Some folks emailed me with suggestions . Although these albums don’t compare to those in my original Best Metal Albums of 2007 post, they certainly warrant being mentioned here.
Job for a Cowboy - Genesis
Jesu - Conqueror
Dysrhythmia - Barriers and Passages (technically released in 2006, but the Vinyl LP came out in 2007 so there 
There are certainly more albums that deserve to be on this list, but these are the ones that really stand out for me. I can’t stop listening to them, and even after I’m done listening they stick in my head for hours. Think I forgot one? It’s very possible I didn’t even hear the album you’re thinking of (hey, I’m not made of $$$), so email me because I’d love to hear some new bands!
Honorable mentions, but for various reasons they just don’t end up on my stereo as often as the others:
Between the Buried and Me - Colors
Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Pig Destroyer - Phantom Limb
9. Dethklok - The Dethalbum
It’s hard to believe a fake death metal band could debut at #21 on the Billboard 200 chart (and become the highest charting death metal album of all time), but Brendon Small made something of a classic here. I’m a big fan of Metalocalypse, so naturally I was attracted to this album for the gag factor, but I didn’t dream it would actually be half decent metal. Aiding Brendan Small was Ulrich Wild’s superior metal production skills, and Gene “The Machine” Hoglan’s insane drums (my favorite drummer of all time, by the way).
8. Alcest - Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde
The first time I listened to this CD I was in a rushed, hasty mood, and I didn’t give it the respect it truly deserves. It only took one car ride with my attention focused on the music that I became addicted. This one man act is driven by a French dude named Neige who originally created this band as a 3 man black metal outfit, but with the release of Le Secret in 2005 he turned the band into a solo act with a complete different, almost too pleasant, direction. This album is deeply harmonic and beautiful, with more than enough heavy guitars to keep most metal fans interested, but even non-metal fans will enjoy this one.
7. The Red Chord - Prey For Eyes
These guys started off on a high note with their debut album Fused Together in Revolving Doors, yet continued to bring originality and skill with each successor. Prey For Eyes is yet another delicious mix of grind, hardcore, and death metal, leaning heavier on the death metal side this time. The album progresses in such an unpredictable manner that I still find myself noticing little twists where I think to myself “Whoa, I don’t remember that part from the last time I listened to this…. Sick!”
6. Nile – Ithyphallic
It’s all about speed. No, not methamphetamine, I’m talking about some of the fastest death metal on the planet. Nile brings turns up the metronome a little bit with each album, and Ithyphallic is no exception. They also went back to some of their early roots and included some weird Egyptian and Mesopotamian instruments.
5. Behemoth - The Apostasy
Behemoth has changed drastically over time. Their early raw black metal albums, such as From The Pagan Vastlands, aren’t really to my liking (sorry, raw black metal fans). Starting with their 1999 album, Satanica, they took on a newer and more produced death metal sound, while sticking with their black metal lyrical roots, that agreed more with my metal pallet. The Apostasy is the next mutation in the evolution of Behemoth, and I FREAKING LOVE IT!!!!!! Blast beats galore, ridiculously fast guitars, and the throaty vocals of this album will simply not get out of my head.
4. Beneath The Massacre - Mechanics Of Dysfunction
Sometimes death metal just gets monotonous and uninteresting, but occasionally a band like Beneath The Massacre breaks that barrier and adds something that no other band can replicate. This album gushes with technicality while keeping things very tight. I hope to see more of these insane Canucks.
3. Behold…The Arctopus – Skullgrid
I happened upon these guys by chance while surfing Wikipedia for mathcore bands. Sometimes this is exactly what I need; no vocals, just pure 100% insane American technical metal! My teeth uncontrollably clench at certain parts of this album!!!
2. Baroness - Red Album
As I stated in a previous post, two of my cousins are in this band, so you might think I’m biased. Well… maybe a little… but this album would have caught me by surprise no matter who was in the band. It’s rare that bands can pull off a heavy sound, yet retain an element of beauty. Baroness have held true to their sludge roots, but have fused a harmonic element into their latest concoction that has truly breathed some new life into the tired metal scene. Red Album was chosen as Album of the Year by Revolver magazine, and they deserve it!
***drumroll***
1. Devin Townsend - Ziltoid the Omniscient
There is nothing in this world more musically soothing to me than a screaming Canadian skullet man with double kick drums rolling, harmonic guitars blazing, and over the top keyboards synchronizing the entire event. This album is an operatic metal musical focusing on Ziltoid, a 4th dimensional alien in search of black coffee, the only fuel that can power his time traveling interdimensional space craft. This is the probably the silliest metal album ever created (even more so than The Dethalbum), yet Devin managed to combine all the best musical elements of every band he’s ever been in. My wife, the lovely Intergalactic Hustler, is ready to murder me because I have forced her to listen to it so many times… this CD literally did not leave my car stereo for about a month after it came out. I’m so happy with this album that I could shit out of my nostrils.
Allow me to preface my review of this video before continuing; two of my cousins are in this band. Now, that being said, Baroness is farking awesome. They are so badass that every time they play, a giant swarm of monkey sized flesh eating bats encircles the stage to protect them from the massive hordes of ladies wishing to copulate with the band members. Every once in a while a horny lady slips through the monkey-bat-barrier, and she is instantly vaporized by lasers embedded in each of the band member’s eyes. That’s how dedicated these musicians are to playing good metal. They will destroy anyone who could potentially ruin the deep, thunderous, throaty, harmonic metal sounds of Baroness.
Surely you may say that I’m biased, but considering this video debuted on Headbanger’s Ball a few nights ago, clearly I’m not! They signed with Relapse Records to make their latest album, “Red Album”, and it’s been a huge success! This video is insanely weird, but beautiful, and I don’t really understand it yet…. but related to me or not, you gotta admit, this band is the shizbang mangalang
Since everyone on the entire Interwebtubes is giving their two cents about the iPhone, I just thought I’d chime in…. THE JESUSPHONE IS A FALSE MESSIAH!!! That is all.
Text for the visually impaired:
picture: the iPhone with a gleaming halo around it, with a giant red “circle buster” through it, thus indicating this phone is not officially endorsed by jesus
Allow me to preface this review by saying I have seen two tent-staged Cirque du Soleil shows before, and I was completely blown away by the stunning display of talent… that said, Cirque du Solei’s new arena-staged show entitled DELERIUM is the very reason that puppies are sentenced to burn in a fiery pit of darkness and pain for all eternity. I know this may sound like an extreme embellishment, and I sincerely wish I was joking, but for each minute that Delerium is being performed, Satan eats a thousand puppies!!!!! We literally paid $128.32 (per seat) just to shovel innocent little puppies into the belly of The Beast:
Original art by this dude
Now I know what you’re thinking; there is no way that a show by Cirque du Soleil could be bad enough to facilitate the eternal damnation of puppies… so I’ll just copy/paste a small segment of a review of the show so you understand how defunct this tripe truly was:
QUOTE FROM SITE:
The show features a man in a suit that is suspended above the stage from a balloon looking thingy for most of the evening; he periodically disappears into it partially, or entirely, only to be birthed out again. While suspended above the stage, he spends the better part of two hours either twitching or looking quizzical and wooden at the proceedings below.Meanwhile, taking place on stage, is a combination of the following:
-everything that’s wrong with modern dance
-a musical ensemble that’s a cross between mediocre world music and mediocre rock
-soft-core gay porn
This is no exaggeration… the music was so bad that I was gritting my teeth in anger the entire time, and the dance was… well it wasn’t dance at all!!!! The “dancing†was actually just people shaking / twitching / looking confused, some jerk flying gracefully across the stage, two very muscular men hugging each other (way too tightly), dudes playing really bad guitar while strapped to a ceiling wire, a man in a red suit walking on stilts and talking in a fake / annoying language, a woman standing completely still in a giant dress that covered the entire stage, and several of the “dancers†walking very slowly across the stage and twitching their heads… because you know, walking slowly while twitching = art!
Still don’t believe me? Go to the official Cirque du Soleil DELERIUM website, and in the “Delerium preview†window on the right, watch the clip of Delerium… SEE WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT?!?!?!?! At least 1/4 of the audience had left by the end of the show, and I think the remaining 3/4 only stayed because every seat in the house was over $100… as if staying throughout the entire show might somehow improve on this putrid excuse for art. I believe The Intergalactic Hustler summed up the entire show perfectly with the following comic:
Text for the visually impaired:
someone holds a sign that says “Cirque Hates You!”
there is a picture of a $100 bill being lit on fire and the guy lighting it says “Dude, I can’t believe we got away with that!”
the caption of the comic says “Delerium without all the smoke and mirrors”
I wish I had the power to stop the Delerium catastrophe, but it’s out of my control… Cirque du Sogay is too powerful, and Delerium will continue to pollute the world of art, and eventually Satan will consume all of the puppies on Earth. So go ahead America, keep coughing up $128.32 to keep Satan’s belly full of cute, adorable, innocent puppies. If you support Delerium, you support puppies suffering in the belly of Satan for all eternity:
Original picture by this place
