GUEST TOP TEN - A RESPONSE
I have always felt that it is important to have friends you can count on exposing you to music that wouldn’t normally fall on your radar. My college roommate, Johnny, fits that bill perfectly. Though there are many artists & bands we absolutely agree on, Johnny has a tendency towards much more aggressive metal & punk than I can normally process.
Like me, Johnny is an avid fan and also toils annually over selecting his favorite albums.
As an exercise, I decided to tackle his Top Ten of 2022. Seven of the ten he selected were albums that I hadn’t listened to at all - several by bands I was completely unaware of. Which - whether I end up loving the music or not - is always exciting to me.
His 2022 Top Ten is:
Ghost / IMPERA
KEN Mode / NULL
Absent In Body / Plague God
Zeal & Ardor / Zeal & Ardor
Kowloon Walled City / Piecework
Chat Pile / God’s Country
Watain / The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain
Brutus / Unison Life
Cult of Luna / The Long Road North
The Fixx / Every Five Seconds
Though I don’t personally assign a specific number to my Top Ten choices, since he does I decided to pretend that his ten albums were the only ones released in 2022 and that I had to rank them in order as well.
Johnny 2022 Top Ten (the Ankrom Remix)
Zeal & Ardor
Ghost
The Fixx
**Consider a HUGE chasm between these first 3 albums and the following albums - reasoning explained below.
Brutus
Cult of Luna
Watain
Chat Pile
Kowloon Walled City
Absent In Body
KEN Mode
**I should say that these last 7 selections fall into a non-genre-specific category I refer to as ‘black coffee music’. I love coffee, but no matter how bad I want the caffeine-kick or morning warmth, I just can’t bring myself to drink it black. I need creamer or latte steamed milk. With music, ‘black coffee’ usually means one of two things - 1) I just can’t find anything musically that is interesting enough for me to connect with OR 2) I can’t get past the particular vocals/vocal-styling employed. This ‘black coffee’ vocal-issue is, very obviously, a completely personal musical opinion. I automatically respect and will ALWAYS check-out an album Johnny recommends - but, when it comes down to a pure listening experience, I just can’t find a way to get past vocals that do absolutely nothing for me. What I will concede to is that I am absolutely sure that these bands carry much more convincing weight live - and I know Johnny has seen all of them in that setting (some several times). It takes no imagination to see that point fully. But, in the end, I don’t have the added benefit of that to fold-in and - truthfully - I always try to keep (as much as possible) all outside influences from ‘tainting’ the singular experience of digesting an album as a collection - especially if I plan to write about it.
All that said, here are my thoughts on those ten albums:
Zeal & Ardor / Zeal & Ardor This was an album that received several solid listens as a possible contender for my personal Top Ten. Though I still think I made the right choice in not including it, these recent re-listens certainly continued to make a strong case. Put it this way - If there was one album on Johnny’s list that would stand the best chance of making mine, it would definitely be this one - by a long-shot. With the DNA connection to NIN - perhaps my favorite heavy industrial band - this record is firmly in my wheelhouse on that front. Deep musicality, complex layering, and just the right combination of relentless power is convincingly combined with textural atmospheres. Very skillfully so. I was especially won over by the truly unique inclusion of call-&-response gospel elements - what a unique & fascinating hybrid. There is real depth to this collection - along with plenty of musical surprises - always a winning combination in my book. Gagnuex has definitely earned my attention and I’m already interested to hear what he does next.
Ghost / IMPERA
Color me surprised. Not one, but two very accessible albums in my buddy’s Top Ten list. Under the distortion and 80’s-metal, arena-rock tendencies, there is no hiding that this is a well-crafted and undeniably catchy collection of pop-metal tracks. And I fucking loved it!!
I’m not knowledgeable enough of Ghost to know whether they’ve been up to this sort of approach all along, but either way - consider me a newly converted fan.
I’m not sure this is a strong enough collection to ever make my Top Ten - there are plenty of cliches and well-worn pop-metal traditions hard at work here (meaning, though certainly solid, the end-product is ultimately pretty rehashed) - but it sure was a ton of fun to listen to, and of all the albums on Johnny’s list I can see myself returning to this one the most often.
The Fixx / Every Five Seconds
In my review of the 2022 Tears For Fears album (which made my list) I share that “nostalgia is an interesting alchemy” - and so I won’t even bother to debate what is very obviously a personal connection that I know Johnny has with this great band and their very winning sound.
The truth is, the similarities between the new TFF album and this one are many - and though I find The Tipping Point to be a more strongly complete artistic statement, I absolutely understand why one would be drawn to the alluring nature and high points of this album.
The opener is fantastic and I was also especially taken by the killer one-two combo of the mid-tempo deep cuts (“Wake Up” & “Suspended In Make Believe”) - both just absolutely first-rate numbers. Even though it doesn’t necessarily factor specifically into how I respond to the music, there is also something very satisfying about the solid core members of an 80s band you loved as a teenager coming back 30+ years later to deliver something that not only doesn’t tarnish their legacy, but honors it.
Brutus / Unison Life
In the early 90s I was introduced to Cranes, as they had the opening spot for The Cure. They had an interesting mix of horror-movie doll vocals and pounding augmentation - more experimental/indie than Brutus, but they share some definite similarities. If you are a fan of Brutus you may already know Cranes, or should definitely check them out later when you have a chance - their tracks “Starblood” or “Adoration” would be great samples of their unique formula.
Mostly, this Brutus album moves by in fairly agreeable ways.
I like the lead vocals, the song structures are generally interesting (though not necessarily all that unique/original) and some songs (like “Victoria” & “Dreamlife”) fall squarely in what I would categorize as more alternative than metal or rock - which, in this particular case, is a plus for me.
Unfortunately, I think the mass-produced sheen that exists in the production really works against what is happening in the songs - and I believe the collection would be much more successful if things felt a bit less sterilized. An edgier rawness in their sound would have served them well. As it exists on this album, they come off as a sort of tenacious kid-sister to Evanescence.
Unfortunately, in the end, the overall album just doesn’t make much of a lasting impression on me and it sort of felt like each time I worked through it that I had neither much of a lingering memory, nor a desire to return.
Cult of Luna / The Long Road North
While I can appreciate the almost prog-metal approach to some of the longer numbers and the general epic musical dynamics that can be found throughout, the vocals just lose me and keep me from finding any real footing in deeper enjoyment.
My favorite track (by far) is the atmospheric anomaly that is the too-brief “Beyond I” - not surprising, as it is the one track to feature guest vocals.
The two tracks featuring guest woodwinds (“An Offering To The Wild” & “Beyond II”) both manage to summon some of the most interesting and dreamlike musical moments and the fact that they are mostly instrumental play in their favor. Am I asking too much for a no male-vocals remix?
Watain / The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain
I get this band’s reputation & prowess, but….
Nice double-bass drum playing. At least I can distinguish some riffs & guitar solos here and there. They use piano on their 1-minute interlude. What else? For me - not much.
They do have a song named “Black Cunt” and they feature a big gong hit at the end of “The Howling”, so there’s that.
The very slight reprieve I get is the opening of “We Remain”, when Farida cameos on vocals, but that ends before I even adjust my ears - at least the tempo/structure of that one is more in-line with metal traditions I appreciate.
That is, I find this to be much more ‘Agony’ than ‘Ecstasy’.
If you told me that this was a parody of BLACK METAL, I might enjoy it a tad more, but at face value - there is just not much for me here.
I will finish by saying that I believe the spectacle of seeing a band like this live might be worth the experience of enduring the music for a few hours - and I would definitely consider going just to take it all in, but don’t misread this as any sort of musical endorsement. I just can’t give it.
Chat Pile / God’s Country
Another victim of vocals throwing the train off the track - and, in this case, no one surviving. A little break happens here & there as the guttural scream melds with a sort of drunk-classic-Bobcat-Goldthwait spoken word (focus on that at the beginning of “The Mask” and honestly tell me if you’ll ever be able to hear anything but that from now on). However, it's not enough to make the songs ever get elevated.
In fact, this collection blurs together, song-to-song, in more negative ways than any other on this list.
Add to that, the production quality throughout really sucks (oddly, some songs significantly more than others - as if they patched together tracks recorded in strikingly different studio settings) - this is way too tin-can/low-fi for me to stand and that definitely hinders a deeper connection.
Kowloon Walled City / Piecework
Turning into a broken record, I realize, but sometimes vocals can REALLY sink a project. Boy is that the case for me here. There are a few elements in the musical approach of this band that I’m drawn to (though the repetition of the sludgy-pace definitely wore on me and added to the monotony by the end), but fuck - these vocals are so one-note and unmercifully annoying. Like a sustained whine - way more Veruca-Salt-tantrum than cathartic release.
The brevity of the album plays in its favor - though I won’t lie, it felt like it took MUCH longer than 32 minutes to get through.
One positive - I think the album cover is my favorite of any on Johnny’s list.
Absent In Body / Plague God
Satan, is that you? I feel certain that if I could have mustered listening to this collection twice (which I couldn’t) I would feel compelled to do his dark bidding without question. And even just the one listen made me yearn slightly for the taste of roasted goat.
The slight inclusion of more atmospherically-interesting musical moments raises this one (barely) above the disdain I hold for the KEN Mode album, but just by a sliver.
I’m going to guarantee you that if the U.S. still uses all-night music torture sessions to break prisonors into revealing intel, this is the record they reach for.
I was also super turned off in reading about the unforgivable actions in the singer’s personal life.
KEN Mode / NULL
This was definitely the most challenging entry in Johnny’s Top Ten for me to get through - or even comprehend. Aggression galore, but try as I might, I simply couldn’t find anything even slightly positive to comment on. I mean, the drummer seems decent, but….
Again, I listen to all kinds of weird stuff - so I’m definitely not out to judge (people like what they like, and I get that some of my jazz or abstract ambient stuff or straight pop might drive Johnny equally insane) - but this album was literally nearly impossible for me to get through. I desperately wanted to appreciate the addition of sax into the fray, but it felt like it just didn’t bring anything interesting to the onslaught - just jarring noise (though that most certainly was the intent).
Thankfully it was one of the briefest albums on the list. If I could invent a sub-par, bottom-of-the-well Top Ten list, this would be #1 with a bullet.
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