Best Of 2010

Here's my favorites from 2010. Some of them I have not heard in a while, so I couldn't compare and make a "top" list or put them in any particular order, but I was trying to put the ones I liked the most towards the top, and sort it out. Some of those are just there because I listened to them more recently. Today is the last day of the year and this is what I got.


Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini (Progressive Black Metal)
Ghost - Opus Eponymous (Satanic Bubblegum Doom Pop)
Dawnbringer - Nucleus (Metal)
Apostle Of Solitude - Last Sunrise (Metal/Traditional Doom Metal)
Droids Attack - Must Destroy (Grimey Stoner Riff Punishment)
Centurions Ghost - Blessed And Cursed In Equal Measures (Pissed Traditional Progressive Doom)
High On Fire - Snakes For The Devine (High On Fire. That's all you need to know)
Conan - Horseback Battle Hammer (Downtuned)
End Of Power - Shackled To A Corpse (Thrashy Stoney Ghetto Metal)
Kvelertak - Kvelertak (Hardcore and more from Norway)


Solace - A.D. (Metal/Stoner Stoner Metal)
Ramesses - Take The Curse (Heavy)
Grand Magus - Hammer Of The North (Traditional Metal W/Doom)
Accept - Blood Of The Nations (AC/CD meets Meatallica in '84)
Briton Rites - For Mircalla (NWOBHM Doom)
Coffinworms - When All Became None (Grimey)
Witchery - Witchkrieg (Thrash)
Agolloch - Marrow Of The Spirit (Black Metal/Post Rock)
Samsara Blues Experiment - Long Distance Trip (Heavy Psyche/Space Rock)
Across Tundras - Old World Wanderer (Psychedelic Americana Doom)

Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones (Heavy, heavy overbearing and crushing)
Hooded Priest - Devil Worship Reckoning

Black Wizard - Black Wizard (Catchy metal)
Watain - Lawless Darkness (Evil)
Early Man - Death Potion (NWOBHM/Thrash)
Lair Of The Minotaur - Evil Power (Metal for the fourteen year old in you)
Suma - Ashes (Slow and heavy)
Ludicra - The Tenant (Black Metal)
The Wounded Kings - The Shadow Over Atlantis (Dopsmokerish Traditional Doom)
Zuul- Out Of Time (NWOBHM)
Zoroaster - Matador (Heavy with effects and symbol crashing)

Jex Thoth - Witness (ep)

Triumph - King Biscuit Flower Hour

Good time rock and roll party metal.

Strong Spinal Tap vibe going on here. I'm finding this strangely tolerable. Enjoyable even. I like the sound quality. Very live and clear. Recorded live in Cleveland 1981.

Double Live Gonzo meets Queensryche.

Triumph - Greatest Hits Remixed

2010

These guys are the missing link between Grand Funk and Night Ranger. You might hear some Rainbow/Nazareth in there too...My friend used to call them Rush jr. or the Canadian Rush...something like that, I don't know, I forget.

Commercial hard rock.

Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band - Stand Back Here Comes

Groovy blues similar to early Bluesbreakes.

The Vanguard Records release brought Musselwhite to notability among blues musicians and also helped bridge the gap between blues and rock and roll, musically and in marketing.- Wikipedia

The Move - The Move

Good stuff, 60's psychedelic pop rock.

Electric Light Orchestra - Electric Light Orchestra

I'm diggin' this on a rainy day.

Roy Wood - Boulders

One guys grand vision for a pop record. Reminds me of Brian Wilson/Smile type of epic undertaking. All types of styles of music to make up a relatively cohesive album. Reminds me of Gene Clarks' No Other album. Just in the way these guys had some broad visions in the post psychedelic pop era.

Roy Wood plays all the instruments here. All the vocals, and the cover artwork.

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow

Modern day American indie Metal. Kylesa are unique for sure. Big wall of sludge psychedelia. Similar to their previous record that made many peoples best of 2009 list, but this one mixes in even more sounds/influences. Dense.

Forbidden - Omega Wave

I'm a sucker for Thrash, so I may give this more credit than it deserves. Little bit mathy and over grand vocally. I like Thrash though and there's a lot of Thrashin' goin' on here. Sounds old school for sure, but they do enough to make it modern and fit in with the Metal goin' on now a days.

Accept - Blood Of The Nations

Should do the trick...if your 14 and it's 1984.

AC/DC meets Metallica for a street brawl 1985 style. No Udo on this one, but this guy does a good job.

Planning For Burial - Leaving

Dreamy downerish shoegaze that sometimes can get really heavy. Very little vocals. Depressing movie soundtrack type stuff.

Black Sleep Of Kali - Our Slow Decay

Torche/Mastodon

Kvelertak - Kvelertak

Hardcore with Black Metal zing. This really rocks. Good stuff. These guys mix up a bunch of styles, and it rocks as a cohesive bunch of songs. It's not all over the place, but it comes from all over the place.

Hooded Menace - Never Cross The Dead

The vocals here are gonna turn a lot of people off, but damn! The riffs and tunes are so killer. Really really slow Doom Metal. Bleak and Heavy. When the step in up to mid speed they really start rolling.

Gypsyhawk - Gypsyhawk

Awesome 70's hard rock. You know, 70% Thin Lizzy, 20% Black Sabbath, 10% various 70's bands. Lots of boogie leads to lots of solos. It's all pretty laid back listening. Cruisin' in your Camaro with other things on your mind, but your head is always bobbin'.

-Did I mention the solo's?

Melechesh - The Epigenesis

This is Metal with a bit of middle eastern flavor. It's extreme but for some reason it's really accessible straight from the get go. These guys are from Israel. This is some Killer metal.

Withered - Dualitas

Extreme Blackened Doom. Light on the Doom heavy on the Blackened Extreme.

Rolling Stones - Steel Wheels

This might be worse than Eric Clapton, but still better than their previous effort.

The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work

Garbage.

I just realized that you can judge this record by its cover.

The Rolling Stones - Undercover

The first song Undercover Of The Night is reminding me of Duran Duran. She's Hot is bringing the Boomtown Rats to mind. Later on The Power Station and Bruce Springsteen also pop into my head. The Springsteen thing is ridiculous. I think Keith is singing that one. Reggae/Dub Clash song. A Disco song or two. This album is obviously an attempt at current styles of music that were popular at the time, but seems dated now. Since the type of music they were mimicing didn't last very long. New Wave anybody?

The Rolling Stones - Tattoo You

Well, I'm surprised to say that this doesn't totally suck. I should warn you though that this album came out when I was in high school. I didn't have it then. I don't remember hearing this whole album, ever. I couple songs remind me of other Stones songs. That's to be expected after you put out 50 albums or so. Start Me Up is on this one. If I hadn't been listening to crazy symphonic Japanese Black Metal for what seemed like 8 continuous hours before listening to this, I might not have enjoyed this quite so much.

"Tattoo You is an album primarily composed of outtakes from previous recording sessions, some dating back a decade, with new vocals and overdubs". - Wikipedia

"It wasn't all outtakes; some of it was old songs. ...I had to write lyrics and melodies. A lot of them didn't have anything, which is why they weren't used at the time - because they weren't complete. They were just bits, or they were from early takes." -Mick Jagger

A good chunk of this is stuff that didn't make it on to Emotional Rescue.

Bison B.C. - Dark Ages

Heavy big stoner rock crush. In the neighborhood of Black Cobra/Kylesa/High On Fire...Bison B.C. are unique though, they're doing their own thing for sure. I wouldn't call these guys progressive, but they do switch things up in the songs. American Caveman metal.

Black Breath - Heavy Breathing

Screaming and yelling beatdown. Eyehategod without the riff a rama. Hardcore sludgy angry beatdown. Sometimes they go fast too, but they're always angry. Lots of Thrash drumming. Punk Entombed.

Overkill - Ironbound

Thrash! Singer sounds like Udo. It's all fast thrash. Good songs. The singer still sounds like Udo. Good stuff. Sounds like 1986 all over again. Thrash.

Death Angel - Relentless Retribution

This is their best record since Frolic In The Park. If you ever liked any Death Angel you'll like this one. This album sounds very current/commercial. You know, they're working in a lot of current/commercial trends and as far as that crap goes they do it pretty good. I was the biggest Death Angel fan in the world when their first couple album came out. So it's hard to be...what's the word? Impartial.