Top 10 Albums 2011

Speed demons or sweet feelings. The great gamut of music boiled down to that binary definition for most of 2011.

Music had only two roles: to put fire in my belly or smooth my furrowed brow.

I’m not cut out for new fatherhood, even second time around. My synapses need more help than ever to fire and my cranium is forever creaking, aching.

This list – my top 10 albums of 2011 – reflects this.

No black metal, no doom. Neither hip-hop, post-metal nor bass fuckery. Just various blends of death metal, crust and hardcore, preferably with that heartstarting Sunlight tone, or the polar opposite: the pastoral, the dreamy.

All Pigs Must Die – God Is War

Death to the porcine scum!

Why am I so obsessed with Southern Lord-core? It makes me feel strong. This ferocious noise is a lightning bolt to a weary soul. Like a line of Columbia’s finest, it’s a jolt to the nervous system like no other.

So to All Pigs Must Die. Their self-titled debut EP was one of my sleeper records of 2010.

Acephalix – Interminable Night

Acephalix – Interminable Night

Thanks to Spinal Tapdance for alerting me to Acephalix. They inhabit that fertile space where crust, death and hardcore go to make twisted evil babies.

Dishammer – Under The Sign of the D-Beat Mark

Dishammer like boobs

I’ve finally got my sweaty little paws on the follow-up EP to Spanish crusty blackened thrashers Dishammer’s debut Vintage Addiction. Not ones to hold back from beating a deceased equine animal into a tasty meatshake, Dishammer named this one Under The Sign of the D-Beat Mark.

Just in case you were possibly mistaken into thinking this was electro pop or a Justin Bieber side-project, Dishammer again thrust their influences into your face like a drunk man’s genitals on the night bus. That’s Bathory+Discharge, in case you weren’t sure (or distracted by the thought of genitals).