even from 100 feet back on video, Neurosis is a stunning and exhausting behemoth of a band.

Sam Prekop — A Geometric

Like a degraded VHS tape playing old Windows Media Player visualisations, the video from Sam Prekop’s A Geometric is an analog-to-digital mindfuck of colours and shapes. There’s something vital lost in our HD aesthetic, and the lo-fi strobing geometry from video artist Nick Ciontea is a perfect match for Prekop’s pulsating and oscillating synths. A Geometric is taken from The Republic which is out now on Thrill Jockey.

Noiseweek: Steve Von Till, Null, METZ and Bibby

Friday, May 8th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

The Bakery’s final show is tomorrow. It’s shitty that we’re losing another fundamental venue that’s hosted a wealth of life is noise shows — Russian Circles, Sleep, Clark, My Disco, Barn Owl, Slanted & Enchanted and a buttload of others — not to mention some amazing other locals and internationals. But at least we get to celebrate in style, with the return of The Wednesday Society, Sex Panther and The Sabretooth Tigers, along with Injured Ninja presenting The Epic of Gilgamesh, plus Fait, French Rockets, DJs Craig Hollywood & Wil Bixler, Rachel Dease, Mudlark and more. Head over to the Facebook event for more details.

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Beat is reporting The Espy in St Kilda is also closing its doors soon, but only for a little while. From May 17, the venue will cease its live music operations to allow for renovations with an aim to reopen by the summer.

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Some good venue news! Wick Studios in Brunswick is set to open its doors on May 17 — just as the Espy begins its hiatus, funnily enough. As Beat reports, the former 13-room rehearsal studio/warehouse now boasts a recording studio, 15 rehearsal rooms, two live music spaces and a photo/video studio. The space will also be home to in-house industry services, including A&R, marketing, legal and graphic design personnel. They’re celebrating with a launch party which you can check out on Facebook.

READ

Swinging the Chain: A Conversation with Bill Ward | Steel for Brains

“It was very profound when I realized it, and I couldn’t deny the affection that I had for drums and drummers and just the look of a drum. Everything about drumming I was fascinated with. Not only drum patterns but the way that the drums looked; the way they shined in the sunshine in marching bands. Just everything about drums for me as a child was something that was very attractive, and I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew that I just got a good feeling when I listened to Gene Krupa. It was Krupa when I was a child and then later it was Louie Bellson, but when I listened to Gene or I listened to a lot of the big swing bands, or then later when I listened to the more rock and roll bands from the United States and people like Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and of course Buddy Holly – when I listened to these people I was just completely involved in what they were playing. ”

Godspeed You! Black Emperor — There’s Only Hope | Exclaim

“Twenty years on, very little is really known about GY!BE beyond the fact that they are one of Montreal’s most cherished and powerful instrumental bands, with a virtually flawless and majestic discography. They incorporate film abstractions in their music and, with its textual ruminations, diagrams and photographs, their album artwork has made bolder and more provocative political statements than some songwriters’ hard-laboured lyrics. In simply going about their business, the band have been accused of terrorism by both the FBI and the Canadian music industry. And, while they’re often perceived as gloomy and self-serious, they battle through all of that noise, stubbornly brandishing hope as their unshakeable emblem.”

Art-Rock Adventurism: The Complete 4AD Story | The Vinyl Factory

“Independent labels with proven longevity are, almost without exception, reflections of their patrons. So it goes with the four cornerstones of Britain’s post-punk apocalypse – Rough Trade, Factory, Mute and 4AD, and three of them (Factory being retired years before Antony Wilson’s death from cancer) still survive today. Out of that trio, 4AD’s current success is more on a par with its original incarnation than its peers. Compare 4AD ‘Past’, which embraced the likes of Bauhaus, The The, The Birthday Party, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, Throwing Muses, Pixies, The Breeders, Lush, Red House Painters, Belly and Mojave 3 to 4AD ‘Present’, which currently includes Grimes, Bon Iver, Deerhunter, The National, Ariel Pink, Future Islands, tUnE-yArDs, Scott Walker, Daughter and Purity Ring. But with Rough Trade and Mute still manned by their original founders (Geoff Travis and Daniel Miller respectively), 4AD is the only one of the original quartet to have survived with a new label head replacing its original spearhead Ivo Watts-Russell.”

LISTEN

Steve Von Till — A Life Unto Itself

Even when it’s stripped of the crushing weight of pounding drums and punishing, gargantuan guitar riffs in Neurosis, Steve Von Till’s intonations demand attention. It’s one of those voices — powerful, foreboding, authoritative, and almsot prophetic in its seriousness — that stops you in your tracks and compels the listener to focus on every utterance, every syllable, every breathy whisper. With an acoustic guitar and occasional flurries of percussion atmospherics for backing, the Neurosis co-vocalist’s meditations on this, his fourth solo record, are well worth a listen.

Null — I

The strength of 65daysofstatic lies in their masterful marriage of the electronic and the amplified, where dancehall synthetics and artillery-strength guitar riff intertwine in a beautiful, chaotic mess. But they’ve always been a rock band with electronica tendencies; not the other way around. Late last year, guitarist Paul Wolinski released his new solo foray into experimental electronica with Full Bleed before following up with Midiflood the next month. Now Simon Wright has ventured out with his own solo project under the moniker of Null, an ambient, glitch-heavy and machinic experiment that sounds perfect for a neo-noir technological dystopia. Unlike the exploits with 65daysofstatic, this is not comfortable or uplifting music; it’s moody and unsettling — peculiar enough to maintain interest and confounding enough to keep you on your toes.

WATCH

The View From Here: Peter Bibby and his Bottles of Confidence

The Perth hills’ crown troubadour checks into the RTRFM studios with a few familiar faces for a 20+ minute live session. It’s an unusual setting for the now Melbourne-based songwriter — Bibby and offices don’t seem like they’d go together — but it makes for an oddly relaxing afternoon listen.

METZ — The Swimmer

METZ continue their love affair with uncomfortable viewing in the video for The Swimmer, a jerky, frenetic and enraged piece of forward-reverse cinema.

Craig’s List: Trevor Deep Jr.

Tuesday, April 14th, 2015

Every fortnight, RTRFM’s Craig Hollywood brings us a little taste of what to expect from Tuesday’s Full Frequency…

The mysterious Trevor Deep Jr announces the release of a 2×12” project on the HPTY label. Featuring seven tracks and coming out on limited vinyl, as well as 50 copies on cassette tape, the release is further testament to his skill of crafting deeply emotive sounds, and it will be released in May 2015.

Inspired by the likes of Larry Heard and Moodymann, Trevor Deep Jr. has been releasing his own smoked out take on house music since 2011. It has been lifted on labels like Delsin and Nsyde as well as his own outlet and often features a striking sample or memorable chord.

For the people who know what deep house music really sounds like.

Full Frequency with Craig Hollywood airs every Tuesday at 3PM (GMT+8) on RTRFM 92.1 in Perth, Australia. You can livestream RTRFM right here.

Craig’s List: Adesse Versions

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

Every fortnight, RTRFM’s Craig Hollywood brings us a little taste of what to expect from Tuesday’s Full Frequency…

You may have caught the track Pride in recent Jackmaster and Spencer sets over the past few months, but it’s now being let out in the wild on the Numbers label out of Glasgow.

The overall simplicity of the elements is the strength here, the creeping discord of the piano, the slow sub rolls, the sheer power of the vocal, baked together with sharp drum boxes, space echoes and Adesse’s arsenal of production wisdom.

Pride is released through Numbers on vinyl on March 31st.

Full Frequency with Craig Hollywood airs every Tuesday at 3PM (GMT+8) on RTRFM 92.1 in Perth, Australia. You can livestream RTRFM right here.

Eat a Bag of Mix: Darrell Sundai (Fait)

Monday, March 30th, 2015

Eat a Bag of Mix is the name of a feature here on life is noise where we get a DJ, musician, producer, industry figure or just someone with good taste in fucked-up and weird music to give us a mix of music that has influenced them, or tunes that are currently rocking their world. This week, our bag-of-mixer is Darrell Sundai, a Perth musician and pocaster who’s been kicking around town in bands for the last ten years, the latest of which is Fait. In his own words:

I have played drums in Fait since early 2014. I have also filled in for quite a few acts in Perth as a session drummer (Hyla, Voltaire Twins) and recorded drums in LA for Husband’s latest album. I love podcasts and the format of podcasting, and I’m obsessed with opening up communication and dialogue between other creatives/artists on my podcast Mission Control. I am also quite open about consuming marijuana (everyone has a ‘party mix’ to get drunk, so why not a smoking mix?) and this is pretty much 11 tracks of what I like to vibe and reflect on.

Eat a Bag of Mix — Darrell Sundai by Lifeisnoiseeditor on Mixcloud

Fait join a stellar line-up of Perth acts of Drowning Horse, Puck, Mt. Mountain, Chris Cobilis and DX Wil Bixler at The Bakery this Thursday, April 2, to celebrate five years of life is noise. Tickets on sale now through lifeisnoise and The Bakery.

Craig’s List: Perth Drug Legend

Tuesday, March 17th, 2015

Every fortnight, RTRFM’s Craig Hollywood brings us a little taste of what to expect from Tuesday’s Full Frequency…

The Resin imprint kicks off 2015 in monstrous style by introducing Perth Drug Legend to the front line, the demented project of Liam Robertson and one half of the mighty Clouds outfit out of Scotland.

With the Broxden Burners EP on West End Communications and a remix on Canada’s Turbo Recordings, Resin introduces Clubbers Guide to Craigie, a session of dark sludgy techno.

Full Frequency with Craig Hollywood airs every Tuesday at 3PM (GMT+8) on RTRFM 92.1 in Perth, Australia. You can livestream RTRFM right here.

Craig’s List: Glacial

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015

Every fortnight, RTRFM’s Craig Hollywood brings us a little taste of what to expect from Tuesday’s Full Frequency…

Glacial is the joint project of renowned Greek techno producer Giorgos Lemos, simply known as Lemos — and saxophonist/experimental artist Ilan Manouach. Their debut was a self-titled LP on the Hotel Costes series, released to critical acclaim in the beginning of 2012. Ricardo Villalobos called it “the album of his dreams” while the media described its abstract, minimal, dubby, jazzy electronic music as hardcore lounge, elevator techno.

Almost three years later, they make their glorious return with a two-track EP on a 12’’ vinyl, taking a more dancefloor-friendly direction, but retaining their Balkan-jazzified tastes. This release is essential for any fan of the Basic Channel, dub techno based movements.

The Entropy EP will be released through Six D.o.g.s Records on February 23.

Full Frequency with Craig Hollywood airs every Tuesday at 3PM (GMT+8) on RTRFM 92.1 in Perth, Australia. You can livestream RTRFM right here.

Craig’s List: Dan Shake

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

Every fortnight, RTRFM’s Craig Hollywood brings us a little taste of what to expect from Tuesday’s Full Frequency…

It’s no surprise that the Black Acre label are pretty damn excited about starting 2015 with a 12” from new sensation on the circuit Dan Shake. He is the first artist outside of Detroit to cut his teeth on Moodymann’s Mahogani Music, winning plaudits here and across the Atlantic for his catchy groove laden 3AM Jazz Club EP. Now with much anticipation, the Tony Allen & Fela Kuti acolyte returns with two crunchy Dilla-eque takes on soulful club music.

“Out of Sight” is a carefully constructed dance floor number packed with low-end theory and seductive vocal stabs. Low-slung fuzzy bass swinging perfectly between ghost-horns and driving drums.

Make sure and jump onto this one, it’s released through Black Acre on Feb 2.

Full Frequency with Craig Hollywood airs every Tuesday at 3PM (GMT+8) on RTRFM 92.1 in Perth, Australia. You can livestream RTRFM right here.

Dave Cutbush’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Wednesday, December 24th, 2014

Life is Noise director and host of RTRFM’s Out to Lunch on Thursdays Dave Cutbush counts down his best releases of the year.

10. MAGIC MOUNTAIN BAND – Wilderman

Melbourne’s Magic Mountain band unveiled a gem of a debut earlier in 2014 and their polished release built on their strong live reputation. Sparse Hammond-laden instrumentals are captured beautifully on Wilderman. Aggressive and rhythmic in parts and serene and delicate in others, this is my favourite Australian release of 2014. Fans of Earth or Dirty Three will love this, but Magic Mountain Band have their own unique take on a widescreen Australian instrumental sound.

9. SUN KIL MOON – Benji

It is hard to mention Sun Kil Moon or indeed its driving force Mark Kozelek without mentioning the continued (and mostly one-sided) arguments with The War on Drugs and various commentaries on fans and critics. Sometimes it is difficult to work out whether he is genuinely having fun or is serious about his critiques. Either way it has got the music media a-talking and can’t have hurt his public profile. Any publicity…

But if you put aside all the trash-talking, Kozelek has been a songwriting powerhouse for 25 years. Through his solo work and his bands Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek has consistently written some of the best bent Americana and, alongside the likes of Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) and Bill Callahan, has kept alive a quality and consistency of US country-folk that is at the forefront of songwriters on a global scale.

Benji is a thoughtful social commentary both on the level of the songwriter’s personal experience and those of US society as a whole. This is a great album, a personal album and an album that grows with further listening. Kozelek may have a questionable public persona, but through the vehicle of Sun Kil Moon he has stories to tell and beautiful music to make. Hopefully he will stick to what he is very good at and leave the stupid staging to the likes of Kanye.

8. PALLBEARER – Foundations of Burden

Ironically Pallbearer hail from Little Rock. Let’s just let that hang in the air for a moment…

The second album from these US metal merchants, like their incredible first effort Sorrow and Extinction, builds on the great breadth and diversity of the every burgeoning Sabbath-inspired doom scene.

Crushingly slow riffs build on a powerhouse rhythm section and Ozzy inspired vocals. It is sometimes pretty hard to fathom how this is a band with only two releases.

A top shelf heavy release for 2014. Who knows what they will do next.

7. APHEX TWIN – Syro

After a hell of a long wait, Richard D. James is back with another strange amalgam of electronics, noise, techno, jungle and noise. And whilst it isn’t a crazy splatter fest like previous albums, Syro should keep fans both old and new happy. Aphex Twin once again keeps a groove going where you think it is going to fall apart. Equal parts disturbing and delighting, this is my favourite electronic album of the year.

6. BECK – Morning Phase

Every time Beck puts out an album it seems to be in my top albums of the year. Morning Phase is just another in a long list of incredible albums from an American songwriter at the top of his game. Although it has been compared with Sea Change, I prefer this album. From the crisp production to the perfect instrumentation, Beck rarely puts out anything less than amazing. Let’s hope the phase continues on into the evening and beyond.

5. ELECTRIC WIZARD – Time to Die

The Wizard returns.

Undisputed leaders of UK doom, Electric Wizard are back and whilst they are not really breaking any new ground here, they have put out another great record with Time to Die. The big difference for me is the drumming. The return of Mark Greening makes a huge change.

But the old themes of drugs, death, Satan are still there and mark it typical of their craft.

Why change the formula when you have already killed it?

Praise!

4. TY SEGALL – Manipulator

The modern psych pop-rock master keeps pumping out the records. Will he ever stop?

Actually, it seems like Ty did take a little more time over Manipulator. But he really is frantically pumping out the psych rock pop wizardry.

For mine the track Feel is Ty Segall at his best: a great pop song, with just enough 60s sensibility without being totally deritative, catchy as hell and crunchy like a stale gingerbread biscuit. His falsetto vocals and monster lead breaks just add the perfect amount of icing.

Somehow I think that although this is a cracking listen, we have only just heard the beginning of a truly brilliant musical career. Here’s to next year’s top albums. He will surely resurface.

3. TINARIWEN – Emmaar

Tinariwen

Blues

Desert

Rhythms

War

Sublime

Unison

Emmaar

2. YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend

As Alan Watts says at the start of Clearing the Path to Ascend, it is indeed “time to wake up”. And I think much of the world has woken up to the incredible power and beauty of YOB.

This album is grand without being overblown, dark without being depressing, and powerful whilst still being beautiful.

I have really tried to punish myself to the point of getting sick of it, I simply cannot.

It contains the driving song of the year in ‘Nothing to Win’ which perfectly contrasts with the mournful closer ‘Marrow’.

In any other year this would have been my album of the year. This is a doom-laden slice of perfection. An album that should make this band very well known – even to those who would regularly not touch this kind of music on a regular basis.

I love it.

1. SWANS – To Be Kind

SWANS must have made the most spectacular return to music in recent history. Since reforming in 2009 they have released three incredible albums and the latest, To Be Kind, sees them at the very pinnacle of their existence as a band.

Once again like a cult they are lead by Michael Gira on a dark American Gothic journey, one that takes nothing without necessity.

To Be Kind is a wagon laden with essential provisions only. The repetition only disturbs us more… and more and more and more than we could possibly feel. It is psychosis, it is crushing, and on and more and then release…. only to be rolled over again and again until you mind and body and existence have been shattered and trodden on and obliterated. It is revolting and appealing and confronting and compelling. It is SWANS and they have destroyed you.

You are amazed… and alive.

Dave Cutbush is the director of Life is Noise and the host of RTRFM’s Out to Lunch on Thursdays from 12-3PM (+8 GMT).

Life is Noise’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Monday, December 15th, 2014

Our staff count down the best records of 2014 — from the heavy to the hallowed and everything in between.

10. TINARIWEN — Emmaar

Even though the songs are sung in their native tongue, Tinariwen’s epic desert blues transcends barriers of language and culture. It helps that the Malian band’s brand of rock — a label that does little justice to Tinariwen’s diverse and often spiritual aesthetic, but feels more appropriate than any other term in Western music criticism — bursts with flourishes of familiarity, from Hendrix to Dylan. Emmaar feels like a bridge between worlds, a fact best exemplified by its opening gambit ‘Toumast Tincha’, a riff-filled odyssey that’s equal parts intriguing and recognizable, grooving and introspective. Emmaar is the perfect soundtrack to journeys unknown. — Matthew Tomich

9. VOYAGER — V

Excellent songs and production. These guys have finally found a sound that bridges the melodic and the heavy. Pop structures and anthems that deserve to shouted along too at massive European festivals. — Scott Bishop

8. SUN KIL MOON — Benji

Though Mark Kozelek’s year has been marked by petty feuds and pettier insult songs, he was also responsible for one of the most moving and honest records of the year in Benji, an ode to the minutiae of contemporary life that spans from San Francisco to Ohio to Newtown and back. There’s as much darkness as there is light in Benji, though it’s more poignant moments are the most heart-wrenching like opening track ‘Carissa’, where Kozelek uses his guitar and voice to make sense of the accidental death of his cousin in and give her life poetry. Rarely does an album feel like it’s being written and played right in front of you, the stories unfolding in real time as Kozelek seemingly finds the words as he goes to narrate the lives of those around him. Worth countless repeat listens. — Matthew Tomich

7. TOMBS — Savage Gold

Post-metal with more than a dash of black, Savage Gold is dissonant, haunting, extreme – and one of the surprise releases of the year. See also their excellent cover of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. — Scott Williams

6. SHELLAC — Dude Incredible

Dude Incredible simply gets the job done. Clocking in at just over half an hour, the record is Shellac stripped of anything that might be considered superfluous, leaving less a record and more a precise, surgical airstrike. From the prowling bass of ‘Riding Bikes’ to the snarl of ‘All the Surveyors’, Dude Incredible manages to pack real menace into an austere half hour. Nothing is overused and nothing is overdone (both in terms of songwriting or production), a fact that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows Shellac and Albini’s form. — Jack Midalia

5. ICEAGE — Plowing into the Field of Love

Plowing Into The Field of Love is everything people love about Iceage and a whole lot more. The songs still wallow the in same bleak mirth Iceage bathe in, but the dense, nihilistic moods are now littered with the sounds of folk and an undeniable country swagger, which might sound odd to some fans but by damn you wouldn’t have it any other way. This whole album is like a punch in the guts, but it’s the sort of punch you’re grateful for, the one where once you’ve managed to start taking in oxygen again and you reach out and gladly ask for another. It’s bold, aggressive, mangled and so perfectly enjoyable, an example of a band leering ten feet above their contemporaries. — Jack Payet

4. SWANS — To Be Kind

Michael Gira is a without a doubt the scariest human being on the planet. Swans at their loudest and heaviest are a terrifying beast, but it’s the quiet moments of To Be Kind in which Gira seems to be at his sneering, menacing worst. Boasting more than a hint of the industrialism of Einstürzende Neubauten, this is a record I would regularly put on as background music, only to find I’d that I’d either stopped whatever I was doing and that an hour had passed in the blink of the eye. There are certainly worse ways to spend a couple of hours. Additional mention of the cover art, which is either the best or the worst album artwork of 2014. — Jack Midalia

3. THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT — Z2

Devin has to be admired, not just for the great music on this album but for the projects he takes on in general, the majority of which are born from his bizarre and brilliant mind. Z2 is a double album (condensed down from 50 songs originally), the first part being a typical DTP “pop metal” album taking elements from Epicloud and Addicted, though it feels more mature. The second half is a War of the Worlds-style rock opera featuring the return of Ziltoid (Devin’s alter ego, a coffee-loving alien hell bent on world domination) similar in musical style to the first Ziltoid album but with a bigger scope and budget. The Ziltoid tale will also be taken to the musical theatre stage next year at the Royal Albert Hall for a show that sold out within weeks. — Scott Williams

2. ELECTRIC WIZARD — Time to Die

It took me a while to come around to Time to Die, especially since vocalist Jus Oborn sounds like he’s singing down the corridor, but it’s the heavy/slow DOOMY riff fest that you want and desire from The Wizard. — Scott Bishop

1. YOB — Clearing the Path to Ascend

YOB’s Clearing the Path to Ascend was virtually undisputed amongst aficionados of independent heavy music as one of the best albums of the year. Crowned by a song bound for a timeless regard in the world of heavy music, ‘Marrow’, the rest of the album gradually emerges from the blinding supernova of the closer across multiple listens to burn slowly into the mind as one of the most outstanding albums made in heavy metal history. Scheidt can make it seem as though drawing upon an utterly deadly riff is as easy as breathing for him, and is quite happy to let you have it methodically and relentlessly over a period of time where other bands would have played twenty different ones. This is doom deep in a trance. YOB is meditative. YOB is introspective, and deeply moving in its sincerity. On this record, YOB is godlike. — The Black Captain

Check back over the next two weeks as we reveal our individual writers’ top 10 records of 2014.