Top 100 Albums of the Decade 2000-2009 Special Issue by Red Flag Media

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My greatest fear in assembling

Decibel’s review of the ’00s wasn’t so much the debates, from the editor arguments and endless messageboard threads that would ensue upon our final list’s release into the wild. It wasn’t even the insane amount of additional hours we’d all be forced to flog in order to complete what is essentially a 13th issue of the magazine on an annual production cycle that barely allows for 12 volumes. No, my biggest concern was that the extreme music recorded in the ’00s couldn’t match the power and glory of the groundbreaking ’80s, or even the venerable ’90s. Those of you reading this who were born during the Clinton administration, trust me—this is what old people actually worry about. Anyway, looking back on our list of these 100 indispensable recordings of the aughts, I’m not really sure what I was so worried about. Four records from this nearly completed decade have already been inducted into our hallowed Hall of Fame. And I can divulge that a couple more are currently in the works for 2010 induction. Speaking of our Hall of Fame (aren’t we always?), we hope you’ll enjoy the bonus HOF action in the form of a pair of our favorite previous inductees: Converge’s Jane Doe (expanded from its original version) and Mastodon’s Remission. So, yeah, it turns out the ’10s (or whatever bullshit we’ll be forced to call it) will have a ridiculously high bar to meet after all. Can I start worrying about that next month? —Albert Mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

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We’ve been doing this since October of 2004 now, 63 issues over nearly five and a half years. While that’s covered more than half of a decade that has witnessed an unimaginably astronomical mushrooming of subgenres and styles in extreme music, it would have been nice to commend what was blowing our minds from the early part of the ’00s. Well, not mine, ’cause I was busy losing my virginity in my mid-40s to Train’s Drops of Jupiter, but our staff ’s as a whole, who have proven to be much more trustworthy. The way this compilation works, like all that have preceded it,

is simple—we asked each of our writers for a list of their top 40 albums of the 2000s, mistakenly processed the results through Decibot, yet still came up with 100 groundbreaking, enduring, kick-ass masterpieces across a vast spectrum of heaviness. (And System of a Down.) We’ve always championed pretty much everything metal has to offer unless it’s too goth or too Aryan, but rest assured, neither are represented (much] in this lovingly crafted document, replete with personalized lists of the honored artists’ top five records of the oughts. Now celebrate the guilt, live the storm and party hard. Andrew Bonazelli

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

my dying bride The Dreadful Hours peacevi lle ( 20 0 1)

slayer

Gin

The British mopers spelunked as pr o fo u n d lo r e (2 009) far as possible down the rabbit hole on 1998’s experimental 34.788%... Complete. One of the greatest long-distance Luckily, 65.212% of their fanbase didn’t collaborative efforts in the history of cut rope and run. Although, had My Dyshow business, Cobalt work like the only ing Bride continued with or expanded two components of a small, extremely on the doom-hop of “Heroin Chic” powerful, hive mind. Separation can’t on return-to-form effort The Light at stop them. Living in two different cities the End of the World, the votes for The might have even helped the duo make Dreadful Hours would’ve gone to Para2009’s Gin a xenophilic black metal miledise Lost stinker Believe in stone. Denver afforded Nothing. And nobody–not multi-instrumentalist  my top 5  even Albert, Scott Koerber Erik Wunder safety and or me–wants that to hapAndrew comfort enough to work pen. The thing about My closely with producer Dying Bride circa-late ’90s Dave Otero, in addition My Dying Bride, is that they were the only to writing and playing all Holy Doom Trinity band of Gin’s music. Baghdad Iron Maiden, to not venture into FloydDance of Death was less kind to singer Phil ian daydreams (Anathema) McSorley, whose career Heaven and Hell, or Depeche Mode-induced barely granted the U.S. The Devil You Know Europop (Paradise Lost). Army Sergeant time for Mastodon, They stuck to their deslyrics and vocals. The arLeviathan peration-filled guns and, rangement makes for zero Celtic Frost, ultimately, came out a redundancy, along with a Monotheist winner. As polarizing as rawness-to-refinement it is, 34.788%... Complete ratio in a state of dazzling Virgin Black, did afford the Bride some flux. Not necessarily how Requiem: Fortissimo experimental wiggle room. we’d expect, either; while “The Raven and the Rose” he plays drums like a cross and “The Deepest of All between Jason Roeder and  my top 5  Hearts” are tried and true, fucking Budgie, Wunder but the opening title track makes a point of pumping (with its shoegaze shimgutbucket cosmic squall mer), “Le Figlie Sella guitar into pretty much Cobalt Tempesta” and the beautievery song. As befits a dude ful “Black Heart Romance” whose life hinges on shootHigh on Fire, found the West Yorkshire ing before he gets shot, Surrounded by Thieves blokes at their most inMcSorley is master of the spired. While it is Aaron lightning hone. In metal, Tool, Lateralus Stainthorpe’s (sad) beauty/ where belief systems ofDax Riggs, If This (vicious) beast vocals that ten mean so much and Is Hell Then I’m command attention, guiso many of those systems Lucky tarists Andrew Craighan come secondhand, his lifeClutch, Blast and Hamish Glencross as-art, brute-force-existenTyrant are the driving force betialist/nihilist religion is hind The Dreadful Hours. like a breath of fresh blood. Neurosis, A Sun That Never Sets chris dick rod smith

Craighan

hough Slayer added three new chapters to their post-millennial canon, it was this past year’s World Painted Blood that affirmed the veteran act still had plenty of hellfire left in their bellies. Compared to its predecessors, the album is more electric World Painted Blood than 2001’s flat, mid-paced God a m e r i c a n (2 0 0 9 ) Hates Us All and less contrived than 2006’s Grammy-winning Christ Illusion. This return to form by the thrash legends seems both methodical and inherent–and is likely due to the band’s decision to write material during recording, not before–ensuring spontaneity and a rawer vibe that’s built upon the classic Slayer sound. Much like the deranged madmen they describe in their visceral narratives, Slayer ritualistically dissected some of their greatest hits and reanimated them as the 11 mutated clones found on World Painted Blood. The quick-hitting “Unit 731” shares a bastardized riff with “Chemical Warfare,” the eerie “Playing With Dolls” comes off as a sequel to “Dead Skin Mask,” and the title track is forged around the skeleton of “Angel of Death.” The lyrics are as lurid as ever–with serial killers, anti-war dissension and blasphemy remaining on the forefront of their gory psyches. In the end, World Painted Blood feels as tough, yet familiar, as a well-worn motorcycle jacket. zena tsarfin

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98 cobalt

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erik

wunder

photo by neil visel

my top 5 Julie

Christmas Battle of Mice/ Made Out of Babies

T 97

battle of mice A Day of Nights n e u r o t (2 0 0 6 )

MF Doom, Operation: Doomsday Melvins, Houdini Live

oward the end of Battle of of Light. The call seems like a good sur2005: A Live History of Gluttony and Lust rogate for the battles that must’ve raged Mice’s one and, unfortunately, only full-length, 2006’s A Day of during the recording of this arty slab of Keelhaul, Keelhaul’s Triumphant Return to Nights, you can hear a recording of singer bipolar alt-metal. Even at its softest, such Obscurity Julie Christmas on the phone with a 911 as when Christmas whisper-sings, “the Shellac, Terraform operator. Christmas, distraught to the hand on your skin / brings a war to your (1998) point of caterwauling, seems to be in the face,” the album is ripe with tension. The Whatever music midst of a domestic dispute, the specifics band, which also includes Pere Ubu’s Tony comes on while I get of which she has been reluctant to discuss. Maimone, uses volume rather than tempo to watch Battlestar Galactica But the Made Out of Babies frontwoman, to ramp up their mid-tempo roar (think who alternates, vocally, between Björk and Heroes meets Through Silver in Blood), and harpy, has been quite public about the breakdown of Christmas responds with the most fractured scream her relationship with Battle of Mice guitarist and key- this side of a nervous breakdown. Has dissolution ever boardist Josh Graham, who has since formed A Storm sounded this good? brent burton

Having come as close as they ever would to perfecting their brand of melodic death metal with 1999’s Colony, In Flames found themselves at a crossroads. Where to go from here? They could have easily kept on pleasing the fans by faithfully adhering to that very winning formula; after all, in metal there’s never any shame in keeping the music within the same template. However, the band took the road less traveled on their fourth full-length, and while Clayman wasn’t exactly innovative, it was a watershed moment. Unlike their ’90s work, Clayman wasn’t about flash or aggression–it was about Clayman discipline. The rhythm riffs were nu c l e a r bl a s t (2 0 0 0 ) straightforward, either open chords or muscular crunches, the lavish twin guitar melodies by Jesper Strömblad and Björn Gellotte were textured and often underscored by synth, Daniel Svensson’s tempos were reined in and Anders Fridén started tinkering with different vocal approaches other than the usual death metal screams. Through that simplified approach, In Flames found themselves instantly liberated, the scintillating opening trifecta of “Only for the Weak,” “Pinball Map” and “Bullet Ride” proficient examples of how a band could explore more refined melodies and not lose an ounce of credibility in the process. adrien begrand

In Flames

When a record that’s out for only a few months is considered one of the decade’s best, it needs more than an iconic name and a cool comeback narrative. And OX is much more than just the pleasant return of some old-timers. A blend of early guitarin-a-cement-mixer schizophrenia, midlife experimental disharmony and twilight retro-sludge, the album is free from whatever extreme music micro-trends happened in the last 10 years. The band locks together for every deformed time change while Sean Ingram retains the same pulverizing thunderclap scream that inspired a OX thousand vocalists. And that’s what r elapse ( 20 0 9 ) this is–nothing less than pioneers returning to influence a new generation that thinks metalcore started with Killswitch Engage. But Coalesce defied even the most optimistic expectations by integrating early 20th century Americana into their sound. Something with the potential to sound ornamental or generic ends up genuinely eliciting scenes of a faded, bygone era. Of course, these visions quickly turn into the feeling of getting your goddamn head scalped. The blind optimists of the world annoyingly assure us everything happens for a reason. But if Coalesce’s messy collapse and decade-long hiatus produced a record like OX, maybe they’re right. shane mehling

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95 Coalesce

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

a stompy-boot juggernaut of a song that welds drums, bass and guitar to the same undulating rhythmic spine. It’s probably the sexiest death metal song ever recorded, and it would survive as a live favorite until the bus accident that claimed the life of drummer Vitek in 2007. On Nihility, Decapitated weren’t content to rip yer head off (pun fully intended). They wanted to shake ya ass, too. etan rosenbloom

boned guitar lines. It’s both disturbing and fun, light-hearted and offensive. And while the record is a monstrously multi-faceted saga, it also has the rare quality of working perfectly as a collection of cold-blooded singles. For fans of the Paper Chase, the hook for everyone else is contained in the album title. After hearing this, it’s hard to not be one of us. shane mehling

The Paper Chase

Cathedral

Now You Are One of Us

Endtyme

ki ll r o ck star s ( 20 0 6 ) e c a p i tat e d’ s d e b u t, An entire conspiracy is contained Winds of Creation, was a in the Paper Chase’s Now You Are One of remarkable opening salvo, Us. An alien plan to take over the planet showcasing a ridiculously precois explained in jittery transmissions by cious band (each member was under someone who’s either cracked the code 20 at the time the material was writor is forehead-deep in psychosis. This ten and demoed) with a complete is one aspect of a record that promotes torture, destruction and doom in an mastery of the rigid conventions of increasingly evil world. But there is brutal death metal. Its follow-up, Nihility a genuine grim happiness Nihility, proved that Dethat accompanies tales of e a r a c he (2 0 0 2 ) capitated were more than houses eating their owners my top 5 mere proficient Vader acoand “lovely legs in braces.” lytes, following in the masters’ footsteps without anything to In fact, this particular album, the battered child of contribute. On Nihility, tempos fluctuate, song structures get Decapitated producer John Congleton more interesting and Vogg’s guitar work incorporates a wider Hate Eternal, (Baroness, Explosions in the palette of colors and harmonies. Even Sauron’s one-note roar King of All Kings Sky), is dangerously catchy feels more commanding. Taken on its own merits, Nihility still and intricately designed Meshuggah, sounds like state-of-the-art death metal. The riffing is laserCatch 33 noise rock. Whether he’s usprecise without evincing the sterile vibe of so much metal this ing fractured piano chords Gojira, and raspy strings or battering technical, and the songs are meaty and headbangable without From Mars to Sirius drums and bass, Congleton devolving into moshpit stereotypes. While there’s plenty of Down, II: A Bustle creates feverish rhythms that blast-furnace speed riffing on Nihility, the album’s best moin Your Hedgerow mix with eerie samples to crements deploy slower grooves amidst the virtuoso steez. DecapiDecapitated, ate an impenetrable backing Organic Hallucinosis tated’s nonpareil pocket culminates in “Spheres of Madness” for his sadistic lyrics and raw-

Decapitated

Vogg

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ear ache ( 20 01)

When Cathedral abandoned the snail-paced dirges of 1991’s Forest of Equilibrium in favor of leisure suits, disco balls and a funkier vision of the ’70s, the hearts of true doomsters sunk lower than the tuning on Gaz Jennings’ E string. It took a full decade, but Cathedral eventually dropped many of their stoner metal trappings and returned with the darkest and heaviest effort since their dB Hall of Fame-certified debut. Still an anomaly in the Cathedral canon, Endtyme is the band’s only LP not to feature the work of iconic cover artist Dave Patchett and the singular Cathedral record produced Billy Anderson–though, unlike other albums on this list (see #27), Anderson’s sludge-caked vision perfectly complements the material. Just a year later, Cathedral would reclaim their groovier sound with The VIIth Coming (and a subsequent full-length four years later), leaving a lost generation of doom fans foolishly infatuated with ultra-limited vinyl pressings and “ambient” bullshit. We could really use you back, guys. albert mudrian

Thank heavens Godflesh stuck it out long enough to record Hymns! Whatever the dubious, erratic merits of the electronica-heavy Songs of Love and Hate in Dub and Us and Them, neither would have been a fitting last will and testament to a band that redefined the terms of extreme music on such landmark releases as Pure and Streetcleaner, records that for once warranted oft-misappropriated heavy metal vernacular adjectives like crushing, brutal and sinister. Hymns has everything you could ask for from a Godflesh record– catchy industrial grooves breaking out from beneath two-ton piledriver guitar Hymns riffs, Justin Broadrick’s unrestrained k o c h (2 0 0 1 ) guttural howl, Swans/Prong drummer Ted Parsons getting his machine-man on, 500-year-old sequoia-thick bass, huge dissonant breaks, soaring melancholic melodies, venomous, primal lyrical defiance cross-pollinated with soul-bearing vulnerability and, finally, probably the greatest anthem Godflesh ever recorded, titled, appropriately enough, “Anthem.” Although Hymns has never quite received its due, the album remains a real Godflesh pinnacle, a true coalescing of the band’s best innovations, eras and phases. Announcing Godflesh’s disbandment mere months after Hymns’ release, Broadrick wrote, “everything we originally intended or even imagined with Godflesh we have done.” It speaks volumes that Hymns is record enough to force us to–reluctantly!–acquiesce. shawn macomber

91 Godflesh

Before 2006, Asunder were already known for their heart-flattening approach to Odyssey-sized funeral doom. But the two-song destruction of Works Will Come Undone set a new standard. In just over 70 minutes, the band showed off a refinement of their lurching lamentations and mudslide progressions. Like mountain ranges rumbling from the ground, the album slowly pushes on, with strings and horns adding pastoral layers and John Gossard’s vocals channeling both the solitary feeling of a disconnected God and the terrifying howl of some nether-region wraith. The Works Will Come Undone record isn’t clenched, down-tuned pr o fo u n d lo r e ( 2 006) beer-and-weed party tunes, but emotive, genuinely moving music. For all of their metal leanings, Asunder are far more skilled at creating songs that envelop the listener, whether that means almost cracking your sternum with towering riffs, challenging you with postmodern classical or floating you along for a 25-minute chanting drone journey. A third of the record is a riff-less and a-musical movement that communicates a sense of dread and desolation without a hint of distortion. And it’s not surprising; even the most pissed-off metal dudes still feel the twinges of melancholy. Works Will Come Undone simply delivers those feelings in exquisite and brutal ways. shane mehling

J 89

Cryptopsy ...And Then You’ll Beg c e n tu ry m e d i a (2 0 0 0)

ust how does a band follow up an album as earth-shattering as Cryptopsy’s 1996 opus None So Vile? To those who strongly objected to Bostonian Mike DiSalvo’s replacing of the inimitable Lord Worm as lead vocalist of the Quebec tech death masters, the answer was simple: they never will. However, the band emerged in 2000 with a fourth effort that, while nowhere near as groundbreaking as Vile, still displayed the kind of desire to push the death metal envelope that you’d expect from a genre leader. Granted, DiSalvo’s hardcore barks were a rather jarring change from Lord Worm’s idiosyncratic persona, but in retrospect, the 9 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

90 Asunder

difference was marginal at best, as …And Then You’ll Beg has aged tremendously. Flo Mounier is his typically insane self, sounding like Vishnu on a drumkit, but on this record in particular it’s new guitarist Alex Auburn who has the biggest impact, streamlining the songs just enough to lessen the group’s impenetrability without compromising, the riffs extremely dexterous, but cohesive and catchy as well, epitomized perfectly on the superb “We Bleed.” Given Cryptopsy’s resilience on Beg, there was no reason to doubt they would continue to be the picture of integrity eight years later. Right? Hello? adrien begrand

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

87 Psyopus Ideas of Reference

b lack mar ket act i vi t i es ( 20 0 4)

inally, this album can stake its rightful claim to greatness as a representative classic of the ’00s, no longer relegated to live in the shadow of its older sibling. I realize that’s only because this list, by definition, can’t include both, given that one was released in 1998 and all, The Haunted but so fucking what? Throw me Made Me Do It a bone! It’s not that I have anye a ra c he (2 0 0 0 ) thing against The Haunted–in fact, I quite enjoy it–but BAM! The Haunted Made Me Do It takes a spice weasel to said debut to take it up another notch. It’s one of those rare albums in the extreme pantheon that’s the perfect combination of pummeling and catchy, but not enough of the latter to alienate purists and, judging from the 30 people in attendance when I saw them after its release, not enough of the former to garner many new fans either. The triumvirate of “Trespass,” “Leech” and “Hollow Ground” (all one after the other) alone is enough to make a man weep tears of Gothenburg joy. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the cover art and title. Was there anything from this decade so simple yet intriguing (not to mention disturbing)? zach smith

The Haunted

Killswitch Engage

At the time of the release of their The End of Heartache first album, Psyopus were a gang of r o ad r u n n er ( 2 004 ) forward-thinking Rochester, NY-based tech-head friends who had some dubiDecibot would like to salute Adam ous hype pushing their name brand into D. as extreme music’s most endearing the peripheral vision of extreme music. goofball–the Killswitch Engage guiThat hype surrounded the, um, *cough, tarist dreams up his best ideas with his hack* honor bestowed upon guitarist and pants down around his ankles, turns evoccasional Decibel columnist Christoery performance into a three-ring circus pher Arp for slaughtering the regional and generally runs circles around the competition at Limp Bizkit’s cattle call competition as a studio engineer. The to replace Wes Borland a few years back. group’s previous effort, Alive or Just When Ideas of Reference saw the light Breathing, has etched its position on of day, future Decibot bolt-tighteners this Decibel list for purely sentimental weren’t the only ones who found themreasons, but The End of Heartache earns selves slaughtered with extreme prejuits stripes through technical merits and dice. The basic conventions of rhythm hella-tight production. Six of one (Jesse and song structure as they applied to Leach), half dozen of the other (Howard tech metal/grindcore–not to menJones)–Decibot “hears” these records tion the contextual approach, role and as a stream of 1s and 0s anyway, and The sound of six strings–were also thrown End of Heartache just sounds better. off the shores and into Lake Ontario’s This was the record where Killswitch chilly waters. Psyopus used sweet science Engage took an airtight formula and patterns, Ph.D-worthy seretrofitted it with pop quences and Arp’s mangling hooks–it’s probably the my top 5 fluidity to annihilate all cusmost successful metalcore toms and expectations, and “crossover” record ever. bring extreme music kicking “World Ablaze” and the and screaming into the 30th title track satisfy the “bad Killswitch century via the latter-half of cop” quotient nicely, but Engage the decade. Ideas of ReferDecibot also appreciates Iced Earth, ence dangles precariously HoJo’s Officer Friendly Horror Show towards being overwhelmroutine. Like, have you Underoath, They’re ing and often risks going heard “Rose of Sharyn”? Only Chasing Safety over heads, but we can say It’s gayer than a highwith confident authorschool drama club at a Soilwork, ity that six years down the Natural Born Chaos private screening of Glee. line, we’re still discovering If Intel processors came He Is Legend, something new with each with heartstrings, DeciIt Hates You listen and will probably be bot would be bawling like Glassjaw, doing so six years from now. a little baby. decibot Everything You Ever kevin stewart-panko Wanted to Know About Silence

10 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

mike d.

85 Watain Casus Luciferi d r a k k a r (2 0 0 3 )

We literally tasted the liquid remains of Watain’s black mass rituals once before, but we’re not desperate to cleanse our palates in the tangy taste of swine ass again. So, to spare the lashings of overlooking one of the darkest black metal albums to emigrate out of Sweden in the 21st century, we’re beating the dark lords to the punch. Nearly a decade later, Casus Luciferi conjugates the blistering melodies of Dissection’s The Somberlain and misanthropic undercurrents of Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. And, of course, Watain spare room for pure, unadulterated satanic worship. Frontman Erik Danielsson spits fire in “Devil’s Blood” among the swarm of bees humming beneath familiar tremolo picking and blast beats. With clearer production than 2000 debut LP Rabid Death’s Curse, Watain unveil their darkened perception to daylight in Casus Luciferi. These nightcrawlers transgress boundaries on stage and on record. As Danielsson hisses incantations at us dumbfounded inquisitors, torches burn, blood spews, Satan rises. Six years after Casus Luciferi, this blood will not wash away. jess blumensheid

my top 5 Erik

Danielsson Watain

Dissection, Reinkaos Funeral Mist, Salvation Nifelheim, Servants of Darkness Repugnant, Epitome of Darkness Deathspell Omega, Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

photo by jimmy hubbard

Pig Destroyer Terrifyer rel a pse (2004 )

The liner notes for Pig Destroyer’s second full-length are emblazoned with the Hassan-i Sabbah quote “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” Though he died nine centuries before it was released, Sabbah may as well have written that mantra with Terrifyer in mind. Here is a grindcore album that doesn’t behave like it should. Guitarist Scott Hull tattoos unexpected dollops of death metal groove into the album’s short blasts of 400 bpm violence–songs like “Thumbsucker” and “Restraining Order Blues” rip off heads mid-bang. Vocals are recorded in screeching layers reminiscent of Steve Austin’s psychotic splattering with Today Is the Day. Unique amongst the gory fantasias of Pig Destroyer’s

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many pornogrind peers, J.R. Hayes’ psychosexual lyrics are equally artful and disturbed. And hell, there’s even a very ungrind guitar solo on “Towering Flesh.” Adding to Terrifyer’s awesomeness is the bonus “Natasha” DVD (since released by itself on CD), a 38-minute horrorscape of uneasy ambience, mournful doom metal and fucked-up stalker poetry, all rendered in 5.1 surround sound. The rest of Terrifyer boasts a much fuller, grislier production than earlier efforts, marking Pig Destroyer’s transformation from a great grindcore band into a great grindcore band that makes near-perfect records. That trend continues unabated. etan rosenbloom

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade Sounds of Hearts Breaking” and “A Quick Prayer to the Patron Saint of Dirty Rest Area Bathrooms and Clean Getaways” is some of that OG shit. kevin stewartpanko

bum so special. And despite the pummeling pinch harmonics and mournful whale song samples, Gojira succeed in making tunes like “Ocean Planet” and the appropriately-named “The Heaviest Matter in the Universe” distinctive and catchy. Even interstellar cetaceans couldn’t strike that balance as deftly as these mere humans do. Also, Gojira probably eat less space krill. jeff treppel

Drowningman How They Light Cigarettes in Prison EP re ve l ati o n (2 0 0 0 )

Outsiders looking in at Vermont often wonder if the state is as collectively sunshiny and granola goody-goody as it seems when compared to the rest of the Union. Actually, Decibel’s Canadian bureau doesn’t know if this is true or not, but there’s got to be a dark underbelly à la Peyton Place, Twin Peaks, Stephen King’s It and, fuck, even Desperate Housewives to the Green Mountain state. Analogous to this idea was the music of Burlington’s Drowningman. The early 2000s saw the band at the peak of their ability in buttressing grim and glamour, sugar and slime, tech-core chaos and ultra-melodic basement show screamo, not to mention Simon “Pizza Man” Brody (who’s presently enrolled in law school)’s example of how good cop/bad cop vocals should be executed. Each song sounds like it’s likely to tear your fucking head off before holding and caressing you while telling you everything is going to be all right. They may have unknowingly contributed to the present-day trend of Aniston-haired AltPress bands and their wise-ass song titles, but know that “Radio Tuned to the

parameters, the drummer adroitly shuns every tradition on the planet, tweaking his blast beats just enough to make them sound more like byproducts of intergalactic combat than the fruits of a sweaty biped’s muscle movement. Blasphemer miraculously finds loopholes in the frenzy, playing around him in ways suggestive of how old-school rock ‘n’ roll in another planet’s Hell might one day end up evolving. And the infernally majestic title track yields Maniac–and maybe the band’s–finest moments, especially when the singer shrieks, “You are not dead / You never existed!” rod smith

82 Gojira

From Mars to Sirius l istena bl e (2005 )

As tempting as it is to say that Gojira sound like their namesake, true connoisseurs of cryptozoology know that the French cyber-metallers most resemble the band’s favorite fictional creature: the space whale. The sheer weight that this music exerts must be what it would be like to have such a massive leviathan pass overhead, the vibrations shaking the very ground you stand on. At the same time, it also makes you feel the desperation of a forlorn mother whale cruising the cosmic waters looking for her lost mate and child, all the time knowing that it’s a futile search because humanity’s indifference has caused them to perish. Uh, moving on. Joe Duplantier’s environmentally-conscious lyrics and surprisingly evocative roar give From Mars to Sirius its emotional punch, but it’s the band’s unique melding of doom’s heaviness, death metal’s complexity and post-metal’s dynamics that make the al-

81 Mayhem Chimera

seaso n o f mi st ( 20 0 4)

Mayhem’s third album is still nowhere near finding its true place in humanity’s cultural matrix. Sure, Chimera’s garnered tons of praise since its release in 2004. But it deserves far more, starting with a slot between, say, Television’s Marquee Moon and John Coltrane’s Om at the ideal corner bar in our collective consciousness. Plus, people tend to dwell on the “return to form” the album supposedly represented, coming after Grand Declaration of War without sufficiently acknowledging the band’s refusal to revisit anybody’s past–including their own. Much of the personality permeating Chimera stems from Hellhammer and Blasphemer’s rhythmic relationships. While staying within recognizable black metal

my top 5

Blasphemer ex-Mayhem/Ava Inferi/Aura Noir Opeth, Watershed Celtic Frost, Monotheist Marilyn Manson, Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) Mastodon, Crack the Skye Smashing Pumpkins, Machina/The Machines of God 12 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

Warhorse As Heaven Turns to Ash so u t her n lo r d ( 2 001)

The stoner world is doing significantly null to match the hole Warhorse detonated with As Heaven Turns to Ash. This meteorite created mass destruction that’s still left unappreciated. The true mystery of Warhorse is how they came and went in near silence. The remains of this ghost, however, are a series of unfurnished demos, EPs and one loud-mouthed fulllength. The last of the series becomes the true circuit breaker. Despite the acoustic introduction, this album does not open quietly. “Doom’s Bride” forces Warhorse’s most abrasive low-end quake up front via an earth-shattering eruption they were building up to since their inception in 1996. In this track alone, the guitars pound like jackhammers on Quaaludes. Not even the most padded noise cancellations can alleviate the rumble. And when Warhorse aren’t turning the world on its axis, they slice through basslines and smooth snare rolls like fresh whiskey on ice. But it’s their unnerving guitar sound that streams the tinnitus for days after the first listen. The time is now for a new wave of American stoner rock. Let the tide wash As Heaven Turns to Ash ashore. jess blumensheid

Akercocke Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone e a ra c he (2 0 0 5 )

If there’s one British black metal export to revere, it ain’t Cradle of Filth. The Filthies are far too glamorous and exposed to be taken seriously. You can like the Filth, but you can’t revere the Filth. Just ain’t possible. As for Londonites and one-time Peaceville signees Akercocke, it’s a completely different story. From the moment Akercocke (a name stolen from Robert Nye’s Faust novel) stepped on the scene with the selfreleased Rape of the Bastard Nazarene platter, British black metal changed forever. No longer was it to be mocked or derided by purists. Akercocke were the real deal–enigmatic, powerful, scathingly intense and, most importantly, overtly Satanic. None of this pop-up evil or Mark Jones-like scary. By the time the Brits, replete with a lineup transformation, got to 2005’s Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone, they were unstoppable. Frontman/guitarist Jason Mendonca has a wicked voice, able to summon the darkest, vilest growls/shrieks and Joe Jackson (in “Steppin’ Out”) and David Sylvian-esque occult croons at will. David Gray’s death/black-infused prog drumming, as evidenced on “Verdelet,” “Lex Talionis” and “Shelter From the Sand,” was also a highlight. Cradle of Filth’s The Principle of Evil Made Flesh is essential, but Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone crushes it definitively from every angle. Britannia infernus indeed. chris dick

he timing was uncanny: Toxicity ruled the charts in the weeks following 9/11, due in part to a manic-aggressive style and world-in-peril concept that fit right in with an anxious political climate. “Chop Suey!” and the title track are still permanently ingrained in listeners’ minds as signs o’ the times–again, a happy/ unhappy accident–but if you stare at that lyric sheet long enough, it really seems like System of a Down knew something you didn’t. And if you drill down even deeper, stranger parallels abound, like “Jet Pilot,” which is not about suicide bombers per se, but is close enough to make your stomach Toxicity turn. With subsequent releases, Serj Tankian’s lyrics grew more repetiamer i can ( 20 01) tive, nonsensical and tedious (“Pizza Pie” and “This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m on This Song”), but he’s in top form here. Toxicity posited drop-C tuning as a beacon of light in the drop-D ghetto, made strings a viable alternative to DJ scratches (Rick Rubin channeling Phil Spector) and kicked copious amounts of ass. Your morning routine for the last decade: roll out of bed, look in the mirror, shout wakeupgrababrushandputalittlemakeup. This is the record you love to hate and hate to love, but it’s that indelible. nick green

System of a Down

tious and memorable riff orgies you’ve your obscure asses before, you’d betnever heard. The acrobatic fingering ter deliver. Singles, tours and comps of “Drunken Marksman” charts high are sweet and all, but for a purportedly on our parallel universe 50 dying medium, the album Greatest Riffs of All-Time, is still the ultimate meamy top 5 West’s four-string yields all sure of a band’s resonance. tension, no release on the Well, by the time The Ruin exacting build of “The Idol/ of Novà Roma was ready for The Memory,” and the hypmass-consumption in 2005, Taint notic female guest vox of no fucking shit this grimy Clutch, the likewise bottom-heavy South Wales trio had found Blast Tyrant “Amaranthine” offer only their voice. Frontman Neurosis, A Sun brief respite from Jimbob’s James “Jimbob” Isaac That Never Sets inimitable derelict catersomehow pestled volatile wauls. It makes sense that clumps of stoner rock, Mastodon, Crack the Skye these guys stripped down on doom, punk, sludge and alttaut 2007 follow-up Secrets metal into Taint’s mortar, Ken Mode, and Lies. Novà Roma’s bar and in the assured hands Mennonite will require a full head of of rhythm section Chris Keelhaul, steam to jump. West and Alex Harries, igSubject to Change andrew bonazelli nited one of the most ambiWithout Notice

Jimbob

77 Taint

The Ruin of Novà Roma rise a bov e (2005 )

When it takes you a decade to concoct a full-length debut for the world, even if we’ve never heard of

13 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

Fucked Up Hidden World

74 Nasum Human 2.0 r elapse ( 20 0 0)

j ad e t r ee ( 20 0 6 )

There’s been much talk of what could have been if Nasum’s guitarist/ More than any other new band of vocalist Mieszko Talarczyk hadn’t been the decade, Fucked Up revived hardcore. swept away by the Indonesian tsunami in The Toronto five-piece knelt beside this 2004. But we’re here to praise Talarczyk, sagging genre and, using the mouth of not bury him. While Nasum’s entire cata 300-pound, bald, hairy-backed dude alogue made significant contributions named Pink Eyes, huffed life back into its to heavy music, Human 2.0 is where lungs. Throughout the ’00s, the majorthe band’s inspiring, ity of bands tagged as “hardcore” inventive and unwere actually metalcore, and my top 5 compromising grind the perilous nature of the latter y the late 2000s, anders truly began. With genre’s live shows was a deterrent so entrenched were the drummer Anders to curious listeners, but Fucked Jakobson and bassUp opened the doors with music many hallmarks that Nasum/ ist Jesper Liveröd, and performances that were only Neurosis introduced to metal Coldworker the trio took the threatening in their awesome(epic song trajectories, sound Converge, basics of grindcore ness. When Hidden World arose effects guys and visual maJane Doe and pushed them in 2006, it made such an impact nipulators as permanent band into the progressive that it crossed over into the Mastodon, Crack the Skye members, spiritually resonant stratosphere. And quasi-mainstream–indie kids while a word that is populated the blogosphere with lyrics, titanic riff repetitions, Radiohead, Kid A often associated with Fucked Up boners. “Crusades,” tribal drumming) that it was Coheed & Yes and keyboard “Invisible Leader” and “David Given to the Rising tempting to overlook the fact Cambria, Good players would have Comes to Life” were brash, Apollo I’m Burning n e u ro t (2 0 0 7 ) that a lot of their most enthusiasts danceable songs that stirred Star IV, Volume post-millennial puking into their the blood. Raw power Two: No World for my top 5 output was pretty flaccid. With their ninth album, Given Repulsion-backTomorrow chords and giddy-up beats scott patched jean jackets, harkened back to the freto the Rising, Neurosis’ fallow period ended. The mountainBehemoth, it turned out to be a netic energy of early Black The Apostasy toppling riff that opens the proceedings was as heavy and revelation. On an Flag and Minor Threat, immediate as anything they’d recorded in a decade, a sign Neurosis album that’s combut FU preferred longer that Neurosis were back to their old jugular-stomping fortable mashing together hailstorm arrangements to their predecesSunn 0))), ways. But Given to the Rising is more than a repeat of past drums with chunks of concrete disguised sors’ brief blasts. Hidden World Black One triumphs. It’s both bleaker and more personal than ’90s as riffs, Nasum wrote melodies that tore incorporated extended intros Godpseed You! through songs and ruptured rock parts and outros that featured violins, classics like Through Silver in Blood and Times of Grace. The Black Emperor, that would force themselves in between circus-y music or weird, creaky Lift Your Skinny queasy riffing on “Fear and Sickness” and “Water Is Not punishing flurries of D-beats and deplinking noises. Lyrically, the band Fists Like Antennas Enough” captures apocalypse not just foretold, but actuto Heaven ranged blasts. And it all worked because chipped away at the façade of venally in motion; “Nine” and “Origin” offer masterful show the band was so talented and tight, it was geance-focused hardcore and got Dax Riggs, We and tell sessions on how to sculpt and sustain tension. No as if three surgeons were deftly removpeople to think again. Pink Eyes’ Sing of Only Blood ing your organs and replacing them with doubt, much of today’s metal landscape owes a large debt raspy shout dropped knowledge: or Love sandbags and roofing nails. Talarczyk “Postmodern sycophants! Splice to Neurosis. That they could leapfrog their followers and The Hidden Hand, is understandably missed by many, but together new genes! Ignorant of put out one of the great metal albums of the decade, after Mother Teacher whatever could have been isn’t as importhe irony! Creating wholes from Destroyer more than 20 years as a band, proves that they’re just as tant as the timeless and vicious impact incompletes!” Long live the new Jesu, Conqueror vital as they ever were. etan rosenbloom of Human 2.0. shane mehling kids. jeanne fury

Jakobson

76 Neurosis

kelly

14 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

photo by brendan tobin

ooking back on the 2000s, it is clear that two extreme micro-genres ruled the roost: post-rock metal (à la Mastodon, Pelican, Baroness, etc.) and black fucking metal. After the initial streak across the midnight sky during its second wave, it was as if black metal needed some time to digest and rethink its next move. For Immortal, like scene brethren Satyricon and Darkthrone, the solution in the early 2000s Sons of was a revisitation of their early Northern Darkness influences (hello, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Discharge!), nuc l ea r bl a st (2002) sonic changes that have been the benchmark for BM’s new corpsepainted face. For Abbath and company, the result was this decade’s high. If it weren’t for the sprinkling of church-burning blasts and Abbath’s Kermit-the-Froggargling-gasoline grunt-sing, Sons would be a straight-up heavy metal record–albeit a mindblowing, genre-pushing one. If the album’s “hit,” “Tyrants,” doesn’t scream heavy metal, I don’t know what does. (It’s interesting to note that Abbath’s next album was his even more heavy metal-aligned I project.) Regardless of how many Priest-styled riffs are present, the record is packed with wonderfully written tunes that–a then-first for Immortal–were obedient to groove. Barnburners like “Demonium” are in the mix, but the tone of Sons is all about the top-of-themountain arena rock-ready fist-pumps such as “Within the Dark Mind,” “Antarctica” and the chug-a-palooza breakdown from “In My Kingdom Cold.” Who knew that Blashyrkh could be so colorful and inviting? shawn bosler

Immortal

Nachtmystium

Deathevokation The Chalice of Ages

Assassins: Black Meddle, Part I

xt r eem mu si c ( 2007 )

Sweden’s Bloodbath had an EP and two full-lengths before German expat Götz Vogelsang and a few likecen t u r y med i a ( 20 0 8) minded Californian death metallers Some are of the opinion that music– went old-school–really old-school, particularly that which is extreme–has circa 1990–in throwback outfit gone so far that there are few truly inDeathevokation. Named after a Disnovative things left to do. So, it’s all the member song from the Dismembered more special when a band comes along demo, Deathevokation’s debut album, and does just that, which is exactly what The Chalice of Ages, came out of nohappened in ’08 with Nachtmystium where in 2007. Inspired by death circa and Assassins: Black Meddle, Part I. Sure, 1990-1991–think Unleashed’s Where the signs were there with Instinct: Decay, No Life Dwells, Asphyx’s The Rack, but did anyone see this coming? Fusing Morgoth’s Cursed and Bolt Thrower’s psychedelia and black metal isn’t novel, Warmaster–Deathevokation’s debut even for these Chicagoans, but it had is nostalgically awesome. Yet for all the never received this kind of treatment familiar creepy intros (seven of the nine before. It’s not just a collection of songs tracks feature atmospheric prologues), (and there are some damn good ones on mid-tempo riff-fests, wild–if melanhere), but an album in the sense of the cholic–solos and double-bass brawn, word that you rarely see nowadays (and The Chalice of Ages is remarkably pernot just conceptual shenanigans). suasive. It’s refreshing, in fact. Perhaps The quartet drops enough hints that’s due to Vogelsang’s ardent apprethroughout that by the time ciation for atavistic death metal outside you reach the concluding Scandinavian borders. There are trivial trilogy that is “Seasick,” nods to Nihilist and Entombed, as well a saxophone solo seems as The Karelian Isthmus-era Amorphis, blasé, perhaps even but most of Deathevokation’s influences fitting. are mainland European. Then What band eschews covmy top 5 t h e r e ’s ers of “Infestation of Evil” Götz t h e or “If They Had Eyes” title–is for an unknown gem like there a “Chunks of Meat” off of Deathevokation better way Dutch deathsters AntroDead to give the pomorphia’s Necromantic Congregation, middle finger Love Songs 1993 EP? Only Graves of the to any haters by throwing Deathevokation. With an Archangels your Pink Floyd cards on obscure Axel Hermann Asphyx, Death… the table right up front? (former Century Media the Brutal Way Sure, Assassins doesn’t artist-in-residence) cover, succeed just because it has unbelievably strong songInfinitum Obscure, balls, but it sure as hell Sub Atris Caelis writing (“Rites of Desecratakes some big ones to tion” for the win!), and Drowned, Viscera even attempt what NachVogelsang’s convincing Terrae Demo tmystium did–much less dry growl, there’s a reason Bombs of Hades, succeed so convincingly. Albert “can’t stop spinning Carnivores EP zach smith this shit!” chris dick

Vogelsang

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

Rotten Sound Murderworks

68 Thorns Thorns

mo o n fo g ( 20 01)

d eat h vo mi t ( 20 0 2)

oe unto them who continue to scoff at the massive buzz around Trap Them, for evidence of the extreme metal amalgamators’ ability to live up to the hype is piling toward the irrefutable. Consider: Since the band issued their unrelenting, head-turning Seizures in full-length debut Sleepwell DeBarren Praise constructor on Providence, RI d e athw i s h (2 0 0 8 ) mini-indie label Trash Art! in 2007, prestige outfits Deathwish and Prosthetic have both clamored to work with them, their death, punk ‘n’ roll EP Séance Prime received heaps of acclaim and no less than Barney fucking Greenway of Napalm Death declared, “Trap Them restored my faith in extreme music.” And that’s all incidental ephemera in relation to Exhibit A, the band’s conceptual masterpiece Seizures in Barren Praise, a record that superimposes the snarling, scabrous swagger of Black Flag and Born Against over a death and grind metal sensibility–not a wholly unexpected mix from ex-members of Backstabbers, Inc. and December Wolves, yet stunningly original and vivacious in execution. Add to this milieu Ryan McKenney, one of the most innovative lyricist/vocalists in metal/ hardcore since Tim Singer, and the intricate, percolating small town universe he barks us through, and you have Seizures in Barren Praise, one of the most intriguing underground metal efforts in recent memory. shawn macomber

Trap Them

Having taken well over a decade to Kai Hahto’s virtuoso drumming, deliver a debut album, Snorre Ruch’s the single-letter handles Rotten Sound highly influential Norwegian black used at the time, an explicit debt to metal project Thorns refused to give Napalm Death and massive payback neophytes a taste of the early sounds that factor–Murderworks harbors no dearth had such a profound impact on the likes of dicey enchantments, not the least of of Emperor and Satyricon in the early which is the “wetter equals better” cover ’90s. Instead, this 2001 full-length boldly art German manufacturers refused to set its sights forward. Clearly never one touch. But despite all of the above (not to remain within the comfy confines of to mention the album’s storied brutala simple subgenre, Ruch embraced nuity), the most remarkable thing about merous styles on this record, showing Rotten Sound’s 2002 grindcore tour his grim compatriots that it was indeed de force is its range. “IQ” begins like possible to expand the reach of black a quiet moment in Metal Gear Solid 4 metal without ever compromising its and ends up providing an optimal platintegrity. Thorns’ progressive bent was form for Haito’s gravity blasts. “Obey” remarkably ahead of its time, as we’d sounds like a dressing room squabble at a eventually learn, and eight years later beauty contest for global conflagrations. it still feels like a cutting-edge record. “Agony” abounds with drones–mostly The theremin-like squeals in “Exisburied–until a majestitence” add incredible tension, cally oceanic outro that, the piledriver beats commy top 5 extended, could easbined with Ruch’s delicious ily serve as a threnody Burzum-esque string bends for the album’s secret lend “Shifting Channels” star: Mieszko Talarca primal, industrial-tinged zyk. The producer and quality that’s more Killing Coalesce Nasum vocalist (who Joke than Godflesh, while the Sufjan Stevens, perished in 2004’s tsutwo-part ambient centerpiece Illinoise nami disaster) not only “Underneath the Universe” The Mars Volta, captures the band at delves audaciously into Aphex De-Loused in the their most consistently Twin territory. Sure, the presComatorium vicious, but transforms ence of drummer HellhamTool, 10,000 Days Rotten Sound’s capacmer and vocalists Satyr and ity for velocity into a Aldrahn enriches the album’s The Decemberists, vehicle for the kind of tr00 pedigree even more, but Picaresque heaviness most bands this seminal, awe-inspiring Mitch Hedberg, half their average temwork of modern black metal Strategic Grill po could never imagine. belongs completely to Ruch. Locations rod smith adrien begrand

16 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

sean

ingram

photo by jessie lynn

So, you’re Meshuggah, it’s 2005 and you’re currently wondering how to up the challenge factor of your last release, I, a continuous, 21-minute, single-track EP. Then it hits you: Duh! Do another single-track record, only twice as long. It wasn’t as if Meshuggah’s eight-stringed metal mindfuck didn’t already sound like music undergoing forced deconstruction at molecular level, but with Catch 33, their fifth full-length, the Swedish pioneers forged an altogether darker mutation. An oppressive exercise in punishing psychedelia and disorientation, C-33 was like being dropped into the middle of a fight blindfolded; Catch 33 where the blows were coming from nu c l e a r b l a s t (2 0 0 5 ) in its jackknifing nightmarezone was impossible to tell. But when they fell, you felt it. Hard. Trying to find a beginning or an end to the onslaught was pointless, but highlights included “The Paradoxical Spiral”’s spooky calm-before-storm demolition, “Mind’s Mirrors”’ freaky vocoder cameo, and “Shed”’s pummeling groove stutter (that weirdly, found its way onto the Saw III soundtrack). If other bands like to think they fuck with rhythms and time signatures and the like, C-33 felt like Meshuggah were fucking with your DNA. And while it was a little over the 40-minute mark, the constant, unbroken stream of music felt like they were fucking with it continuously. catherine yates

Meshuggah

Jef Whitehead, a.k.a. Wrest of Leviathan, once said in an early interview (he’s long since stopped giving them) that Burzum’s Filosofem was the album that turned him onto black metal. Before that, he played drums in an obscure San Francisco rock band called Gifthorse while tattooing at various shops around the Bay Area–an occupation he picked up after he retired from professional skateboarding. In hindsight, the means of Whitehead’s corpsepaint conversion makes total sense: Leviathan’s music has always been both decidedly lo-fi (he records to cassette four-tracks exclusively) and darkly hypnotic. Like Tentacles of Whorror Burzum’s Varg Vikernes, he also plays mo r i b u n d ( 20 04 ) all the instruments himself. And while one-man black metal bands are a dime a dozen these days, Leviathan’s prolific output is the most compelling and by far the most consistent. His second full-length, Tentacles of Whorror, is a dense, maniacal stampede through Whitehead’s inspirational codex–disfigurement, mutilation, sordid penetrations, etc.–in which he offsets GWAR-worthy titles like “Requiem for a Turd World” and “The History of Rape” with plaintive Twilight-esque come-hithers like “Cut, With the Night, Into Mine Heart.” No one-dimensional blast barrage on the ass-pipe of humanity, Tentacles is by turns sprawling and cinematic, spiked with ambient night-terrors and ghostly acoustic interludes that only bolster its status as a black metal classic. j. bennett

Leviathan

my top 5

Mike

thompson Withered

Weakling, Dead as Dreams Enslaved, Below the Lights Deathspell Omega, Kénôs

W 65 Withered Memento Mori l i f e f o rc e (2 0 0 5 )

photo by paul romano

Watain, Casus Luciferi

ithered’s debut shines like throne, Grave, Winter, Discharge, Assück, Secrets of the a gold nugget being pushed up by Bolt Thrower and Napalm Death. Besides Moon, Antithesis weeds in a dilapidated graveyard. the diversity of pummeling, the songs disJust as sparkly as ghoulish. The brilliance of this al- play a surprising catchiness and sense of melody, conbum is its uncanny and seemingly organic ability to sidering all of the berserker melees. Take “Within Your synthesize various forms of extreme riffage. Countless Grief,” where a steamrolling blackened attack grows records attempt hybrids of black and death (and/or wings and flies in the moonlight, floating on top of one post-ska, metalcore, pornogrind), but most smash-up of the heaviest/catchiest doom riffs of the decade–of attempts reek of overthinking. Not here: This Fran- course, this slo-mo headbang only lasts for a bit before kenstein’s monster mixes doom/grindcore/crust a classic old-school Scandinavian-style beating takes punk/death/black seamlessly, coming off like songs effect. And this constant switcheroo is endemic of that were lovingly lived in by dudes who just happen every track! All flavors together, masterfully united to quote equally from the tomes of Dissection, Dark- as one. shawn bosler 17 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

T 64

Hatebreed Perseverance U n i ve r s a l (2 0 0 2 )

he ’00s will go down in history as the metalcore years, spurred largely in part by Hatebreed’s second album, Perseverance. They came up via the Connecticut hardcore scene with only one prior fulllength under their belts, and wound up as masters of the metalcore universe. Earlier bands had pioneered the combination of metal and hardcore–Suicidal Tendencies, Cro-Mags, D.R.I.–but those guys had thrown in the towel for most of the decade (if not permanently). Perseverance became the sound to emulate for legions of metalcore progeny. What was so attractive about this slug-and-stomp style? The adrenaline, anger and toughness. Songs such as “A Call for Blood,” “I Will Be Heard” and “Proven” said the world thinks you’re a weak, insignificant little shit. Like a drill sergeant staring down rosy-cheeked cadets, frontman Jamey Jasta roared encouragement that sounded more like threats. You have a right to be pissed, but it’s no use to walk around full of resentment–it’s your duty to actually turn the tables (otherwise you are, in fact, a weak, insignificant little shit). Perseverance slaked listeners’ thirst for empowerment, and judging by the number of bands who look to Hatebreed as their baby daddy, there are plenty more dry mouths out there. jeanne fury

Converge may be the only band whose every ’00s album could make this list. Most would plump for 2001’s Jane Doe. Some would cite 2004’s gloriously difficult You Fail Me. My money, however, is on 2006’s No Heroes and 2009’s Axe to Fall. Unlike most bands, Converge’s early stuff isn’t better. The band has somehow grown more intense as they’ve aged. They’re also writing better songs now. To analogize to singer Jake Bannon’s beloved MMA, Converge are not only in top shape; they can fight both standing up and on the ground. This versatility first flowered on No Heroes. No Heroes Jane Doe was a redlined blowout; You e p i ta p h (2 0 0 6 ) Fail Me was a bruising ground game. No Heroes combined these elements and reinvented Converge in the process. “Hardcore punk” is too limited a description; “metal” is also inaccurate. “All of the above rolled into one big ball of hurt” is more like it. No Heroes was both intimate and massive, like small thoughts writ large (see the title track’s video). Guitarist Kurt Ballou’s production was much to credit. He dialed up a dirty sound so organic and massive, one could feel its muscles flexing. This was the real operation ground and pound. cosmo lee

63 Converge

Two seminal albums in two years, a genre irrevocably altered, a generation of bands profoundly influenced–and poof. Gone just like that. One could easily argue that no extreme band, be it metal or hardcore, had a more substantial impact this past decade than Botch, even though the Seattle band’s most important recorded work was created in the ’90s. We writers should know, as we were absolutely inundated with record after record by bands desperately attempting to capture the same level of intensity; but despite a few valiant attempts, nobody came close. Nobody. Released in 2002, An Anthology of the six-track, 22-minute An Anthology Dead Ends EP of Dead Ends is one final salvo by the American masters, a fitting coda to a hy d r a head ( 20 02 ) truly sterling run of releases. Tracks like “Japam,” “Framce” and “Micaragua” don’t offer too many surprises or innovations in the grand scheme of things, but with those familiar jagged, atonal riffs and lurching cadences, it’s more of a reassertion of just how potent the foursome could be. The real clincher, though, is the brooding, Albini-esque epic “Afghamistam,” a painfully tantalizing hint of where Botch might have gone had they remained intact. Fittingly, they left us wanting a helluva lot more. Perfect. adrien begrand

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62 Botch

Napalm Death

ü-metal immolated itself in many ways, but what really made the Dursts of this world realize they were trend-riding assholes was White Pony. Around the Fur (’97) was released only a few months after Limp Bizkit’s earth-salting White Pony George Michael cover and a year before Follow the Leader made m ave r i c k (2 0 0 0 ) pimp rock undeniably profitable. Bizkit and Korn rushed out shallow follow-ups filled with thuggish high school football anthems and a song called “Nookie.” Then White Pony dropped in 2000 and, to snag a line from Chino, it was like those bands never had wings. While their one-time peers worked tirelessly to find the mainstreamiest way to present rap-rock, Deftones dismissed the whole thing. Atmospherics and odes to new wave replaced suburban angst and teenage posturing. Chino’s screeches only appear on two songs, leaving his voice to bloom in nebulous, narcotic ways. And while the band was strong-armed to place the rap-centric re-imagining of “Pink Maggit” on the “enhanced” version, it was the seven-and-a-half-minute closer that illustrated exactly how uninterested Deftones were in the chestbeating commercialism they could’ve embraced. But White Pony isn’t a record that’s great because it took a gorgeous dump on nü-metal. It’s just a great record. shane mehling

61 Deftones

59 Dying Fetus

Time Waits for No Slave

Destroy the Opposition

cen t u r y med i a ( 20 0 9 )

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O n “De-Evolution Ad Nauseum,” If I were Dying Fetus vocalist/ the closing track off Time Waits for guitarist/mainman John Gallagher, I’d No Slave, Mark “Barney” Greenway be pissed that a) band members keep leavroars, “Bent double and the vibrancy ing, dammit, and b) kids half my age are has gone / Tremors upon shutdown of getting twice the money and action that my auto-function / They sold it well I’m getting by using sounds I invented. / Contentment with no effort.” It is (I would also be mad that Dying Fetus’ clearly not an autobiographical track original logo was super-lame, and that for Napalm Death. A quarter centurythe band’s first record came out on Wild plus gone by since the founding of this Rags. But those are separate matters.) grindstitution, and the carriers of the Seriously, listen to Destroy the Opposition, flame release a record without a single and tell me you don’t hear half of today’s sign of complacency or stasis, nary a dud deathcore. (The other half comes from among its 14 tracks–a fact made all the Suffocation’s Effigy of the Forgotten.) The more remarkable by how little difficulty chugging, the sweep-picking, the pinch one has imagining an alternate reality in harmonics, the pig squeal vocals, the half-time mosh parts–all the imitawhich the band periodically dumps the kind of no-frills, straight-ahead blaster tors make my blood boil, and I’m not they could probably pump out in an afeven John Gallagher. But if I were John Gallagher, I’d also go to bed each night ternoon, and yet still maintains their stature purely based on the momentum happy at having made one of the most of their history as a legendary, bad-ass metal records seminal band. Happily, no one ever. No click-tracked my top 5 can listen to the raging, twisting, tedium here–drumbarney brash and–yes–vital music mer Kevin Talley’s tempos fluctuate all contained within Time Waits for No Slave and walk away believing over the place, which Napalm Death Napalm Death are operating on is awesome. The record feels alive. Fills auto-function, bent double or Converge, content to effortlessly rehash tumble like a gymnasJane Doe past glories. There are plenty tics tournament, riffs Trap Them, of neo-grind bands chained to rain down like GoldSeizures in Barren man Sachs bonuses a history Napalm Death wrote, Praise but which Napalm Death themand the production is DS-13, selves have nevertheless refused crazy crispy. Tasty thin Killed by the Kids to serve an indentured servitude crust death metal– Nasum, Human 2.0 Bon Brutal Appétit! to. Truly no slaves are they. shawn macomber cosmo lee Zeke, Death Alley

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greenway

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade Sweden’s Disfear began their move away from being the exclusive domain of the crusty punks–whom yours my top 5 truly described as “urine-scented bowling balls” in an issue tomas #46 live review–with 2003’s Misanthropic Generation, and 2008’s Live the Storm drove a railway spike into the coffin Disfear/ of exclusivity. Cementing Tompa Lindberg as frontman At The Gates was bound to draw interest from pockets of At the Gates and Darkest Hour fans, while adding ex-Entombed man Godspeed You! Uffe Cederlund on second guitar had those of us who read Black Emperor, Yanqui X.O. Swedish Death Metal from cover-to-cover (including the band index in the back) frothing. Writing some of the Breach, Kollapse catchiest riffs/songs the annals of punk rock had ever Converge, You heard and setting them to the populist bounce of the DFail Me beat destined Disfear for exponential profile expansion. A stunning combo of crust core, melodic punk, Motörhead Tragedy, Vengeance and Discharge, all wrapped up with a fist-raising vibe, is what Live the Storm delivered. Songs like “In Exodus” Entombed, “Deadweight” and “Get It Off ” quickly became air-punchUprising ing anthems with their catchy choruses, punctuating backing vocals, driving rhythms and snarling guitars, and the album became one of the best of that year and subsequently, the decade. kevin stewart-panko

lindberg

58 Disfear Live the Storm re l a p s e (2 0 0 8 )

Cult of Luna Somewhere Along the Highway ear ache ( 2006)

High on Fire Death Is This Communion re l a p s e (2 0 0 7 )

In Seattle rock legend Jack Endino, guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike found the perfect co-conspirator to turn High on Fire’s stoner/doom version of Motörhead into a steamrolling beast. From the pounding opening salvo of “Fury Whip,” the guitar and drum tones resound with Endino’s typical chest-caving heaviness. Clearly, the Godfather of Grunge was sympathetic to Pike’s vision, and helped him execute it flawlessly. Death Is This Communion is the High on Fire album that finally, unequivocally elucidated just what was so special about this band. Pike’s lead guitar work is stunning, the drumming is phenomenal and the songs suggest the epic stature of Pike’s previous band, Sleep, without succumbing to

that band’s penchant for, uh, overindulgence. In fact, one of Communion’s strong points is simply how well-paced, varied and three-dimensional it is. Though the overall vibe is that of full-throttle punishment, three instrumental interludes (as well as some well-placed acoustic guitar) provide a welcome counterpoint to the ferocity. Pike and Co. also, no doubt unintentionally, made a strong case for the continued relevance of more trad-leaning metal in a decade awash in short-lived trends and extreme-for-the-sake-of-being-extreme bands peddling little more than Pro-Tooled nonsense. Death Is This Communion felt real, organic and like it would still provide the same rush a decade later. adem tepedelen

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The moon goddess Luna, Edith Hamilton recounts in her classic study Mythology, once took such a fancy to a shepherd named Endymion that she rained down all her celestial glories upon the boy, so dazzling him that he entered a transcendental state from which she could hold his attention forever. At times, Somewhere Along the Highway can leave listeners with an appreciation for Endymion’s situation–as well as for how fitting the Swedish atmospheric doomers’ invocation of the goddess’s name truly is. This is an experience record in the best sense–it pours over you, envelops you, creates a world around you, and when you learn the album was tracked in an timber octagon barn in the woods outside of Umeå, it somehow makes perfect sense, so earthy, organic, fecund and wild are these flowing, majestic songs. According to Cult of Luna’s website, an overarching collective goal of the band has long been to “live out their wet dream of sound experimenting,” a dream that definitely, uh, came to fruition in the expansive, dynamic tapestries of Somewhere Along the Highway, although, much like kindred spirits in Isis and Pelican, Cult of Luna have developed a rhythmic method to keep you aroused and engaged during the sometimes long foreplay toward climax. shawn macomber

over the proceedings like a distant god, but check out the way the flickering riff on “Celestial (The Tower)” smashes into you over and over; the way the “SGNL” ambient passages float by like ghosts in a Japanese horror flick. Check out the way Aaron Turner rises and falls, bellows over the chaos and submerges beneath it. Check out the way all the elements of the greatness are present, but rawer, more direct. Check out the way. “C.F.T.” builds. Check out the way those thematic towers, so carefully built, “Collapse and Crush” slowly and completely. Prophetic, that. joe gross

on acoustic guitar and flute. Not every transition works. But, on Below the Lights, the audaciousness alone makes up for the flaws. brent burton

Enslaved Below the Lights the e n d (2 0 0 3 )

By the beginning of the millennium, it was clear that Norway’s Enslaved were eager to expand the boundaries of black metal. Both 2000’s Mardraum and 2001’s Monumension made explicit reference to psychedelic music. But it wasn’t until 2003’s Below the Lights, and especially its ridiculously awesome opener “As Fire Jesu Swept Clean the Earth,” that the band hydra hea d (2004 ) proved capable of kicking open the door “ S h o e g a z e d o o m ” didn’t really to the next stage of their career. Singercover it, of course, but it was hardly bassist Grutle Kjellson sounds more like a the first time Justin Broadrick had left Crimson King than a Black Wizard when, the categorists clutching over a tidal wave of Melloat descriptive straws. Godtron and distorted guitar, he my top 5 flesh had always somehow rasps, “I close my eyes / As been lumbered with the tag fire swept clean the Earth.” “industrial”–a term that There’s a sense of genre-enseemed woefully inaccurate larging melancholy that perEnslaved for a decade-plus of scintilvades even the album’s most Tool, Lateralus lating noise-sculpture intenblackened exercises. And yet sity–and so a wafer-thin there’s more to this success Ulver, Shadows indie-sludge label attributed of the Sun story than just vibe. Kjellson to his latest incarnation was and guitarist Ivar Bjørnson’s King Crimson, only ever going to suffer a instincts led them toward The Power to similar fate. Heartache’s heavily rhythmic, heavily Believe dream-crush darkland the syncopated rock that exists The Mars Volta, previous year had already somewhere between postDe-Loused in the shown that Broadrick’s artpunk and prog. The band Comatorium istry in bringing together makes their untraditional Queens of some of the ugliest and interests explicit on “Queen the Stone Age, most beautiful sounds ever of Night,” a song that begins Songs for the Deaf ripped from six strings was with a math-rock riff played

still intact, but Jesu’s debut long-player was where listeners got a full measure of what he was capable of. The more obvious metallic rancor of his former outfit was gone, but there was an evolutionary logic to the glorious sonic immensity. From the towering “Tired of Me” to the haunting “Walk on Water,” the record bore a density that seemed to crumble the very air around it, and a sense that this was less a new venture and more the new flesh. But whatever you wanted to call it–celestial, symphonic or agonizing–Jesu was further proof that in matters of both brutal and beautiful, Broadrick was still without peer. catherine yates

54 Jesu

53 Isis

ivar

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Celestial

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Celestial answered the music question, “What if Helmet never started to suck and instead stretched out their songs like they were soundtracking the greatest James Cameron/Joss Whedon galacticwar space opera ever made?” These days, it’s seen as a transitional record between the band’s early work and the post-metal benchmarks such as Oceanic, but Celestial holds up in ways different from their later work. Of course, Neurosis loom

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At the Drive-In Relationship of Command gr an d r o y al/ vi r gi n (2 000)

One can point to Relationship of Command as an important album for any number of different reasons, not the least of which was the incredible force of the sonic energy released in its 11 dynamic bursts. At the Drive-In’s first for a major label, last as a band and arguably their finest moment felt like it offered a fresh beginning to the new millennium. And certainly one of the best gauges of its impact at the time was its resonance with any number of factions–indie rock, punk, post-punk, metal, prog, mainstream. Everyone was hailing this El Paso quintet as the future. Ironically, Relationship actually turned out to be the end of the line for the band, which saw vocalist Cedric Bixler and guitarist Omar Rodriguez moving on to the Mars Volta and the rest of the band forming Sparta. But for that brief moment early in the ’00s, when the world realized that the dawning of Y2K meant that their microwaves and other small appliances weren’t actually going to turn on them, and that the worldwide financial system wasn’t going to collapse in chaos (remember PreMillennial Tension? That was awesome!), At the Drive-In’s nervous, skittering prog punk sounded like hope for rock music as a whole. adem tepedelen

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

my top 5 liam

wilson

51 Ludicra Fex Urbis, Lex Orbis

alt e r nat i ve te n ta c l e s (2 0 0 6)

Ludicra are part of a pantheon of metal bands inextricably tied to locale. Immortal are inseparable from Norway’s wintry landscapes; Eyehategod’s sludge sets the Dirty South to sound; Suicidal Tendencies represented the era of Venice, CA when skaters emulated surfers. Ludicra are the product of a less glamorous environment: post-dot com bust San Francisco. That’s a world of inflated rents, failing businesses and getting the next paycheck from the streets. Admittedly, that describes a lot of American cities. But Ludicra are what happens when punk kids with metal chops discover Norwegian black metal and filter it through the streets of San Francisco. The result is no snow, a lot of fog and, to borrow local slang, hella grimy. Ludicra’s first album dumped second-wave black metal onto said streets. Their second indulged their artsy side. Fex Urbis Lex Orbis stripped down to naked electricity and stretched out over long structures. The dry sound was as if current-day Slayer got a jones for blackened prog. That, and if Tom Araya turned into a female hellion who could both sing like a nun and shriek like a demon. No metal band today embodies the opposites of beauty and ugliness as vibrantly. cosmo lee

The Dillinger Escape Plan

49 Arsis

A Celebration of Guilt w i llo w t i p ( 2004 )

A Celebration of Guilt picked up where Carcass’s Heartwork left off. If Carcass had made it, it would make all-time Daft Punk, best-of lists all over the place. Instead, Discovery it came from Arsis, a then-obscure VirRadiohead, ginia band. They went on to greener In Rainbows pastures with more polished efforts, Brian Wilson, but Celebration was their Big Bang. It Smile is, quite simply, one of the finest melodic death metal albums ever made. Discordance Axis, What that means requires unpacking. The Inalienable Dreamless In the ’00s, “melodic death metal” devolved to “yelling over sped-up Iron Maiden riffs.” This catered to those Calculating Infinity is the Decibel Hall too wimpy/unimaginative to engage of Famer and Miss Machine was the with the “death” in death metal. But mag’s album of the year for 2004, but when Carcass helped invent the subIre Works might just be the most advengenre with Heartwork, death was still turous of the Dillinger Escape Plan’s very much on the table. It was just lit career thus far. (It was no slouch in the in greater (harmonic) relief, with acdB accolades department, either, comknowledgment of the traditional meting in at number three on our best of al that begat it. Celebration embodied ’07 list.) What’s more, it delivered on this grand mortality. Its the promise of the Jersey quinlyrics could have come tet’s iTunes-only Plagiarism my top 5 from a goth record. EP from the previous year– James Malone’s rasp michael that promise coming in the Ire Works was as desperate as Jeff form of an utterly righteous rel a pse (2007 ) Walker’s. The record cover of Justin Timberlake’s Arsis crackled with humanity. “Like I Love You.” When Its no-frills production fireplug vocalist Greg Puciato invoked the sweet Floridian falsetto of Teen Type O Negative, captured live-sounding People’s Sexiest Man on Ire Works’ quirky pop anthem “Black Bubblegum,” Dead Again drums and fluent, inwe got the distinct feeling that the DEP might be looking to expand their Merauder, God Is I sightful guitars. At the palette way, way beyond the high-velocity algebra workouts that dominate Slayer, Gates’ Slaughter of the their back catalogue. Throw in the horn-stab-happy single “Milk Lizard,” God Hates Us All Soul was good because complete with the Faith No More-style choruses that first appeared on Miss of its riffs; it was great Machine highlights “Unretrofied” and “Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants”–not Seventh Void, because of the details Heaven Is Gone to mention the infectious, mercurial “Dead as History,” which resembles between them. Celebranothing if not a lost Living Colour single–and Ire Works is clearly the sound Iron Maiden, tion worked the same of a band smashing the very boundaries that many of their own fans would A Matter of Life way. cosmo lee like them to stay within. j. bennett and Death Fugazi, The Argument

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Van Dyne

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photo by jason hamacher

47 Electric Wizard Witchcult Today r i se ab o ve ( 2 007 )

Mastodon Blood Mountain r e p r i s e (2 0 0 6 )

photo by jon pushnik

Though corporate monoliths and 21st century metal usually go together like H1N1 and pregnancy, fate stacked the deck in Mastodon’s favor when they became theoretical vassals of Warner Music Group. The Atlantabased quartet’s third album did everything a major label debut should circa ’06, including selling like fucking bottled water at Burning Man (160,000-plus) and vastly expanding the band’s audience without tarnishing their hard-won rep one iota. Granted, they couldn’t have had more perfectly aligned ducks–killer songs arranged for maximum color and impact, co-producer Matt Bayles’ acute sense of spatiality, guest appearances by

the enhanced-profile likes of Scott Kelly, Josh Homme and the Mars Volta. Even the record’s piss-simple, achievementslanted concept (video games, anyone?) helped fuel its warm reception. But it’s Troy Sanders, Brent Hinds, Bill Kelliher and Brann Dailor’s execution that really brings the love–especially when their individual strengths coalesce perfectly, as on “Colony of Birchmen.” From the chorus and bridge’s full-band-plusHomme haunted-house harmonies to Dailor’s immaculately articulated snare rolls and, at the end, Hinds’ speed-picking-enhanced shredfest, they play as if the solar system’s future depended on it. rod smith

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Doom gained its sex appeal in 2007 with the bloom of Electric Wizard’s most recent full-length. With its sultry sounds of yesteryear, Witchcult Today became the ultimate wet dream for all doom fanatics. The band translates antiquated tones of ’70s psychedelia through crisp production with the help of Liam Watson. There’s no doubt Liz Buckingham’s deceptively simple riffage wouldn’t rumble as severely without analog wonderland Toe Rag Studios. And the way Jus Oborn’s vocals cover every track in a hazy echo feels like fingers scaling skin. But the real goose bumps don’t formulate from these mid-tempo aesthetics. They come from Electric Wizard’s occulted preservation of their sixth LP. Hot candlewax drips in the opening riff of “Dunwich,” a groovy rhythm to which even Lovecraft would shake his hips. But the band reiterates their addiction to the occult in the long-winded “Saturnine.” Buckingham dispels one of her most alluring guitar solos–soft and sensual, the way modern doom rock should sound. Witchcult Today creates a new missionary position that Black Sabbath fanboys and -girls would later eagerly attempt, but fail. No longer should psychedelic doom be demoted as the soundtrack of bong hits in your parents’ basement. Spare this good stuff for the bedroom. jess blumensheid

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

46 Evoken Quietus

ava n tg a r d e (2 0 0 1 )

Between the Buried and Me

Th e e a r l y ’90s were certainly a Alaska heyday for doom metal (of the deathly v ic tory (2005 ) variety, anyway). The early works of the U.K.’s Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride Before the scourging social tsunami and Anathema vied neck-and-neck with better known as the Palin Family brought the then-fledgling Norwegian black the great state of Alaska to the tip of the metal sound for underground ears, while public’s tongue for all the wrong reasons, the bloated death metal scene imploded North Carolina’s preeminent prog/ upon itself in a mash of commercial sucdeath/metal/core heroes made Alaska cess and general oversaturation. Lacking a household name amongst the extreme the murder/suicide tabloid headlines of music set for reasons much more positheir face-painted cousins in raven-dark tive. Those reasons were the 11 erudite Norland, death/doom burrowed further tracks of the band’s third full-length; underground by the mid-’90s. So, what tracks that provoked reflection and happened to tr00 death/doom after the contemplation (“All Bodies,” “Breathe once-reigning U.K. doom dealers slid In, Breathe Out”), bouts of serious further and further away from all things hair-twirling (title track, “Roboturner,” metal and the chime of the century’s end “Croakies and Boatshoes”) and in “Selkwas upon us? Well, Evoken happened. ies: The Endless Obsession,” sublime Formed in 1992, this North Jersey crew sweep-picked shred set to an absolutely honed their hulking melancholy with an gorgeous, Air Supply/SupertrampEP and 1998’s debut influenced, get-your-lightersLP Embrace the Empout chord progression that has my top 5 tiness before dropping since been rubber-stamped as 2001’s monolithic BTBAM’s most recognizable, Quietus. Crushing in-the-zone moment. Their aldoom slabs blend with bums that have followed, while Evoken masterful songwritentertaining in their own rights, ing, cavernous death always seemed overly ambitious Celtic Frost, growls and regal dark and overwrought. Alaska is a Monotheist ambience, all set to more restrained, constrained Mastodon, funereal tempos. and economical BTBAM. For Leviathan Quietus shows Evothis reason, the songs, while Mournful ken taking the doom still intricate and involved, Congregation, The metal sound several are catchier (see them live and Monad of Creation cement-heavy steps watch the explosion of hands Opeth, into uncharted terduring “All Bodies”’ chorus) Blackwater Park ritories. Move over and thus more manageable for Winter; the season the space between the average Dead of Evoken is upon us. extreme music fan’s ears. Congregation, Graves of the scott koerber kevin stewart-panko Archangel

vince

Verkay

The theatrics, the makeup, even the lyrics–fuck it. Watain could dress like naughty nurses and sing about video games and Sworn to the Dark would still be a black metal classic. An almost hour-long voyage through essentially every aspect of the genre, the album took four years to come out and it was unquestionably worth the wait. Sworn to the Dark Stitching together heaving dirges, aj n a ( 20 0 7) tooth-loosening blasts and apocalyptic gallops, songs sometimes reach eight minutes without self-indulgence or a loss of focus. Even the two minimalist segues seem meticulously crafted. Frontman Erik Danielsson is undeniably one of the best out there, with his flayed wail and serpentine basslines that coil around Pelle Forsberg’s poison-tipped solos and lancing riffs, while Håkan Jonsson bashes out a drum sound that could shatter stained glass. But the real victory of the record is how the band has written dozens of eerily beautiful passages that act as tourniquets, providing temporary relief, but also somehow making it all even more unbearable. Human sacrifices, church burnings and cloaked rituals are pretty evil, but none of them are as enjoyable or impressive as Sworn to the Dark. Remember that next time you put on your bullet suspenders. shane mehling

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44 Watain

ven minus the

narrative thread (dude kills mom, except when otherwise), each track on Opeth’s eighth album works perfectly as both standalone entity and component of the magnum opus it is, thanks largely to Mikael Åkerfeldt’s genius for slipping kissing-cousin themes into movements with wildly divergent moods. The Ghost Reveries Stockholm-based quintet’s roa drunner (2005) founder and frontman’s contribution to the 2005 release hardly stops at songwriting: His playing is the stuff of countless guitar school curricula, and he wields each of his thousand voices with a thespian’s depth of intent. On opener “Ghost of Perdition” alone, the singer drops several sub-personae, ranging from unabashedly angelic to like Ozzy, only smart, by way of tall dude in top hat and tails who arrives in puff of purple smoke, departs through hidden trapdoor. We don’t just hear Ghost Reveries’ slathering monstrosities. We don’t just feel their voices surrounding us. We don’t need to squint our brains even just a tad to see ichor dripping like egg yolk from their lipless maws. The rest of the band wax as chameleonic as their leader, folding spectacular displays of fire, precision and grace into every fleeting glimpse of Heaven, every eternity in Hell. rod smith

42 Opeth

43 Nile

Annihilation of the Wicked re l a p s e (2 0 0 5 )

Annihilation of the Wicked is one of the most complete albums ever made. As a package, it delivers sonically, visually and thematically. Such cohesion wouldn’t have been possible without collaboration with professionals. Neil Kernon was Nile’s most important contractor. The year before, the producer had given Cannibal Corpse huge, clear sound on The Wretched Spawn. He gave Nile the same treatment, a feat given their music’s speed and complexity. Generally, the faster metal is, the less heavy it becomes. But Kernon somehow made George Kollias, a drummer so fast he’s probably genetically modified, not sound like a typewriter. He also made Nile’s guitars sound like finely-tuned Harleys. To this day, the production remains a death metal touchstone. Orion Landau was also crucial to Annihilation. Relapse’s in-house graphic designer concocted a deep, bloody red that made the artwork–and resulting T-shirts–recognizable my top 5 from afar. The color is karl as iconic as the white on Immortal’s Battles in the North or the yelNile low on Anthrax’s State Ulcerate, of Euphoria. Nile have Everything Is Fire always had strong visuals, but Annihilation Krisiun, Southern Storm upgraded from “coollooking” to “museumImmolation, ready.” With Ph.DHarnessing Ruin quality liner notes by Cannibal Corpse, vocalist/guitarist/ Kill resident Egyptologist Uli Roth, Karl Sanders, the packMetamorphosis age looked smart, was of Vivaldi’s Four smart and ran you over Seasons (With Sky at 250 bpm. Orchestra) cosmo lee

Primordial The Gathering Wilderness metal b lad e ( 2 005 )

Pagan metallers Primordial existed somewhere on the periphery of cool prior to The Gathering Wilderness. Blame it on labels Misanthropy or Hammerheart. Blame it on Primordial. But A Journey’s End and Spirit the Earth Aflame–as essential as they are in my collection–are incomparable to Primordial’s Metal Blade debut. It’s unusual for the Dublin-based outfit to miss a step (though I’d have to consider 2002’s Storm Before Calm drowsy and uneven), but what Primordial accomplished on The Gathering Wilderness rivals anything–yes, U2, My Bloody Valentine, Sinéad O’Connor, the Pogues–to come out of the Emerald Isle. The heart-onsleeve approach is so endearing that never before has a single collection of songs meant so much unbeknownst to so many people (the Irish and the Irish Diaspora). With tracks like “The Golden Spiral,” “End of All Times (The Martyr’s Fire)” and especially album centerpiece “The Coffin Ships,” The Gathering Wilderness is an unrecognized hourmy top 5 long national anthem. When frontman A.A. Nemtheanga belts out the line “Lost to Ireland, lost Primordial in vain” on “The Coffin Woven Hand, Ships,” I beg everyone– Consider the Birds regardless of nationaliNeurosis, The Eye ty–to empathize. But of Every Storm Primordial aren’t all emo. The quintet is also Rotting Christ, Theogonia a heavy metal band and, emotional heft notwithIsis, Panopticon standing, The Gathering Deathspell Omega, Wilderness is mandatory Si Monumentum for every metalhead worth Requires, their salt. chris dick Circumspice

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade being of pure stalker with imagination to spare. A loosely-organized concept album about a dude stalking his ex-girlfriend Jennifer, then breaking into her house and killing her (we think), Hayes is terrifying, mixing knowing lines like “The chameleon is my favorite animal!” with “‘Semen tastes like gunmetal,’ she said smiling” and “Dyed red hair, a forest green dress and a pair of kitchen knives / it was the last time I ever saw a rose” making for the best novel Thomas Harris never wrote. Lock your doors. joe gross

Deathspell Omega Fas–Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum aj n a (2 0 0 7 )

F r e n c h / F i n n i s h b l a c k metal combo Deathspell Omega’s enigmatic presence only enhances their musical and lyrical output. They rarely conduct interviews, and photographic evidence is analogous to the Iberian Lynx. Which means Deathspell Omega are exclusively about the music and how the group’s unfathomably deep, mysteriously complex You Fail Me and genuinely saturnine avant-black afepita ph (2004 ) fects the individual in an informational Trying to select which of Converge’s and contextual vacuum. Neat. While 21st century albums to give the golden black metallers (i.e., cassette caressers) handshake is tantamount to a sonic Sowept tears of sulfur and woe on 2004’s phie’s Choice. Fuck, I’m not even sure if I absurdly good Si Monumentum Requires, agree that You Fail Me should rank atop Circumspice, it’s Fas–Ite, Maledicti, in their recent discography, having listened Ignem Aeternum that gets our vote as to their latest, Axe to Fall, at least 100 the essential Deathspell Omega release times this week. But here I am penning (to date). Sure, the Kénôse and Chaining this blurb. Well, let’s look at the facts, the Katechon EPs blew our respective ma’am. If there’s one thing You Fail Me realities wide open, but nothing beats did, it was to take the speedy, the experience of 46 minreckless, punk rock energy utes of atonal, strident and my top 5 of previous album and cershapeless black–heard anders tified Hall of Fame masteron “The Shrine of Mad piece Jane Doe and sculpt Laughter,” “The Repellent it into a devastating burl Scars of Abandon and ElecThe Haunted in the form of “Heartless,” tion” and “A Chore for the “Eagles Become Vultures” Lost”–performed with The Mars Volta, and “Last Light” The hardthis level of talent and amDe-Loused in the core legends inched further bition. Deathspell Omega Comatorium away from their early and sound positively dangerous Queens of the overt metalcore displays on this record, as it’s never Stone Age, while remaining musically clear what direction they’re Songs for the Deaf engaging and technically incoming from or going to; Paatos, Timeloss volved. You Fail Me was also disharmony and aggression Converge’s most diverse ofare the only pillars on which Soilwork, Stabbing the Drama fering to date–backing up to cling. Fas–Ite, Maledicti, the high-octane half-thrash/ in Ignem Aeternum is a true Katatonia, The half-punk of “Black Cloud,” original. chris dick Great Cold Distance

39 Converge

Björler

“Death King” and “Drop Out” was the elegiac mourn of the weeping acoustic “In Her Shadow” and the angular, Devo-ish “Hanging Moon.” Then, there was the title track’s dirge to end all dirges, which took the idea of using minimalist riffing to devastating conclusion. Need any more proof ? kevin stewart-panko

Killswitch Engage Alive or Just Breathing r o ad r u n n er ( 20 02 )

Pig Destroyer Prowler in the Yard r elapse ( 20 0 1)

For their second full-length, Pig Destroyer made the jump from being a smart, promising grind band to holyshitthisisthemostsavagethingever. Like Discordance Axis (and Beat Happening!), PxDx used a guitar, drums and voice tripod, each instrument playing off the other, a balance that just reinforced the crazy. The oddly underrated Brian Harvey’s drums flay and scrape while guitarist Scott Hull’s riffs move from Slayer to Merzbow to Napalm Death, often over the course of just one song. But screecher J.R. Hayes is the blade inside the saw, a

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Sheer coincidence that these New Englanders dropped this 12-song bombshell one decade after Helmet unleashed Meantime? After all, I dare you to come up with two records that, in their respective decades, have been more responsible for (un)intentionally spawning shitty subgenres as Helmet in the ’90s with nümetal and Killswitch Engage in the ’00s with metalcore. (I triple dog dare you to wear Adam D.’s shorts in public.) Even though it arrived at such an embryonic stage for metalcore–before bands, execs and the like realized there was money to be had, and proceeded to rape and pillage it–this was the album where you didn’t have to be ashamed to think that maybe the genre had some legs, some staying power… some ability to really make something of its life. And while opinions on KSE’s current output and/ or fashion decisions may, um, vary, it’s become clear all these years later–after an unquantifiable number of attempts by contemporaries and descendents–that this album stands as the pinnacle of a style, and perhaps a career. It may have been all downhill from here, but, to summarize a clichéd subgenre as such, once you’ve reached the top, there’s no way but down. zach smith photo by j. bennett

35 Shellac 1000 Hurts

Anaal Nathrakh

t o u ch & go ( 20 0 0 )

The Codex Necro mo r d gr i mm ( 2 001)

f including an eponymous song on one’s eponymous debut is a harbinger of permanent doom greatness, Witchcraft took a hint from Sabbath, Vitus and Electric Wizard while going straight Pentagram, musically speaking, on their sensational full-length initiation. Recorded in a basement in the band’s hometown Witchcraft of Örebro, Sweden, Witchcraft r is e ab o ve / m u s i c c a rte l (2004 ) captured everything that made legends of their predecessors: an unfailing devotion to Iommic studies, a deep reverence for minor-key melody and an understanding that even the most well-executed doom only goes so far if doesn’t have soul. Released in 2004, the album featured Aubrey Beardsley’s my top 5 1890s illustration Merlin on its sleeve–inexplimagnus cably uncredited–while two Pentagram covers rear their pentatonic heads within (“Please Don’t Witchcraft Forget Me” and the vinyl/Japanese-only bonus track “Yes I Do”). But the real retro face-rulers The Mars Volta, Frances the Mute are all original: “I Want You to Know,” the Roky Tool, Lateralus Erickson-inspired “No Angel or Demon” and the aforementioned title track. Pentagram mainA Perfect Circle, Thirteenth Step man Bobby Liebling was so impressed that he joined Witchcraft onstage in D.C. on their first PJ Harvey, White Chalk U.S. tour in 2006. We were so impressed that we’ve been listening to the album regularly for Joanna Newsom, Ys the last six years. j. bennett

Witchcraft

Pelander

This is the record with the Scandinavian black metal might song. The song that made Shellac more have brought a new sense of the extreme than just Steve Albini’s fuckaround beto music during the late ’80s and ’90s, tween engineering. A song that finally with a series of high-profile incidents beat Big Black’s “Bad Penny” when it that saw life imitating a very anti-social came to raw, half-crazed lyrics. But art, but by the millennium it was a genre opener “Prayer to God,” with variations floundering–its main players either of the line “Kill him” repeated 41 times dead, behind bars or languishing in before ending with “Amen,” is only part corpsepainted cabaret. So, imagine the of what makes 1000 Hurts memorable. horror when two Brit miscreants from After the endurance tests of Terraform, Ozzy Osbourne’s hometown rolled the band curbed their song lengths, but up without so much as an eye pencil continued to eschew any conventional in sight, and blasted the nihilism bar arrangements. Instead they shaped the one blistering, rotted mile higher. As album like carpenters, creating sturdy, a debut statement of intent, The Codex reliable structures without flourishes Necro was unremitting in its cruelty. that could stand on a single load-bearing An unholy trinity of superspeed riff bassline. The nonexistent production savagery, throat-rape rancor and hellhighlights three musicians completely bound electronic hatred, it delivered its confident in themselves and each other, ear-violating payload with devastating all with their distinct and perfect tones, authority. This wasn’t music–if you working to create a junky but precise dared call it that–interested anti-rock record. And in going up to 11. Rather, it was Albini, a skinny nerd the kind played on fleshhooks, who wouldn’t think my top 5 twice about slitting the Mårten recorded on entrails and executed with the sole intent of throat of the biggest guy making you and your entire at the bar, spins tales of Meshuggah record collection shit blood squirrels, shitty watchon command. Amidst such makers and starting his Mr. Bungle, sonic carnage, track titles like own country with a dead California (1999) “Submission Is for the Weak” seriousness. But really, Entombed, and “Human, All too Fucking even though 1000 Hurts Morning Star Human” might have been lais a stockpile of abrasive, Squarepusher, boring the disgusted point, unpretentious riffs and Go Plastic but who would want to argue? shellshock drumming, This wasn’t just The Codex the unalloyed vitriol of The Fucking Champs, IV Necro–it was Total Fucking that first song is enough Necro, and you, weak human, to thank God for ShelQueens of the were nothing. lac. shane mehling Stone Age, catherine yates Songs for the Deaf

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Hagström

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

33 Isis

mit, a little frustrating) exhaust sprawled over the next eight. But it’s opener “So Did We” that sets the tone, then outright dominates full-length numero tres, second in visceral satisfaction only to “Celestial (The Tower)” and inundated with multiple glorious neck-snapping climaxes. Turner writes exceptionally thoughtful lyrics, 30 percent of which we can now understand without liner notes, but on Panopticon he’s the roaring vessel for an outfit tendering the perfect fusion of literate enthusiasm and drop C trauma. andrew bonazelli

Panopticon i p e c a c (2 0 0 4 )

After I issued a ho-hum review for Wavering Radiant in May of last year, I was surprised at how many folks were dubbing it Isis’ most “complete” album yet. Upon further review, they’re probably right–no one can deny the Aarons’ quantum leaps (Harris on the skins, Turner on the mike), and the compositions are intricate, evocative and revealing like never before. But little of it is rousing. OK, “rousing” isn’t right–how about “face-fuckingly triumphant”? Panopticon’s “Backlit” conjured the strangely opaque good cheer that would propagate Pelican’s breakout The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw a year later. With an assist from Tool’s Justin Chancellor, instrumental “Altered Course” blows its load in two goat-throwing minutes, leaving a wake of sparkling (and, you gotta ad-

32 Craft

Fuck the Universe c a rna l (2005 )

Fuck the Universe is a fucking masterpiece! (For what it’s worth, it’s this writer’s most-listened-to personal favorite of the decade.) In-line with some of the moves taken by senior Scandinavian grim lords

like Satyricon, Enslaved and Carpathian Forest, Craft realized that the hellstorm blast beat fury that is the cornerstone of blackened tuneage can only get deepened by smart, catchy, evil (and I mean Fucking Evil!) riffs. In other words, considering the slice-and-dice blur of old-school BM (as well as Craft’s earlier work), Fuck the Universe throws in mass dollops of rock and heavy metal stylings; tricks that only add more dynamics and feel. Some may call it black ‘n’ roll; call it what you will– FTU is the most diabolical collection of Satan-summoning, hate-spewing axework of the 2000s. Front-to-back, every track is flawless, packed with itchy, air-guitarready dexterity. The two opening numbers alone (“Earth a Raging Blaze” and “Thorns in the Planet’s Side”) display total genius. Seamlessly meshing six-string locust swarms with thinking man’s doom (sort of like the best of Slayer’s slow and epic stuff ), the funereal bits subtly keep building and building while maintaining a melodic focus, only to blast wide open (in “Thorns”) with one of the album’s many brilliant (probably unintentionally funny) lyrics: “I hate the unsightliness of creation!” Whoa, boy! Hating all life and creation–and the entire universe to boot–that is fuggin’ punk! For those who believe metal is all about the riff, FTU is the new gold standard. shawn bosler

els. The technical virtuosity and lyrical themes had a cerebral appeal, while the raw vocals and dual-guitar crush hit hard on a visceral level. It was an album whose appeal cut across generations of metalheads, without specifically pandering to any. But more importantly, it has been an obvious and lasting influence on a whole host of Southern sludgemeisters who have followed Mastodon’s example in juxtaposing loping ’70s-inspired grooves alongside complex, modern mathcore workouts. Leviathan is one of the few metal albums released in the ’00s that will be remembered as much for its ambition and ultimately spot-on execution as the way it indisputably altered the course of the genre. adem tepedelen

Andrew W.K. I Get Wet i slan d ( 20 0 1 )

Mastodon Leviathan r elapse ( 20 0 4)

Mastodon had already established their rep as a force to be reckoned with on the Lifesblood EP (a demo they’d recorded just three months after forming) and their first full-length, Remission, by the time Leviathan was released in August ’04. But this quasi-concept album about Herman Melville’s Great White Whale– as heavy, brooding, complex and unrelenting as Capt. Ahab himself–elevated the Atlanta quartet to a whole other level of musical mastery. Its intensity could be felt on any number of different lev28 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

Extreme artists paint the world as damaged and miserable, bursting with jerks that smother your dreams. You have to fight for your right to party, but frankly, fighting all the time fucking sucks and what’s worse is that the party isn’t always worth your efforts. But in 2001, Andrew W.K. emerged with a life-affirming grand opus that was violently ebullient. I Get Wet was packed from start to finish with fantastical anthems that celebrated how good it felt to be alive, with wall-of-sound thrash-dance music that exploded like a million piñatas loaded with confetti and grenades. And the message wasn’t that we were strong enough to simply exist–we were gonna flourish, with a fist in the air, a song in our hearts and a spastic dance in our feet. AWK wrote about boldly chasing the girl of your dreams (“She Is Beautiful”), fearlessly taking on the opposition en masse (“Ready to Die”) and indulging in the hard-on that comes with being the ultimate victor (“I Get Wet”). The essence of the album’s centerpiece “Party Hard” was less about the “party” and more about the “hard.” Give life your all, and give it joyously. Love is all around. jeanne fury

Dimmu Borgir Death Cult Armageddon n u clear b last (2 003 )

Dimmu Borgir’s masterpiece sounds like the aural equivalent of the most twisted H.R. Giger painting ever spawned: a massive, pulsating biomechanical engine whose sole purpose is the utter destruction of everything. Death Cult Armageddon oozes evil from my top 5 every vent, and not lofi DIY malevolence, either. This is the Grand Guignol conDimmu Borgir ception of capital-E Nevermore, This Evil, chugging along Godless Endeavor on the smoothness of its production, Dissection, Reinkaos backed up by a full symphony of the Hank Williams III, damned (well, the Straight to Hell Prague Philharmonic Jorn, Lonely Orchestra, anyway). Are the Brave Even though black Katharsis, metal forms the basis VVorld VVithout End of this machine, Emperor couldn’t have imagined the heights of bombast to which Shagrath and Silenoz would take the sound. There’s a reason that already started down the path to being a the orchestral parts of both “Progenies polarizing piece of work. Ultimately, the of the Great Apocalypse” and “Eradialbum rewrote the book on tech-metal/ cation Instincts Defined” have been noisecore the same way Calculating set used in movie trailers–besides the a high-water mark for rhythmic insanfact that they’re awesome. All the eleity and notes-per-second. It showed ments work in tandem, the blast beats Dillinger could do more than smash matching up perfectly with the string your face in with prodigious skill and section and the angelic choir perfectly violent technicality. Yes, mayhem still complementing the demonic shrieks. comprised good chunks of Miss Machine, And it isn’t all just scorched earth, eibut they also threw out massive gyrobther. There are moments of terrible alls that drew inspiration from NIN and beauty within the eldritch shell, and Foo Fighters, reinvented their sound, that’s why Death Cult Armageddon is kept things fresh and interesting for its the album where Dimmu Borgir truly participants, and made for a challenging achieved puritanical misanthropic euand holistic experience for the listener. phoria. This is capital-A Art. kevin stewart-panko jeff treppel

Silenoz

The Dillinger Escape Plan Miss Machine re l a p s e (2 0 0 4 )

photo by j. bennett

Back in 2004, in order to promote the follow-up to venerable classic Calculating Infinity, Relapse sent out two-song promo CDs to radio and writin’ hacks across the board. Being that everyone was still losing their shit over Calculating the past five years, saying anticipation was high is like saying Hervé Villechaize was short. The preview disc contained then-new tracks “Panasonic Youth” and “Baby’s First Coffin” and, for whatever reason, various pockets of people had already proclaimed DEP sellouts. Regardless that this was even before anyone had even heard the relatively radiofriendly “Unretrofied” or “Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants,” Miss Machine had

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

27 High on Fire

Surrounded by Thieves

such as abominable snowmen, undead wolves and space-bound demon seed don’t exactly distract from the record’s you-can’t-be-serious cover art. But the hammering three-minute closer “Razor Hoof ” allows both band and listener to regain focus, proving that you don’t always need a 52-minute ganja ode to sound fucking epic. albert mudrian

re l a p s e (2 0 0 2 )

Sometimes I like to imagine what Surrounded by Thieves might have sounded like had Billy Anderson decided not to record it when he had numerous pairs of wet socks stuffed in his earholes. Easily the shittiest-sounding album on our list, its high ranking is a testament to the pure power of the songs therein. The resin of stoner-y Sleepisms, which clogged the screen of debut The Art of Self Defense, is quickly blown away by the fist-banging mania of opening trio “Eyes & Teeth,” “Hung, Drawn and Quartered” and “Speedwolf.” Here, Pike and unsung HOF backbone Des Kensel indulge their tastes for old-school metal acts like Venom, Celtic Frost and Motörhead, which went on to inform their sound for the remainder of the decade. Lyrical motifs

26 Jesu Silver EP

hydra hea d (2006)

Jesu’s self-titled record came off almost as a funeral dirge for Godflesh–

unmistakably the work of Justin Broadrick, yet also a palpable effort to inter a seminal legacy, along with all the assumptions that accompanied it, under a thick loam of frequently inscrutable ambient sounds and (perhaps) telling song titles (“Tired of Me,” “Friends Are Evil”). Jesu didn’t, in other words, exude the sort of continuity one might have expected from a band that had adopted as its moniker the title of the last song on Godflesh’s final record, Hymns. What the album did do, apparently, was exorcise the demons of the recent past. A mere two years later, Broadrick went about resurrecting and expanding upon some of Godflesh’s most attractive elements on the Silver EP without sacrificing the identity of Jesu as a singular, evolving entity: The driving industrial beat and vocal melodies of “Star” are matured descendents of Streetcleaner’s “Tiny Tears”; “Silver” recalls the off-kilter beauty of “Time, Death and Wastefulness” from Songs of Love and Hate even as it raises the pop stakes. Silver is a documentation of a true artist uniting the varied strands of his muse. Well, save for the rough thread that ran through Side A of Scum, but we’ll take what we can get, no? shawn macomber

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Celtic Frost Monotheist cen t u r y med i a ( 2006)

It’s safe to say that Celtic Frost are one of the most influential bands in metal history. ALL kinds of people love and adore and steal from their ’80s catalog. And it’s easy to say why. They were, without a doubt, one of the coolest band of cutthroats in all of MUSIC history. They ruled. From the early days of Hellhammer to the what-the-fuck-am-I-listening-to mind/body experience that is Into the Pandemonium. Let’s just say that

they went out on a low note. But let’s be kind. It wasn’t that low of a note. Then they came back. With this. Monotheist. Here’s a prediction: In a hundred years, a cult will form around this album. Not a music cult of geeky fans. A real cult. A blood cult. They will base their lives on the blackness at the core of this, the comeback album that bests nearly all other comeback albums. Quite frankly, Monotheist’s ultra-heavy thick dark vibe makes most comebacks look really flabby and dumb. THIS is how you return to the metal world. THIS is how you do it, folks! This is amazing, accomplished, heavy-asfuck 21st century metal made by people who were tossing off classic riffs before you were born! Well, some of you, anyway. All hail the Frost. scott seward

kick brings in the art-sludge on opener “Anisette,” but you have no idea. Tyler Semrick-Palmateer (formerly part of The End before they pulled an Antenna) oscillates between nut-flayer and nut-flayee as the music deems appropriate, the band introducing disquieting organ aches on “They Sent You,” sustained loony bin plinking on “Palaces” and demented overlaid harmonies on “Sun for Miles” (more than any, the one that yields all those Pyramids comparisons). A staggering amount of emotional honesty went into this one-and-done, Mare’s only available product save for a cover of “Nightgoat” on We Care: The Music of the Melvins, and it is always nothing less than an incredibly uncomfortable–and cathartic–listen. andrew bonazelli

were guided by the pen of Ian MacKaye.) Needless to say, a lot happened between Fugazi’s salad days and what very well may be the quartet’s swan song, namely a greater dynamic sensibility and hooks that don’t have to hammer you over the head. The record’s middle section–the galloping grooves of “Life and Limb,” the spare and spooky soundscapes of “The Kill”–is simply stunning, reveling in a Quiet Is the New Loud attitude. Not that this LP lacks tongue lashings and rabid riffs; if anything, MacKaye and fellow guitarist/vocalist Guy Picciotto are as pissy as ever. They still manage to sneak melodies in, though, right alongside the punchy secondary percussion of Fugazi’s longtime engineer/roadie Jerry Busher. In other words, this is the greatest postpunk cocktease of the past 10 years. andrew parks

that made some of the signature hardcore of the 21st century, Tragedy seem better suited to say, 1988. As important for what it did as what is was, Tragedy launched a thousand epic crust/stadium crust bands. All three of their albums are terrific, but start here. joe gross

21 Enslaved Isa

can d leli ght ( 2004 )

24 Mare

23 Fugazi

h yd r a he a d (2 0 0 4 )

disc hord (2001)

We know so little about this short-lived Toronto trio that we assumed they went on to join/form mysterious Hydra Head noise darlings Pyramids after splitting in February of 2007. Listening to both bands’ self-titled debuts, you can hear why–ghostly Jeff Buckley-style moans drawn and quartered across agonizingly jagged noisescapes. The difference is that Mare’s mindfuckery was rooted in an ugly, lurching, half-speed guitar/bass/ drum approach. You suspect what you’re in for the moment Caleb Collins’ stutter-

If Fugazi never play another note, at least we’ll always have The Argument, the closest they’ve come to a perfect album. Now now, we know what you’re thinking–we must be misinformed. Clearly, we haven’t heard 13 Songs or Repeater. Ah, but we have. Many times. And they’re all incredible. But here’s the thing: 13 Songs compiled Fugazi’s first two EPs, so it isn’t sequenced or written like a long-player, and Repeater arrived just a year later, sharing the quartet’s first full band sessions. (Previous songs

Mare EP

The Argument

“ Eeeee! Saaaa!” Coming out in the wake of their high-water masterpiece Below the Lights, Isa faithfully took the ’70s prog-rock vow of making an album that was to be taken as an entire whole–a true turn-on-the-lava-lamp, slide-intothe-bean-bag-with-the-headphones-on long-player. Below the Lights showed that the Pink Floyd bong pulls, frost-covered melancholic guitar torrents, weirdo time signatures and obtuse proggy grooves had coalesced into something novel and Tragedy uniquely Enslaved, but it was Isa that t r aged y ( 20 0 0 ) pushed this newfound crystallization into Make no mistake: Tragedy are a supanoramic view. Songwriting-wise, the pergroup. Todd Burdette, sort of crusty tunes gel nicely with Below–almost comhardcore’s version of David Lynch’s panion pieces–but with Isa, the main Angriest Dog in the World, joined with difference is more (as opposed to Monusoft-spoken guitarist Yannick Lorraine mension’s “too much”) gets stuffed within and drummer Paul Burdette, all of whom one track. Take the widescreen dyinghailed from ’90s hardcore geniuses His earth epic “Return to Yggdrasill,” which Hero Is Gone. Bassist Billy Davis was in shows how perfectly Kublai Khan-chasing Deathreat with Todd and Paul. But few Rush riffs fit with blackened heavy metal supergroups ever left the gate like this. stealth. Or the Odin-sized mood-shifting Tragedy was the scene-definer, a blend of mammoth “Neogenesis” (11 minutes, 59 Japanese “burning spirits” seconds!), which tours Hell guitars, D-beat’s speed and and Valhalla via blackened my top 5 a mood that owed as much King Crimson rapid fires. Grutle to the Pacific Northwest’s Isa was the album that most endless rain as crust punk’s perfectly united Enslaved’s endtime steez. Crucially, contrasting emotions of Enslaved the frenetic with the melthe mood was permanent midnight, but the songs ancholic–how can songs Rush, Vapor Trails were almost anthems, ragso apeshit and rockin’ be so Earth, The Bees ers designed for maximum heartstring-tuggingly sad? Made Honey in the fist-pump. As crucially, the Unfortunately, more recent Lion’s Skull band remained defiantly Enslaved albums seem to be Krux, I underground, putting out getting away from the reShining, Grindstone their own albums, refusing fined headbanging mournto put up a website, that fulness Isa had mastered. King Crimson, The sort of thing–for an outfit shawn bosler Power to Believe

22 Tragedy

Kjellson

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade manhandling of his instrument with a surprising groove, infectious phrasing and, in “Shield for Your Eyes, a Beast in the Well on Your Hand,” a thumping throb that had more adventurous heshers, hardcore kids and beardos doing embarrassing full-body lurches. kevin stewart-panko

20 Agalloch Ashes Against the Grain

19 MeltBanana

son to fear a forced, unnatural marriage of self-indulgence and avant garde blather. In Neurosis’ long-gnarled, capable hands, however, the union is coherent, nuanced and compelling. “Under the cloud cover, the flares signal change,” Scott Kelly sings on the smoldering “Falling Unknown,” and the sentiment certainly applies to A Sun That Never Sets, one of the most unique albums amidst an already revolutionary and varied oeuvre–no small feat, really, for a band seven records and more than 15 years into its journey. shawn macomber

Cell Scape

the e n d (2 0 0 6 )

a -za p (2003)

All you need to know about Ashes Against the Grain is that it’s so great it could almost be Swedish. Or Norwegian, even! Rarely has an American band so successfully transplanted the grandeur and love for the epic nature of European folk metal onto the flora and fauna of these shores. It helps that Agalloch are from Oregon. The trees are friggin’ huge there! And, to be fair, U.S. nature-worshipping metal types have made great strides as of late. Celestiial, Blood of the Black Owl, whole throne rooms filled with righteous wolves. But Agalloch did something truly special with Ashes. They took well-worn elements of folk and doom and black metal and COMPLETELY made them their own. This is one strong and confident album. And catchy as hell, considering the length of the songs. And overall, just so goddamn fucking beautiful. It’s an album as legacy statement. It is essential. It came out in 2006, but it’s already as classic as classic gets. scott seward

I’m old. This means that most of my friends are old as well. Many of them come across a lot older than they are because they regularly tuck their shirts in and enjoy music you’re more likely to hear in the background while drinking chilled beverages at a Key West patio bar, as opposed to the background music to Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman’s headwalking over eight rows of metalheads while laying down some carpal tunnel shred. Yep, my geezer acquaintances and their bottle-blonde wives all think this extreme music stuff is a bunch of noise. Ironically, when I (foolishly) attempt to bridge the not-so-generational generation gap, Melt-Banana’s Cell Scape is an album I use in the attempted peace treaty, even if up to that point in time, they were still one of the noisiest bunches out there. The Tokyo terrors still wielded an impressive chaos on their 2003 release, but they tempered the light-speed noise rock and guitarist Agata’s experimental

18 Neurosis A Sun That Never Sets r elapse ( 20 0 1)

“ Erode,” the short mood-setter that opens A Sun That Never Sets, is awash with enough distant keyboard strains, bleeps and processed guitar to sound a bit like Neurosis kicking it on the Stanley Kubrick tip–a sound capsule of a futuristic odyssey from the year we make contact–while the very next track, “The Tide,” begins with five full minutes of somber folk guitar and viola before getting around to the Through Silver in Blood pummeling we all presumed was coming three minutes earlier. A list of the sheer number of divergent styles incorporated by the end of the second track scribbled out on paper could lead a reasonable per-

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17 Converge Axe to Fall epi taph ( 20 0 9)

For the past decade, Converge have had a lockdown on an often-imitated-but-rarely-duplicated style of harsh, cacophonous hardcore punk with a jawdropping (albeit small) discography that included Jane Doe, You Fail Me and No Heroes. With a few months left until 2010, Jacob Bannon, Kurt Ballou, Nate Newton and Ben Koller once again proved themselves at the head of the class on the stunning Axe to Fall, which served as the proverbial cherry on top. “Dark Horse,” “Effigy,” “Losing Battle” and the title track arrested our breathing with shrapnel-spewing orchestrations and Bannon’s unhinged litanies detailing the struggle between light and darkness. But the best part of Axe to Fall was the evidence that Converge are getting even better at making us lose our shit. A handful of songs came off like abstract slasher movie scores: “Worms Will Feed/Rats Will Feast” held us ransom with clanging chords that writhed below the surface of bruised flesh; the moseying “Cruel Bloom” sounded like it was recorded in a dusty saloon minutes before Billy the Kid arrived and unloaded hot lead; and closer “Wretched World” was a dark, trippy paean that obscured whatever vision we had left. Converge are entering the Obama era with a familiar sentiment: yes we can. jeanne fury

my top 5

greg weeks The Red Chord

Tom Waits, Mule Variations This 1999 Grammy-winning record is no joke. Its songs span a wide range of instrumentation and emotion. I love this crazy man! Aimee Mann, Lost in Space In 2002, Aimee Mann released her greatest album to date. I can put this record on no matter what mood I’m in and still listen from start to finish. The best! Kelly Clarkson, All I Ever Wanted Released in 2009, this gem covers a lot of ground for a pop record. The songwriting is immaculate and Ms. Clarkson’s voice is unstoppable, making me want to date her all over town. Between the Buried and Me, Colors 2007: the year BTBAM went for it. Colors is the one record in the “heavy” genre—if you can call it that—that I always come back to. This record took these guys beyond being a “musicians’ band” and created something interesting for everyone to listen to. This record is better than yours and mine. Fieldy’s Dreams, Rock N’ Roll Gangsta This 2002 offering from Korn’s bassist Fieldy is a constant in my life. It raises many questions about music, the industry and whether or not the whole thing was an elaborate joke whose comic genius would rival that of Andy Kaufman. Seriously, who green-lit this bad boy?

up front; that part’s easy. Maybe you’ll be able to shout along with “I hate you all more than you will ever know!” from “Blue Line Cretin.” But all the short riff divergences and extra beats flipped and sudden shifts into roaring hardcore don’t quite compute. After five listens, Clients’ fuzziness comes into focus as you realize that each song has a vocal pattern or guitar lick that kills you every time. Ten more and you start hearing all of the Red Chord’s songwriting quirks as part of some grand meta-structure, expertly orchestrated and controlled. And then, after you’ve fully absorbed the volcanic spray of riffage and kick drum on “Fixation on Plastics,” you can start appreciatClients ing the brilliance of Guy Kozowyk’s lyrics. m eta l bl a de (2005 ) It takes a special kind of leading man to get away with the line “I’m not a democrat You’ve heard a lot of death metal. / I’m a conversationalist / If your aunt You’ve heard a lot of grindcore. You’re had balls / she’d be your used to ludicrously fast uncle” on such a violent speeds and breakdowns and my top 5 album. The absurdity is all pinch harmonics and belguy part of Clients’ charm. This lowing bro-dudes. Even so, album sets an impossibly the first few passes through high standard for personthe Red Chord’s sophomore The Red Chord ality in extreme music. album, Clients, are disorientetan rosenbloom ing. You’ll get the ferocity Nine Inch Nails, With Teeth

The Red Chord

Kozowyk Muse, Absolution Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Nigga Please (1999) Converge, No Heroes Ulver, Perdition City

15 Pelican

The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw hy d r a head ( 2005 )

Not a huge surprise that Decibel’s Best Album of 2005 is on this list, is it? It can’t be nearly as surprising as it was at the time, especially considering that The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw doesn’t have any vocals or, let’s face it, a whole lot of metal. Equal parts intense feedback and quiet desperation, Pelican’s post-indie prog-metal conveys a whole range of emotions (most of them downers), no words required. It does, however, require a lot of patience for an artist to chronicle the long-term movements of glaciers using two guitars, a bass and a drum set, but these guys sure don’t mind taking their time. If physical media didn’t have a limit, they would totally build for hours and hours if that’s what it took. Days, even! OK, that’s not entirely fair–what separates Pelican from their peers is that the multinational quartet really understands the art of songcraft. It’s undeniable that they love their slowbuild, peak-valley dynamics, but instead of simply taking the dog sled into the wilds of wankery, they take the listener on a ride. And as far as epic journeys across an Arctic soundscape go, The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw can’t really be beat–not even by Vangelis’ soundtrack to Antarctica. jeff treppel

my top 5 Laurent

Schroeder-Lebec Pelican

Supergrass, Road to Rouen Woven Hand, Woven Hand Talib Kweli + Madlib, Liberation Craft, Fuck the Universe Exploding Hearts, Guitar Romantic

photo by paul romano

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Napalm Death Enemy of the Music Business dr e a m c atc he r (2 0 0 0 )

Following their decade-long reign as the kings of grindcore, death metal and everything in between, the mid-’90s saw Napalm Death tossing out their successful blueprint and redefining their heaviness with an industrial-laden edge, varying tempos and general air of experimentation. So, what would the oughts bring for our favorite bunch of Brummies? Ironically enough, it was the band’s bitter breakup in 1999 with Earache Records, the very label synonymous with their death/grind classics, that inspired Napalm Death to dust off their old toolbox in order to give their former label boss the sonic middle finger in the best way they knew how. Enter 2000’s Enemy of the Music Business. Loosed from the chains that bound them, Napalm Death infused their old-school-inspired attack with infectiously memorable songs and heaps of thunderous grind (not to mention the return of their classic original logo). Enemy of the Music Business shows a mature and well-oiled Napalm Death on top of their game charging into the new millennium with a massive roar. Once kings, always kings. scott koerber

espite the primary color fixation implied by its, and its predecessor’s, title, Baroness’s sophomore full-length, the follow-up to Red Album, is distinguished by a multiplicity of influences: Southern rock, acoustic fantasias and the sort of experimentation that smacks of paisley amplifiers and all-night happenings. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, on Blue Record, the surprises come almost as fast as the chord changes, of which there are plenty. If, after a lick or two, singer-guitarist John Baizley and his bandmates seem Blue Record to have settled on rainbow-colored doom-pop (“Swollen and Halo”) or rel a pse (2009) swords-and-sorcerers balladry (“O’er Hell and Hide”), just wait; Baroness are never more than a few measures away from a change that might not make sense until you hear it a second time. Even “The Gnashing,” a relatively straightforward tune that evokes Andrew W.K.’s major label jock jams, begins with a pastoral melody reminiscent of the British folk rock group Fairport Convention. The stylistic shifts are not there for the sake of radicalism, but because, as detailed in a recent cover story, each member brings to the table a different set of musical interests. Want to hear what democracy, not to mention next-generation metal, sounds like? Blue Record is a great place to start. brent burton

Baroness

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photo by jon pushnik

Discordance Axis The Inalienable Dreamless hyd ra he a d (2 0 0 0 )

There were grindcore records before this masterpiece and there will be grindcore records after. But there will never be another quite like The Inalienable Dreamless, the final all-new studio album from Discordance Axis. It wasn’t just that Dreamless was a perfect grindcore record, which it was–Rob Marton’s speed-prog guitar and Dave Witte’s warp drive drums lock up with a precision that shames most death metal acts. And like the Germs, DA were a lyrics band whose lyrics you could never understand–Jon Chang’s voice screeched an obtuse alienation only he understood and you could only parse after reading the liner notes. But Dreamless was also a perfect object, a perfect artifact. From the DVD case to the pastoral photos of sky and sea to the minimal futurist type treatment, this was grindcore pulled from its horror movie roots and recontextualized for a more-and-faster culture of first-person shooters, existential drug trips and melancholy anime. Dreamless was the garden in the machine, the human body in the giant robot. All of 23 minutes long, it became more than the sum of its parts, transcending genre and context virtually overnight. It remains pure fury for the 31st century. joe gross

my top 5

Dave Witte

Discordance Axis Radiohead, Kid A The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf Mastodon, Crack the Skye Leviathan, Massive Conspiracy Against All Life

photo by ryan russell

eeing as Meanderthal was voted this publication’s top album of 2008 by Those Who Sit in Front of Computers and Stereos All Day, the internet warriors would have pilloried us had the Miami-based band’s second full-length not been included as part of the decade’s best. Expanding upon the hallmarks of the spine-melting “thunder pop” my top 5 goodness of their 2005 self-titled debut, Mesteve anderthal presented equal parts brutality and sugary sweetness ramped up to another level. Meanderthal Torche Rick Smith pounds the drums like a remarkhydra hea d (20 0 8) ably coordinated caveman, Steve Brooks’ voice Brian Wilson, Smile soars like an eagle, and whether the guitars are “A-bombing” and testing the elasticity of your sphincter, or cracking Big Business, Head for the off a saccharine sweet progression and wining-and-dining your ears, Shallow they sound absolutely friggin’ massive. Listening to the opening The Party of triumvirate of “Triumph of Venus,” “Grenades” and “Piraña” not Helicopters, only presents a harbinger of the complete awesomeness to follow, but Please Believe It also speaks to Torche’s ability to swing between tuneful sludge, beach Beach House, party melodies and up-tempo punk, while sounding like a parking lot Beach House donnybrook between Guided by Voices, Nirvana and the Melvins. Liars, kevin stewart-panko Drums Not Dead

11 Torche

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brooks

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

oo long, too much, too loud, too In the run up to Dopethrone, Oborn also severed distorted, too stoned.” That’s how a finger and blew out an eardrum, prompting a vocalist/guitarist Jus Oborn describes nine-hour operation and several weeks recovering Dopethrone, Electric Wizard’s seminal stoner epic. in the hospital. Predictably, the actual recording A decade after its release, it’s still the group’s dankprocess was an agitated, uneasy mess; the trio had est and most fully realized offering to the gods of spent so long putting the tracks together that they bud and blood. From the album art (depicting just wanted to exorcise the demons. “My strongest Satan getting blazed) to the distortion-drenched memory is threatening to kill the producer [Rolf 20-minute-plus title track (inexplicably edited down Starlin] with a wooden bat if he tried to fuck with on the 2004 reissue), Dopethrone is all about stonerthe guitars,” notes Oborn. ism transcending lifestyle choice and becoming a In hindsight, Dopethrone is the ultimate expresraison d’être—something Oborn neatly encapsion of stoner ingenuity: Electric Wizard reshaping sulated in the September 2007 issue of Decibel as all of the gray matter from 1998’s Supercoven and “the ritual of the bong.” pushing the envelope. It is—to borrow Oborn’s faDopethrone is also an indelible document of the vorite descriptor—excessive, but the overwhelmDopethrone group’s primary vehicles for escape in the rural, ing surge of “Weird Tales” (purportedly captured dead-end town of Dorset: watching ’70s era horror in one take and one manic fit of inspiration) finds r i se ab o ve ( 20 0 0 ) flicks (some of which are sampled on the record) balance against shorter songs like the instrumental and listening to Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus and Ca“The Hills Have Eyes.” These guys even made it thedral. Oh, and smoking a lot of weed. Oborn— seem effortless on a b-side (“Mind Transferral”) who had previously dabbled in marijuana farming—kept the supply that’s arguably as great as any of the tracks that made the cut. steady during three months of writing, while countless bong hits egged According to Oborn, Dopethrone had a much better reception in the on largely improvised gems like “Weird Tales” and the title track during States than Europe upon its release; 10 years after the fact, its status the handful of days the group spent in the studio. as a “classic” has been cemented. “Over the years, the album’s reputaThe Dopethrone sessions also followed a turbulent period where all tion has grown and grown. Now it’s an acid test for being a total stoner three Electric Wizard members (Oborn, bassist Tim Bagshaw and drumloser,” he laughs. “If you can’t handle it, go back and die in your office!” mer Mark Greening) struggled to keep jobs and had run-ins with the law. nick green

electric wizard

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my top 5 scott

hull

hantom Limb wasn’t intended to suming multitudinous stylistic penetrate polite society–at least not elements into its raging core Pig Destroyer in the manner it has. An extreme metal without marginalizing any. Yet tour de force earning Decibel’s coveted Album of the Scott Hull insists that after “very Pat Metheny Group, The Way Up Year is one thing. Landing a band christened Pig labored birthings” for both TerDestroyer on the cover of the Washington Post Magarifyer and Prowler in the Yard, The Flaming Lips, Phantom Limb eased out with zine is quite another. Set aside the groundbreaking Yoshimi Battles the grind-sludge-punk-thrash-powerviolence fusion hardly a contraction. Pink Robots “It just seemed like the stars of these self-described “pornographers of sound,” Cattlepress, along with master storyteller J.R. Hayes’ ability were in alignment,” the virtuoso Hordes to Abolish to alternately chill your soul to ice (the menacing guitarist recalls. “We were more the Divine “Rotten Yellow”; the elegantly ghastly “Deathtripconfident in what we were layCorrupted, per”) and tug at your heartstrings–albeit through ing down.” Seeking to distill the El Mundo Frio your chest, like the frontman of a Hadean version songs down to their most potent Harvey Milk, of Air Supply (the poignant, haunting “Girl in the essence and “amp up the catchiPhantom Limb Special Wishes/Iron Slayer Jacket”)–and it is still fairly obvious the ness and speed” à la Assück/Disr elapse ( 20 0 7) Lung, Sex/Sexless Washington Post wasn’t who Relapse had in mind cordance Axis, Pig Destroyer hit when the label promised Phantom Limb would furon a mix that resonated far bether “the enigmatic band’s nihilistic, shock-and-awe yond the grind underground–something the band attack,” boiling Pig Destroyer’s elements “down to finds simultaneously edifying and unexpected. its muscle, sinew and bone… to commit a vicious assault.” Jebus Crikey “Success to us is whether or not our music sticks to people’s ribs, and out in Gay Paree! Imagine standing at the pearly-gated threshold trywe’re just grateful our last three records seem to have done that,” Hull says. “The response has been fantastic, but we stay humble. We’re well ing to convince ol’ Saint Peter to overlook that little nihilistic, vicious shock-and-awe assault you launched in ought-seven. Well, it was enigmatic aware the axe could swing the other way come record four. If you go into boys, but still, I dunno... outer space over praise, it can be a long fall.” Pig Destroyer’s ability to somehow rub the mainstream’s nose in Hull admits the specter of following up Phantom Limb is “a little something as challenging and subversive as Phantom Limb is nothing daunting.” The plan, however, remains deceptively simple: “As long as we don’t betray ourselves and trust our instincts, I think we’ll be fine.” short of extraordinary. In Tropic of Cancer–another merrily debauched classic–Henry Miller praised 1930s Paris as a place where “everything Here’s hoping these trailblazers sink the cleaver even deeper into our is raised to apotheosis.” Phantom Limb carries a similar ambience, subcollective swine-dom next time. shawn macomber

pig destroyer

photo by jon pushnik

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here was no bigger metal story Listening to Brave New World for the first time in 1999 than the return of Bruce Dickinnine years ago, all it took was seconds to tell that the son and Adrian Smith to Iron Maiden. chemistry was back, thanks to the explosive opener The ’90s had been a trying time for old-school “The Wicker Man,” which put the two prodigal metal bands, but especially in Maiden’s case, as sons front and center. Dickinson leads the charge their stubborn search for a new identity in the wake with his typically rousing, larger-than-life voice, but of major upheaval yielded a spectacularly uneven Smith’s input cannot be underestimated, as “The body of work, ranging from inconsequential (the Wicker Man” brought back that sense of groove Blaze Bayley-fronted The X-Factor and Virtual XI), that the band had been sorely missing since his 1989 to disjointed (Fear of the Dark), to downright atrodeparture. “Adrian just sorta brought the whole cious (No Prayer for the Dying). And although the Maiden sound,” Dickinson says when asked about Brave New World Harris/Murray/McBrain core remained intact, Smith’s importance. “When he left, I think the with Dickinson and Smith back in the fold, we just band lost an awful lot musically.” co lu mb i a ( 20 0 0 ) knew that Maiden had its soul back at long last. Delve deeper into the album today, and it’ll still “All of us within Maiden are all a lot more comfeel incredibly rich, as if nary a day has passed since fortable with each other than we were 10 years ago,” Seventh Son, especially on the exuberant Harris Dickinson says. “We all accept each other a lot more for who we are… It gallopers “Brave New World” and “Ghost of the Navigator,” the bold, was remarkable in a way that we managed to keep it together for as long ornate “Blood Brothers” and the wickedly contagious melodies that as we did. I look back at some of those tours, and we never stopped for permeate “Out of the Silent Planet.” More than anything, Brave New five years. We were constantly touring; if we weren’t touring, we were World served as the catalyst for an astounding career rebirth, and today making a new record for about five years. We had deadlines fucking every these six geezers are more creatively driven and popular than they’ve ever five minutes, and if we started to crack under the stress, they went, ‘Hey been. “We see a great future for our music because it exists completely guys, you can have a day off if you like.’ So, I think we held it together independent of trends,” says Dickinson. “We just have to cater to our pretty well, considering.” audience.” adrien begrand

Iron Maiden

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hat began merely as the still there. Grohl shredded balls. So, that was a highly anticipated release of the special record. Everyone got struck by lightning third Queens of the Stone Age while holding hands.” Deaf went platinum by 2007, album in August 2002 resulted in a whirlwind conbut the band spent the summer of ’03 killing it on Lollapalooza–by now with ex-Danzig sticksman fluence of events that propelled ringleader Josh Homme and his ever-revolving support cast into Joey Castillo in tow–marking the last year the the imperial echelons of bona fide rock stardom. traveling festival event would actually travel. By Milk started spraying out of fans’ tits early, when the time the album’s cycle was complete, a third Queens announced that Dave Grohl, formerly of single had emerged (“First It Giveth,” which should the most popular band in the universe, would be have been a hit) and Oliveri, long considered to playing drums on Songs for the Deaf. Upping the be Queens’ only other permanent member, was proverbial grunge ante even further, ex-Screaming unexpectedly kicked to the curb for his increasingly of the Trees crooner Mark Lanegan, who had made a volatile behavior. show-stealing turn on “In the Fade” from 2000’s From an outsider’s perspective, the success of Rated R, joined the fold as third vocalist. With a Songs for the Deaf might seem like a blessing disradio-station-themed concept that highlighted the guised as a curse–many longtime Queens fans diversity of the songs on the album, from Hommeseemed to jump ship when Oliveri got the boot, Songs for the Deaf sung robo-soul hits like “No One Knows” and “Go and Homme has been inundated with entreaties i n t er sco pe ( 20 0 2) With the Flow,” and Lanegan-led slow-burners like about the potential return of Grohl ever since– “God Is in the Radio,” “Song for the Dead” (and but our man doesn’t see it that way. “It’s not a curse Desert Sessions revival “Hangin’ Tree”) to the inat all,” Homme says. “It’s called Songs for the Deaf because it was supposed to be another great record that no one listened fectious punk ravings (“Six Shooter,” “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire”) and oddly soothing lost-love laments to. When it came out, people would occasionally say to me, ‘Oh, you guys (“Gonna Leave You,” “Another Love Song”) of bassist/wild card Nick are more mainstream now.’ And I was like, ‘Are you fuckin’ retarded?’ We Oliveri, Deaf was certified gold within four months of its release. were never supposed to be on the inside. We were supposed to be pitch“That album was like a bolt of lightning,” Homme recalls. “It was ing rocks from the outside. So, to be able to sneak into the castle was the record where I was finally able to unite all the crazy people. Laneawesome. But I never expected it to last–nor do I expect to be asked gan was there and starting to disintegrate in a beautiful way. Nick was back in.” j. bennett

Queens stone age

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

h e n I r e v i e w e d Katato“Teargas” and “Tonight’s Music”–less inspired by nia’s Last Fair Deal Gone Down post-punk (the Cure/the Chameleons) and more in 2001, the closing line went by heavy avant-rock (Tool) and singer-songwriters something like this: “Last Fair Deal Gone Down will, (Nick Drake). “Actually, I think the songwriting was in fact, please longtime fans–it’s the strongest the best part,” Renkse posits. “Last Fair Deal Gone Katatonia album ever, eclipsing the mighty Brave Down is a puzzle where every piece found its place. Murder Day note for somber note.” Viva hyperThat made it the album that it is today.” bole? At the time, definitely not. Along with Opeth’s Actually, Renkse’s right. It is the songwriting Blackwater Park, released two months earlier, Last that sets the Robert Johnson-titled effort apart Fair Deal Gone Down was heavy rotation material– from other Katatonia albums. We’re not talking Last Fair Deal at home, in the car and at work. Needless to say, it individual riffs or themes here. It’s about the full was #2 on my 2001 Top 10 list. Nine years and nine song, beginning to end. Songwriters Anders NyGone Down Top 10 lists later, headmaster Albert informs me ström, Fredrik Norrman and Renkse were particupeacevi lle ( 20 0 1) after tallying up the points to Decibel’s decade-end larly hot on “I Transpire,” “Sweet Nurse,” “Passlist, Katatonia’s fifth album landed at #6. ing Bird” and (personal favorite) “Dispossession.” “It’s really unexpected,” says Katatonia vocalist “‘Dispossession’ is the perfect opener, I think,” the Jonas Renkse after spill I the beans. “For me, it’s an frontman remembers. “I really like the song ‘Clean achievement. To see it land on a lot of writers’ lists. I didn’t expect that Today.’ I really like the drum rhythms on which the whole song was built.” at all. I remember having Brave Murder Day in the Hall of Fame. That’s He pauses to laugh. “Actually, I like all the songs.” probably more of a groundbreaking record than Last Fair Deal Gone Down, If Renkse’s into all the songs, then we have to inquire when was the but we’re honored to be at #6. It’s flattering, actually.” last time he listened to the album in its entirety. “Oh, that has to be Katatonia have had many transitional albums. In fact, Dance of Decemyears. I’ve been listening to certain songs because we play them live, ber Souls, Brave Murder Day, Discouraged Ones and Tonight’s Decision are all but the whole album? It’s been six or seven years since I listened to it all the way through.” Well, Jonas, we’ve been listening non-stop, and different in shape, sound and direction. But it was on Last Fair Deal Gone Last Fair Deal Gone Down is as good now as it was in 2001. Just so you Down where the Swedes wrapped catharsis, vulnerability, frustration and know. chris dick anger into tension-filled songs–like “Dispossession,” “Passing Bird,”

katatonia

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rom the second a Jurassic Park goes for bashing out songs that live up to truly brsample roars into place, Mastodon 00tal titles like “Mother Puncher” and “March of make it abundantly clear that they’re the Fire Ants.” It’s a simple philosophy, really–if not fucking around on their first proper fullan idea works, run with the fucking thing. length. “It was fun back then,” says drummer Brann “We screamed our balls off back during RemisDailor, “Like being in a new relationship where sion,” remembers guitarist/vocalist Brett Hinds. you’re giddy and saying ‘Yay!’ all the time. The “There was no Pro Tool-ing at all on that album. blend of everyone’s styles worked right off the bat. It was just two-inch tape and old-school punch-ins, I didn’t even care where it went [creatively]. I was just excited to play something that was a little bit which kinda makes me feel like a cowboy.” Remission metal, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.” That’s the important thing to remember about r elapse ( 20 0 2) Mastodon’s breakthrough album–its Wild West “I like complexity, but I’ve been in too many feel, the sense that all bets are off and everyone’s bands where people said, ‘Let’s play the hardest charging the gates of Hades with guns blazing. And stuff we can,’” adds guitarist Bill Kelliher, alluding while it’s not their most ambitious or accessible to his years in Lethargy, a technical death metal album–Blood Mountain struck a perfect balance between artiness and band that also featured Dailor. “Why? No one likes that but the people playing it and maybe some of the musicians in the audience.” all-out aggression four years later–Remission is responsible for several turning points in modern extreme music. For one thing, Mastodon That may be true, but Remission remains a complex listen years later, fried their riffs like freshly-battered slabs of steak, making it cool to spurred on by the seamless shredding/groove-locked rhythms of four distinct players. Which may be why the band exhumed such templateembrace one’s inner Skynyrd well before the bastardized attempts of bands like Every Time I Die. setting tracks as “Trilobite” and “Where Strides the Behemoth” in Not that they were doing so intentionally. As they’d later prove on recent years–as a reminder of where they came from, a honeymoon Crack the Skye, Mastodon always wanted to find a middle ground between period that can’t be repeated. heavy metal and hard rock. They want to be a chart-topping band; they “Back then, all we did was drink beer and jam,” says Hinds, “So, want to be our Stones, our Beatles. If that means venturing off into the it only took us a couple of months to write the album. Now it’s more ether on an instrumental track like “Elephant Man,” so be it. The same difficult to even get together.” andrew parks

mastodon

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t’s rather ironic that Isis’ secand feeling very excited. One thing we’ve always ond full-length had the power of water striven for is creating a palpable atmosphere and, as its loose theme, because if Neurosis’ in that regard, we succeeded to a greater degree than Through Silver in Blood was the album that took I had originally thought possible. I felt very emotionally connected to the music and that we were the finger out of the dike in terms of spawning a post-metal/metalgaze overflow, then Oceanic tore reaching another tier of compositional strength open the fucking floodgates. But that wasn’t really and chemistry.” the fault of guitarist/vocalist Aaron Turner and Despite the accolades, however, Turner remains Co.; they were just trying to create an album they’d startlingly humble about both Oceanic’s quality and all be satisfied with. impact. His reaction when Decibel informs him the “The recording process for Oceanic felt better album cracked our decade’s top five? Oceanic than [predecessor] Celestial,” says Turner during a “My question is, ‘What awesome albums were i pecac ( 20 0 2) European tour stop. “I think getting one album and displaced from the top 5, or top 100 for that matter, a couple EPs down, as well as the subsequent tourin favor of this thing?!’ That aside, what is written about music is only the opinion of the writer, but ing, allowed us the time to figure out more precisely what we wanted to say. Going into this session, I felt the fact that many people can collectively agree we’d created a more cohesive piece of work, and the time in the studio felt as on Oceanic’s dubious importance is both exciting and daunting. Why this though it had a perceptible flow. I seem to recall a greater degree of in-studio particular record as opposed to any of our others? I’m not entirely sure. It experimentation, as we had more time than ever before.” may have been the nature of the record itself, but also the environment into And even though Isis have since offered three highly respected works, which it was released. At the time, it seemed the fervor around technicallyOceanic will always be that fantastic album teeming with emotional breadth, oriented metal/hardcore had reached an apex; perhaps listeners were seeking conceptual intelligence and musical dynamics that knitted their sludgy, something a little more emotionally direct, with less emphasis on being tectonic and violent past with a sense of ’70s prog/spacey Pink Floyd calm, ‘crazy.’ But I’m glad that music I was involved in making has had serious a point Turner hinges on the band’s increasing cohesion. relevance for a certain swath of the populace. More importantly, however, “We certainly felt more like a more concretely defined entity. I rememI’m glad we made an album that we’re all pleased with and can still stand ber listening to rough mixes, specifically ‘The Beginning and the End,’ behind, now and into the future.” kevin stewart-panko

isis

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peth are arguably the most free and just fantastic. Magic. But then it just went impressive metal band of the decade, downhill,” says Åkerfeldt. The band embarked on their first world tour to support the album and exaside from frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt’s singular ability to make hearts flutter at the perienced, for lack of a better phrase, the pressures mention of his name. Åkerfeldt has been steadily of fame. “I can’t really remember when I felt someoutgrowing the title of songwriter and assuming thing was wrong. I remember, like, we just drifted apart.” The days of simplicity were over. the role of composer, and 2001’s Blackwater Park marked Opeth’s dedicated foray into vaster textures Åkerfeldt himself was about to enter a new phase and deeper emotions. This is partly due to the band of his life as well, thanks to producer Wilson. “He Blackwater Park hiring Porcupine Tree guitarist Steven Wilson to was mentioning bands like the Carpenters or Abba, ko ch ( 20 0 1) produce their fifth album, but the sound owes just but I was like, ‘What the fuck do you listen to those as much to Åkerfeldt maturing. Call Blackwater guys for? That’s not cool!’ ” Åkerfeldt laughs. But Park Opeth’s puberty piece. he kept his reservations to himself. “I wanted him Åkerfeldt laughs at the suggestion, but doesn’t to look at me as an open-minded person, because argue. The time right before and during Blackwater Park marked a sigI was, but I just needed to get rid of a few more boundaries that I had. Basically, I wanted to impress him and come across as a cool guy and a nificant turning point for him as an artist. “I was living on way below musician who knew what the fuck I was talking about. I changed a little minimum wage. But it was happy times. I had inspiration. I wrote lots of music during that time,” he says. “It was also quite problem-free in the bit right then and there in terms of my musicality. I forced myself to do sense that the band wasn’t really going anywhere. There were different things differently than I did before. types of problems–financial–but now it’s much more difficult in a “But it’s only afterwards that I realized what a profound effect that had completely different way. In the mid-’90s it was just simple and fun.” on me,” he says of his amenability. “Just kinda writing completely from Blackwater Park marked the last time for a long time that Opeth– the heart, which I had thought I had done, even before I met Steve. I had Åkerfeldt, guitarist Peter Lindgren, drummer Martin Lopez and bassist limits, but now I don’t.” Go ahead and swoon. jeanne fury Martin Mendez–had a healthy dynamic as a band. “It was very hassle-

opeth

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my top 5 steve

Brodsky

Cave In

Scissorfight, Mantrapping for Sport and Profit

here are about four different ing more, thanks to having some groups of Cave In fans,” Adam McGrath encouragement from the other speculates. “There are the people who guys. We had no idea if this was The Mars Volta, only want the heavy Until Your Heart Stops songs and simply fate or if it meant creative De-Loused in the nothing else. [Then] you have the folks who only suicide. But the results couldn’t Comatorium want to hear material from Jupiter up to Antenna be worse than watching almost Isis, Oceanic and nothing else. [Third], the cultish fans who love everything we had worked for everything we do and know more about the band’s engulfed in flames.” Dungen, Ta Det Lungt discography/history than the members do. And From the inspiring pluck of finally, the people who want to vomit at the sight “Innuendo and Out the Other” Jupiter Portishead, Third and sound of us.” and “In the Stream of Comhy d r a head ( 20 0 0 ) merce” (Scofield cheekily atYours truly resides on the outskirts of group three, while most members of the dB staff poputributes the newfound lyrical optimism to “Steve late groups one and four. So, why the hell are we [becoming] more and more of a pussy over the propping the deeply polarizing space-rock odyssey Jupiter up as the years”) to late-erupting closing ballad “New Moon” and the fist-pumping number two “extreme” album of this decade? Three words: big fucking crunch of “Big Riff,” the title track and episodic nine-minute centerpiece riffs. McGrath and co-guitarist/suddenly-clean-vocalist Steve Brod“Requiem,” Jupiter giddily scribbled over many of extreme music’s more sky emptied their bags of tricks, stunting the shred and delaying the rigid creative boundaries–pissing off and delighting a generation of decay–even firing toy ray guns through their pickups live in a nod to metalheads in the process. Sonic Youth–while bassist Caleb Scofield and drummer J.R. Conners “It’s not like Cave In got married to rock and only got to see hardcore maintained the rhythmic intensity and unpredictability of thrash-tastic every other weekend,” Scofield shrugs. “It was more about taking these Hall of Fame predecessor Until Your Heart Stops. According to Brodsky, other influences and applying them in a way that we thought was suitthe stunning about-face was the Massholes “bonding over catastrophe,” able and fun for us.” namely a ’99 van fire that literally and figuratively destroyed UYHS “It’s pretty funny that Jupiter, a record that was hated for not being Cave In. a metal record, is now included in a metal magazine’s extreme record list,” Conners says. “I guess Jupiter is still doing a good job at giving “That fall, we managed to regain [our] spirit by replacing gear and the ol’ fuck you to the people who hated it.” andrew bonazelli trying new sounds,” Brodsky notes. “And I was happy to attempt sing-

Cave In

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photo by jason hellmann

T 1

converge Jane Doe

eq ua l v i s i o n ( 2 0 0 1 )

he Decibel 100 offers no lack of loss. Often informing both music and lyrics– and sometimes biographical minutiae–humanity’s capacity for suffering and/or inflicting suffering factors into every album on the list. And like most things, pain is best served fresh. Nothing touches Jacob Bannon’s agony on our Album of the Decade. Even minus back story, listening to Jane Doe is like crawling through a wound…and loving every minute of it. Converge’s singer did his damndest to channel all the trauma from a slowly dying relationship into the Bostonian metallic-hardcore innovators’ second album, and ended up giving the recorded audio medium all it could take. But it’s not like the rest of the band just passively helped Bannon flesh out whatever hell he was inhabiting at the moment: Bannon, guitarist Kurt Ballou, bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller all played crucial roles in the songwriting process, and all poured every bit of musicianship and ferocity at their disposal into the 2001 release’s dozen songs. Ballou’s production turned what might have been a merely great album into a fucking monument, and helped initiate a streak of triumphs that runs straight through this year’s Axe to Fall. “Jane Doe was very much a collective effort,” Bannon, en route to New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, recalls via mobile from New Jersey. “We’d never done anything on that scale before. Matthew Ellard, who also helped out on You Fail Me, engineered and directed all these assistant engineers. He understood that we were spending a lot of money and needed to do everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. I had definite ideas about how Jane Doe should be sequenced and mastered, and was pretty adamant about them.” Though naming it their album of the year showed tons of perception on Terrorizer’s part, nothing about the record is particularly ’01. From the shrouded moans and corrosive, cascading chords on “Hell to Pay” to “Thaw”’s epically labyrinthine trajectory, Jane Doe offers way too my top 5 much for mundane chronology jacob to figure–a consideration that almost surely figured in DeathConverge wish’s decision to drop a deluxe, limited-edition vinyl reissue. Entombed, Uprising “It’s slowly coming together,” says Deathwish co-proprietor American Bannon. “It’ll be interesting to Nightmare, Background Music see what happens. Critics’ and fans’ opinions of what we do are Neurosis, A Sun out of our control. We create the That Never Sets music we want to create, and put Mastodon, everything we have into it, every Leviathan time. What happens after that is Leviathan, out of our hands. Which doesn’t Massive Conspiracy mean we’re not appreciative when Against All Life somebody singles us out, whether it’s a fan choosing to support us or Decibel’s writers voting Jane Doe Album of the Decade. With something like that, how could we help but feel honored?” rod smith

Bannon

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hall fame s ue nm o b l a i c spe of fa installment R38 ll ha in a ser es explor ng i

landma rk albums in the badass pantheon

of extreme metal

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story by J. Bennett

photos by Jason Hellmann

Who’s That Girl?

The Making of Converge’s Jane Doe

all it the face that launched a thousand metalcore graphic designers (into a rat-race of feverish mimicry). Call it the record that catapulted a certain Boston quartet (then quintet) into permanent cult status with a slew of face-ripping live staples (“Concubine,” “The Broken Vow” and “Bitter and Then Some”) and a soaring, epic title track. Call it Album of the Year, like our esteemed British colleagues at Terrorizer magazine did. Any way you break it down, Jane Doe was both a semimelodic milestone (“Hell to Pay,” “Thaw,” the title track) and a discordant landmark (everything else), far and away the most crucial metallic hardcore record since fellow Massholes Cave In (who had since stepped bravely onto the major label playing field) unleashed Until Your Heart Stops three years earlier. Shit, it even had a song that was just drums and vocals (the 42-second apocalypse of “Phoenix in Flames”). It was feral, it was ferocious, it was fucking unstoppable. And it’s still all those things today. It was also 2001, and change was everywhere. Bassist Nate Newton, formerly of Jesuit, had joined the band three years earlier and recorded on two split releases— 1999’s The Poacher Diaries (with Agoraphobic Nosebleed) and 2000’s Deeper the Wound (with Japan’s Hellchild), the inaugural release from Converge vocalist Jake Bannon’s label, Deathwish, Inc.—but had yet to track a full-length with them. The band had also recently recruited local drum dervish Ben Koller, formerly of grind outfit Force Fed Glass, to replace skinsman Jon DiGiorgio. By the time the Jane Doe recording sessions—a three-month dBHoF35 marathon spread across as many studios and helmed Converge, by Converge guitarist/producer Kurt Ballou—were Jane Doe complete, the band had kicked longtime second Freeform mathcore maelstrom guitarist Aaron Dalbec (also of Bane) to the curb. released label On September 1, Ballou was laid off from his job as a 2001 Equal Vision medical engineer at Boston Scientific (“it was like the adult version of playing with Legos”), thus freeing Converge to expand considerably upon their annual one-month touring schedule. On September 4, Jane Doe was released to considerable critical and popular acclaim. On September 11, the day the band was to embark upon a two-week tour with Playing Enemy, the Twin Towers fell and the world changed forever. Converge—now a sleek and furious four-piece—drove into New York City under a blanket of ash, on the road to a silver future. [4] 47 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

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Art-core: The Golden Years Headlining various all-star bills, post 9/11

PA R T I

PHOENIX IN FLIGHT What do you remember about the songwriting process for Jane Doe?

Kurt Ballou: It was the first batch of song we wrote after Ben joined the band, so we definitely had a new perspective and a new energy and a new means of working. And Nate was also finally living in Boston—prior to that he was commuting up from Virginia. And we were all on the same page musically. We all had a lot of respect for each other as musicians and friends, so that was the first record we wrote that was really a collaborative process. I’d always been a control freak prior to that—in a way it was because of who I am, but in another way, it was also because I’d had to because I didn’t have people in the band who could contribute well until Jane Doe. Aaron was doing a lot of Bane stuff—they were really busy that year. They were doing a record and a ton of touring, so he wasn’t really around for much of the songwriting. It was pretty much just the four of us hacking through the songs together. Aaron Dalbec: I was on the road a lot with Bane at the time, so I would come back to work on new songs with everyone, and when I would leave for Bane tour, I would be writing while I was on the road. Nate Newton: I remember a lot of butting heads, between me and Kurt especially. That was the first record where I was really part of

dBhof converge —

the songwriting process. I played on The Poacher Diaries and the split with Hellchild, and I had written a little bit on The Poacher Diaries, but that was a weird time, because Jon [DiGiorgio] was only in the band for a really short time on drums and we never really got acclimated to playing with him. I felt like a lot of those songs were just kinda hammered together really quickly. So Jane Doe was the first time I wrote full songs for Converge. And it was the first time Kurt had someone telling him, “Hey—I don’t like what you’re playing.” I don’t think there was much of a filter before, mostly because Converge wasn’t as busy of a band. One of my focuses was that I wanted to write songs—I didn’t want just a shitload of riffs piled on top of each other. I was really critical of what Kurt was writing, and ultimately I think that was a good thing for us—it taught all of us to be more critical of ourselves. Ballou: The other big that happened with that record is that for “Minnesota,” the last song on The Poacher Diaries, I had invented a new tuning that I had used for all the lead guitar parts. I ended up being really inspired by that tuning and used a lot of it to write a lot of the Jane Doe stuff. It gave me a totally new perspective and new harmonic structures. All the happy accidents you have on guitar when you’re tuned one way—even though they might be physically similar—they sound completely different when you start tuning a different way. Ben Koller: I remember being very impressed by Kurt’s demoing skills. He demoed all the music

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himself for the song “Jane Doe.” It’s just such an epic, memorable song and we didn’t deviate too much from that demo when we recorded it. I remember being very impressed by that demo. “Phoenix in Flames” was fun, too. I was halfjoking one day at the studio, like, “We should just do a song that’s drums and vocals only.” I can’t believe we actually put that on the record. I love that song. Jake Bannon: I can only speak for my own experiences with the album. Life wasn’t going all that well for me and I saw writing and rehearsals as an escape of sorts. I looked forward to that few hours a week more than anything at that time in my life. It was also an odd time for the band. Getting to practice wasn’t easy. It was a half-hour to an hour commute each way for all of us. Because of that physical distance, it didn’t feel like there was all that much communication between members. When we did get together to write, it felt like three of us—Ben, Kurt and myself—bonded a bit more than we did with Aaron. That growth between us as friends/family foreshadowed a great deal for all of us. As a band and as people, we were evolving. How did you meet Ben?

Ballou: I recorded two of his previous bands. The first one was called Bastion—not too many people knew about them—and the second one was Force Fed Glass, and they were somewhat known. He and I started playing together in a thing called Blue/Green Heart that was kind of a short-lived side project. When Jon DiGiorgio, the previous Converge drummer, quit, it happened really sud-



Newton’s Law The bassist stays in the picture

denly. I think I actually found out about it at Blue/Green Heart practice. I was talking to Ben about it and we just started jamming some Converge songs. At the time, we weren’t really sure if he could do it because he couldn’t play double-bass, and at that time Converge had a lot of double-bass stuff. So originally he played as a fill-in and we tried out some other drummers, but it became pretty clear pretty quickly that Ben was the guy. Newton: Ben joining the band made Converge who we are now. I have no doubt in my mind that we would’ve broken up if he hadn’t joined the band. His drumming is such a big part of the direction that we went with this band, because songwriting-wise, we were never able to do what we wanted to do. He’s got his own style, and it’s punk as fuck. We were so excited about him joining, and you can hear it in the record. There’s such a huge difference between that record and the ones that came before it. Sometimes when we’re onstage, I’ll turn around to watch him play and just think, “Fuck—you are so much better at your instrument than I am at mine.” Jane Doe was your first recording with Ben on drums and your first full-length with Nate on bass. Did you feel invigorated by the relatively new lineup? Were you nervous about the potential results?

Bannon: Both of them brought a new energy to everything, and I am still grateful to them for that. For Converge, it was the first time that there was a “whole” band—or at least four of us—participating in the writing process. In the past, it was Kurt as the chief songwriter, and I handled everything else for the band. Though Kurt still was at the helm musically, with Jane Doe, Nate and Ben played significant roles in shaping the music to the album. I also contributed rough versions of the riffs in “Homewrecker” and “Phoenix in Flight” to the album. Though I am a terrible guitarist, Kurt managed to make sense of my mess and turn both of them into great songs. I know that all of us playing equal roles was an reinvigorating experience for me. I felt excited and I had a second wind of sorts creatively because of that. Dalbec: I was not nervous about the lineup at all. We had been playing for awhile, and Ben was the first drummer since Damon [Bellorado] that really fit with us. As far as Nate, I loved playing with him. He is a great dude, and a great guitar/ bass player. It added so much new energy to the band. What were the recording sessions like?

Ballou: We did them at Q Division in Boston with Matt Ellard engineering. I guess I was pro-

James Taylor was across the hall from us and he kept sending his engineer over to tell us to be quiet. “Mr. Taylor is trying to record vocal tracks and you guys are goofing off and being way too loud over here.” —N at e N e w t o n — ducing—you don’t really have producers when you’re doing hardcore records. But I was the one who was there all the time presiding over stuff. Q Division has two studios and we booked our time in Studio A at a certain rate that was below their advertised rate. And then James Taylor came along and decided that he wanted Studio A during our time period. He was willing to pay the full rate, so they bumped us over to Studio B—which ended up being a blessing in disguise because even though Studio B is a little smaller, the room is a little brighter and the console is a lot more crisp-sounding. It’s a Trident ATB, which I actually have in my studio now—and part of the reason I have it is because of the drums we tracked on Jane Doe. But we went back over to Studio A after James Taylor left, and then we did the guitars, bass and some vocals at my studio in Norwood. We mixed it and did the rest of the vocals at Fort Apache in Cambridge. Koller: I remember it being very laid back. It was a comfortable environment and there wasn’t a lot of pressure. I also remember James Taylor recording in one of the other studios and him being escorted in and out by his entourage. Why did he need to be escorted? Who cares about James Taylor anyway?

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Newton: James Taylor was across the hall from us and he kept sending his engineer over to tell us to be quiet. “Mr. Taylor is trying to record vocal tracks and you guys are goofing off and being way too loud over here.” [Laughs] He had already knocked us into the smaller room, too— but that’s fine. I don’t really care. Bannon: For me, it was the first time that we were in a more formal studio setting. Aside from the occasional weekend recording sessions at outside studios, we usually recorded on our own in some way. Even though the When Forever Comes Crashing album had Steve Austin at the helm, it was in a no-frills studio in a basement in Allston. At Q Division we had a engineers and assistants helping during the initial tracking. We had an English engineer who worked with Motörhead and George Michael giving us assistance and guidance. It all felt “important” and “special” to me. We were all working together and I really appreciated that. Dalbec: I just remember it being the most wellorganized recording we had ever done. We made sure all the songs were 100 percent before we recorded them. We had recorded the drums at Q Division, and we did most of the guitars and vocals at Kurt’s old studio in Norwood. That [4]

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way we had more time to work on everything. Newton: You know, I’ve never been a great bass player, and I’m well aware of that. But this was the first time that I was in a studio for a long period of time and someone was extremely critical of what I was doing. And I had a hell of a time recording some of those songs—like “Thaw.” That song is fuckin’ hard to play, and I would get really frustrated. But Kurt really pushed me, and I’m thankful for that, because I’ve learned a lot from playing with Kurt. He’s a great guitarist. And I’m not taking credit for anything because I’m just some douchebag who plays bass, but I will say that Kurt is so much better now then he was then. I’ve never really said this to him, and maybe it’ll make it to print and he’ll tear up a little bit, but I’m honored to play with him. I’m constantly blown away by the things he does. But I don’t say that when we’re writing songs, because I gotta show him who’s in charge. [Laughs] Which usually turns out to not be me. Ballou: I did most of the guitars at my studio, which was in Norwood, MA, back then. It was really tough because I was recording myself and there was no one else in the studio, and everything for that record was done on two-inch [tape]. I sat with my shoes off and my feet up near the tape machine so every time I screwed up and had to punch in, I could work the tape machine with my toes while I played. And that machine would punch in, but it wouldn’t punch out—or when it did punch out, it made a click. So you had to wait for some silence to punch out or you had to play all the way to the end of the song. It was really, really laborious. I think Matt Ellard actually came down for a day or two to help me out with some of the more challenging punch-ins so I could be free to just play. Between starting recording and mastering, the whole process probably spanned three months. But it’s not like we were working the whole time. Jake lost his voice at one point and we had to wait a month to get another mix session. I remember I couldn’t stay for all the mix sessions because I was doing some Cave In recording—I think they were demos for RCA or something. After that we went to West West Side to master it with Alan Douches, and I think we actually banged that out in a day. Alan pushed it really hard. To this day when I see him, he still talks about how loud that record is and how people always come into his studio commenting on it or asking him to use it as a reference when mastering their record. So that’s cool to hear. Bannon: Recording vocals was a surreal experience. Most of my tracking was done in the live room at Fort Apache. The studio used to host live recording sessions with audiences in the room, [so] it’s set up much like a venue. I was recording on an actual stage with no band behind me—I felt really exposed and isolated by that. I also

recorded most of the vocals in the dark. Not sure why, really—I think I was just feeling shy, in a way. By doing that, I was able to just lose control and get all my negative emotion out of me on that stage, and on tape. I listen back now and I sound like a rabid animal in a lot of places. It’s definitely vicious. You can hear that real anger and emotion in there for sure. PA R T I I :

FAULT AND FRACTURE What was Aaron Dalbec’s involvement in Jane Doe and what were the circumstances surrounding his departure?

Newton: Ah, the big question… Well, Aaron was around for some of the writing process, but at that time, Bane was really taking off. They were way busier than Converge at that point. It got to the point where he was gone so much and we would have to turn down tours and show offers because he wasn’t around. Basically, if we wanted to continue as a band and do the things we wanted to do… Aaron just didn’t have time to be in Converge. To this day, I’m still not happy about the way everything went down, because I love Aaron and I think he’s a great dude. Bannon: Aaron’s role in Jane Doe was quite minimal, as it was in all records. In retrospect, he was primarily a live guitarist more than anything. Though he would track on albums, his style of playing wasn’t that precise and didn’t come off well in a recorded setting. My memory isn’t the best, but the only song I remember him ever bringing to the table for Converge was “High Cost of Playing God,” which was released on the When Forever... album. He concentrated his writing for his band, Bane, which was much more fitting for him. Koller: He wrote a couple riffs here and there, but he was pretty disconnected from the rest of us. We would have rehearsal without him from time to time—then he would come back from a Bane tour and he would have to relearn certain riffs. It really dragged us down. He just couldn’t devote his full attention to the band, and we wanted to push it to the next level. Ballou: I’ll let him answer that however he wants to answer it. I mean, he had talked about leaving Converge before, and it was always Banerelated. Bane was his band and suits his taste in music. When he joined Converge, we were a different band and a much less active band. We didn’t really have the talents or tools to express ourselves how we wanted to. As we all progressed as musicians and songwriters, we progressed in different directions. I think Aaron was a little too stubborn to leave the band even though he knew it was right, so we kinda told him, “We’re gonna do this now, and we just don’t think you’re able to do this on the level that the rest of us

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wanna do it, and we don’t think you’re into this on the level the rest of us are into it, so it’s probably time for you to just focus on the band that you’re into.” Dalbec: Well, pretty much the way it happened was I had just come back from recording Bane’s Give Blood record, and we got together to “talk” about our upcoming two-week tour when the record came out. At this point, it was about two or three weeks away. I got there and [was told] pretty much that I had to choose between Bane and Converge. Now, just for the record, Bane had never gotten in the way of Converge. It was always Converge first, then Bane. If Converge had a tour, Bane would not book anything—we would even wait for Converge to make plans before we would decide what to do. As far as when I left the band, it was about two weeks before Jane Doe got released. So all the recording for Jane Doe had been long done. Bannon: Matt Ellard, our engineer at the time, had Kurt play most—if not all—of the guitar tracks on the entire Jane Doe album. With that said, it was evident to the band and others around us, that [Aaron’s] role was becoming a larger issue that couldn’t be ignored. After playing an unannounced show with Isis in Cambridge, we called a meeting without Aaron and decided that it was best for him to step down from the band. The next day, the five of us, along with [Deathwish co-owner] Tre [McCarthy] and [former Converge roadie and current booking agent] Matt Pike, sat down and broke the news to him. After that, we did our first tour as a fourpiece and loved it. We never had any drive to become a five-piece again. Newton: Oh, man… the way we did this was so shitty. It was the night before we were leaving for tour and we had a band meeting. Everybody kinda sat down and explained stuff, and I think Kurt was the one who said, “Bane’s going this way, Converge is going that way. Bane is busy— it’s obvious that Bane is your band. A choice has gotta be made here, and we’re gonna make the choice for you. You’re in Bane.” We all knew that it had to be done—and I’m sure Aaron in his heart knew it, too—but it was really fuckin’ harsh. The whole situation fuckin’ sucked and I’m not happy about the way it went down, but it had to happen sooner or later. We could’ve waited, and maybe he would’ve made the same decision himself. Or maybe we could have posed the question to him.

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A serious man Ballou belts out the riffs

But it had to happen eventually. I’d say it worked out better for everyone in the long run. Dalbec: I was not happy at all about leaving Converge. I had dedicated over eight years of my life to the band and gave as much as I could for that eight years, and helped build the band up to where it was at that point. I had worked through the thick and thin, through the times in the beginning when nobody gave a shit about us, but we still worked our asses off. So I was not too happy about it. Now looking back at it, though, for things to end the way they did, I am happier to not be a part of that. I mean, I was ready to leave for tour and kill it with Jane Doe coming out, and at the last minute before the record comes out, they tell me I have to choose between Bane or Converge—and to quote Kurt, “You need to choose between Bane and Converge, and I think you should pick Bane.” For someone to say that, there would be no way I would want to continue with them. Some people think I was stupid to say Bane, but when you are in that position, there is no other choice. I felt totally betrayed and let down. Ballou: Dalbec only played one show on Jane Doe, but it was about a week before the album came out. We played a record release show upstairs at the Worcester Palladium—I think we had about 20 copies of the record. I remember because the record came out on September 4 of 2001 and we were supposed to start a tour with Playing Enemy on September 11, but we had a few shows cancelled because of the attacks. We drove through New York when it was still covered in dust. We were comfortable playing all the Jane Doe songs as a four-piece because we had pretty much practiced them all as a four-piece. But I remember we weren’t sure if we were going to continue as a four-piece or get another guitar player. After that tour, the benefits of the simplified lineup outweighed the benefits of a second guitar player. There’s more space onstage, more space in the van, more money to go around, and even though the stage sound might be a little less thick, a fourpiece just seems more balanced. Live music can sound like shit, so you can hear the guitar more clearly if there’s just one. Some of the older songs ended up suffering, but when you’re the only guitar player, you can be a lot more expressive in your guitar playing without worrying about conflicting with someone else.

I sat with my shoes off and my feet up near the tape machine so every time I screwed up and had to punch in, I could work the tape machine with my toes while I played. —K u r t B a l l o u — PA R T I I I :

THAW “Hell to Pay” stands out as very different from the rest of the record and very different for Converge at that time in general.

Newton: I guess it kinda was. I remember when I was learning that song—Kurt had written in it—it’s basically his Hoover “Warship” right there. I wasn’t that into it at the time, but in retrospect, it is pretty good. I did four bass tracks for that song. I had two amps and two basses and I played each amp with each bass. Ballou: It was out of character for Converge, but not for our taste in music. You can hear in a lot of Converge records—going back to at least Petitioning the Empty Sky era, maybe even earlier—you can hear the Hoover influence, the Fugazi influence. You can hear me taking their ideas and trying to make them sound more metal. “Hell to Pay,” for example, is a combina-

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tion of that and… I think I got into Jesus Lizard a few years before we did that record. So it was our way of doing that, but not trying so hard to make it metal. It gets a little doomy at the end. I think that song is one of the best vocal collaborations we’ve ever done, actually—definitely the best vocals I’ve ever done on a Converge song. Especially at the end, when it’s me, Nate and Jake switching off—it’s pretty cool. It’s hard to imagine “Jane Doe” being anything other than the last song on that record. Did you know that it’d be the closer right away?

Newton: Yeah. It was like, “This is the one.” We were all really excited about it. Dalbec: Yeah, when you listen to the record in all one piece it is very hard to imagine that song anywhere else on the record. When we were writing it, I knew it was going to be slow and brutal, but I was not too sure where on the record it would go. At the time, I had no idea [4]

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what the lyrics would be like. Ballou: I think we knew before we recorded it that it would be the closer. I can never remember how songs come to me. To me, songs are just gifts. I mean, I know they’re not given to me, but after I’m done writing them I usually have a hard time remembering how it came to me. I’m actually better at remembering what happened with stuff that other people write. With that song, I think I demoed it with a drum machine and showed it to the guys. It was much shorter at the time, and it didn’t have the ending. I remember thinking it might not even be a Converge song but they heard it and were like, “Oh, that’s awesome—we should use that.” So we did. Do you have a favorite song on the album?

Ballou: I don’t know… “Hell to Pay” might be my favorite, actually. Or “Distance and Meaning”— two songs we never play. [Laughs] Stuff that sounds good live is not always what sounds good on record and stuff that’s fun to play live isn’t as much fun to listen to on a CD, unfortunately. I’ve kind of learned that throughout my entire musical experience, going back to playing jazz and classical on saxophone and clarinet when I was a kid. Bannon: “Phoenix in Flight” gives me goose bumps. “Jane Doe” as well. Dalbec: I really like “Fault and Fracture” and “Jane Doe.” [Those songs] just showed where the band was going, and it was totally new for us. I also really like “Homewrecker.” Koller: Listening back to the record, I really like the song “Distance and Meaning.” It sounds very different than anything Converge had done previously. Some of the riffs were Huguenots riffs [a defunct Kurt Ballou side project] and I was a big fan of the Huguenots/SevenPercentSolution 10-inch… well, I liked the Huguenots side, at least. Newton: I love “Jane Doe.” As far as the faster, more hardcore songs, I like “The Broken Vow”— and not just because I wrote it. [Laughs] It’s just a live staple, and it’s fun to play. I still really like “Thaw,” too. Tre McCarthy, Kevin Baker from the Hope Conspiracy and “Secret C” have backing vocal credits. I’m assuming the last one is Caleb Scofield from Cave In.

Ballou: Yeah. He was under contract with RCA at the time. He didn’t think there would be any problem, but we thought it would be better not to take any chances. Isn’t his publishing company called Secret C? I think it might be. All those guys were on “The Broken Vow”—I think that was the only song they were on. On the last line, “I’ll take my love to the grave,” with each repetition of the riff, we’d add another person. So it’s Jake, me, Nate and then those guys, one at a time.

PA R T I V:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VICTIM

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There’s obviously a distinctly female theme dominating the album artwork. What inspired it, and how does it tie into some of the lyrical concepts?

Bannon: At the time I was going through a great deal of negative in my life. When I was refining the lyrics, it was apparent that the album thematically dealt with that relationship disintegrating. The album was my lyrical purging of that experience. The artwork visually encapsulates that lyrical theme. The visuals attempted to capture the feeling of disintegration and rebirth. I spent a great deal of time on that—building figures out of texture and acrylic, scanning multiple layers of imagery, etc. I spent close to a month creating large mixed media pieces for each song on the album. I used a high-contrast approach to the artwork, as it was a style I was growing towards at the time. I felt that the cold iconographic feel was extremely fitting for the subject matter. Was it your intention to obscure some of the lyrics in the layout, or did it just work out best that way, visually speaking?

Bannon: I wanted to incorporate them into the pieces themselves, so yes, it was intentional. I remember Equal Vision not being happy about it, as it broke from the standard that was set for the time. I don’t care much for rules. Did Jake discuss the lyrical themes with the rest of you?

Newton: Not really. On every record, we just let Jake do his thing. We had a general idea, though. I actually thought of the name Jane Doe when were on our first European tour—I think I may have seen a pamphlet or a billboard about violence against women or some shit. I just thought it was a cool name. If I remember correctly, we talked a little bit about the idea of a nameless, faceless victim. Jake sorta took the ball and ran with it. Dalbec: Jake never really discussed any of the artwork or lyrics with any of us. It was kind of always a surprise when the record was done. Koller: Nate and Jake came up with the whole concept for the record, I guess. I don’t tend to get too involved with the art concepts. I just focus on the skins. Ballou: He’s pretty private about that, and we don’t pry too much. He’s become more open with that over time, and at least with me, he’s gotten me more involved with phrasing and stuff. But circa Jane Doe, we just recorded his ideas the way he had it in his head and that’s just the way it was. There’s definitely a lot of mutual trust and admiration between us as songwriters. And when-

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ever you have too many cooks in the kitchen, it tends to dilute the food. That’s how it is with a lot of modern metallic hardcore, too—there’s just too many ingredients in the mix. You’ve got your guy who screams, your guy who growls, and then you’ve got your melodic, Dashboard Confessionalstyle vocals here and there. I’ve always been opposed to that—I like to have a cohesive direction and a cohesive vision. So I don’t really get in Jake’s way too much and, in turn, he doesn’t get in our way, either. About a year after the record came out, I was walking down Cahuenga Boulevard in Los Angeles with Juan Perez and saw a huge oil painting that someone had done of the Jane Doe cover. At first we thought it was Jake’s original, but we later found out that it wasn’t.

Bannon: Yeah, I heard about that. That painting was also a few blocks from our lawyer’s office in L.A. It was definitely a rendition of our cover, but it was meant to be an homage, not a lift, I guess. There have also been some other incidents. One high-end clothing company chose to use the image on a variety of t-shirts. They actually solicited my girlfriend’s old store to carry their items and she brought it to my attention. When our lawyer contacted them, they claimed they got the image from a poster they saw on a wall in Italy, to which I responded, “Yeah, our tour poster.” They later sent us their stock of apparel and I destroyed it. I’ve had that happen with other images I’ve made for other bands as well. The world is full of thieves. Since the release of the album, there have also been countless attempts at emulating that style of artwork. The attempts are both flattering and insulting. I feel that if you are putting that much effort into creating something to represent your band visually, you should do something original. Use your own artistic voice, not ours. Newton: It’s interesting to me how the cover of that record—the Jane Doe face—has become almost iconic in the hardcore scene. It’s almost like the new Misfits skull or something—not that I’d compare us to that, but it blows my mind that we still sell a shitload of Jane Doe shirts. Go to a hardcore show and there’s a good chance you’ll see a kid wearing a Converge shirt, and there’s a good chance it’ll be a Jane Doe shirt. The face doesn’t call to mind anything specific, but at the



same time, it’s a strong image that you can put meaning into. I think that’s what makes certain pieces of art powerful—you can look at it and put your own meaning into it. It seemed like during that time period, Jake and Aaron Turner really put the focus back on fine art back into album artwork—at least in this scene. It wasn’t just, “Here’s a picture of the band, here’s our lyrics, here’s our logo.” PA R T V:

PHOENIX IN FLAMES Do you remember reading any reviews of the album when it came out?

Ballou: I remember we got Album of the Year in Terrorizer. I was pretty blown away that it was being received that way, actually. At that point in time, we were a band that had had some moderate success—people liked us, and we never really did support tours—we had been able to tour the U.S. a few times on our own as headliners. But I didn’t really feel like we had done a record that was a milestone in our genre. People consider Petitioning the Empty Sky that, but in general, the people who revered that record highly, I didn’t

Poached, diarized Bannon’s oft-imitated iconography

revere their taste in music all that highly, so it didn’t mean a lot to me. And it’s not even an album, really—that originally came out on seven-inch. And then we recorded extra songs and put it out on CD. There’s live tracks, too—it’s really just a collection of stuff. Newton: I remember the Terrorizer review that came out before they gave us album of the year. I felt pretty good about the record, but when I read that I was like, “Whoa!” Not that Terrorizer is the be-all, end-all musical judgment, but I remember thinking of it as a magazine that tears everything to shreds. I think they gave us a 9.5—it was a pretty big compliment. How did things change for Converge after Jane Doe came out?

Ballou: Jane Doe was the first record where people I really respected responded positively to it— people my age and older than us actually started to respect Converge. That meant a lot to me, because prior to that, I felt like we hadn’t really come into our own yet. People definitely treat you differently when you do something that they enjoy or respect musically. We got a lot of [4]

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Jake never really discussed any of the artwork or lyrics with any of us. It was kind of always a surprise when the record was done. —A a r o n D a l b e c —

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My goal with the album was the same as any other—to create something that our band could collectively be moved by, challenged by and proud of. Jane Doe was that for all of us, so that’s the only real success that matters for me. —J a c o b B a n n o n — opportunities from the record label, booking agents were more interested in us, other bands were more interested in getting us to tour with them and other bands were interested in touring with us. And a lot more bands were interested in coming into my studio to record with me and getting Jake to design their records. On a personal level, doing something that resonated with people greatly affected my life outside of Converge in addition to inside Converge. Looking back on it, it was a major turning point in my professional life. Newton: Definitely more people started coming to shows. It was definitely a gradual process, but it was happening. We suddenly got more attention from the metal community, too, and I think that had to do with the Terrorizer review. All of a sudden we were validated. People who had wanted nothing to do with us before all of a sudden thought we were great and wanted to go on tour with us. And because Terrorizer is based in the U.K., we noticed a vast difference when we went back to Europe. But honestly, I think Petitioning and When Forever Comes Crashing are more metal than Jane Doe—at least as far as blatantly playing metal riffs. The influence is certainly there on Jane Doe, but I feel like it’s a much more punk record. Bannon: I try not to pay attention to outside opinion to our band, so I’m not really sure. My goal with the album was the same as any other— to create something that our band could collectively be moved by, challenged by and proud of. Jane Doe was that for all of us, so that’s the only real success that matters for me. Jane Doe was your last album on Equal Vision. Were you already planning on moving to Epitaph at that point?

Ballou: No, we were planning on doing one more with EVR. They definitely ride a lot of fences between being a hardcore label and a rock label, and we couldn’t really get behind

any of the stuff they had on the label. We did a few Equal Vision showcase kinda shows, and we just wanted to align ourselves with something that fit the spirit of Converge—not necessarily the sound of Converge, but what we were about. We still like the EVR guys and we get along, but we just felt like we didn’t have a lot in common with [their roster]. There were assorted tensions with them, but Epitaph approached us—we didn’t approach them. So we got this opportunity to work with a label that’s run by really good people who come from a DIY punk background and who still have those ideals. They run a successful business, but they still have that punk ethic that they had when they were younger— they still put art ahead of profit. Their basic philosophy is to work with established artists that are credible and have long-lasting success rather than seeking out the next big thing and jumping on it. I mean, they’ve made a few of those kinds of signings in recent history, but in general, I mean… they’re working with Nick Cave and Tom Waits—they’ve got a classic catalog. Bannon: We were under the assumption that it was our last album for the label, but we didn’t pay much attention to that. Our goal was just to write and record the best album that we could at the time. The creative end of what we are takes precedent over any business nonsense. After the album was released and we did our first world touring in support of the album, we started discussing what we wanted to do next as a band. That is when we first started experiencing turbulence with Equal Vision. Our experience with Equal Vision was certainly not all negative. In hindsight, I feel that we simply grew apart from one another. Their direction and our own didn’t follow the same road of understanding. It was best that it ended when it did. Newton: To be honest with you, a lot of it I don’t even know. I sort of treated it like, “Hey—whatever, man. I just play bass.” But I do remember thinking at that point that EVR

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was kind of getting away from hardcore. But it’s kinda weird, I guess. If we had stayed on EVR, I probably would’ve been fine with it. I mean, it’s a record label—who cares? But when the idea of signing to Epitaph came up, we were definitely really excited about it. They put out Tom Waits and Solomon Burke all this cool shit. Obviously, Epitaph has put out some duds that I don’t want to have anything to do with, but for every record they put out that I hate, they put out two that it’s obvious they put out because they think it’s good. Do you think of Jane Doe any differently now than you did when you recorded it?

Newton: Yes and no—no in the sense that I don’t really dwell on stuff that we’ve already done. We did a record, we toured on it, and I’m onto the next shit. I’m proud of everything I’ve done, but I don’t sit around thinking, “Yeah—I wrote Jane Doe!” In that respect, it feels like it’s just something else we did. It’s history to me. But at the same time, I feel differently about it now that I’m able to step back and see how that record might’ve affected the hardcore scene in general. Bannon: Not really. Each new album you write and release becomes the most relevant, so it’s not on my immediate radar—No Heroes is. But I am still excited by what the album accomplished creatively. Koller: I like our new record No Heroes more than Jane Doe now. Maybe it’s because the songs are fresher and more energetic live, or I’m just older and my tastes have changed. I like how salty and heavy No Heroes is. It gets me pumped up and makes me want to punch concrete walls. Dalbec: I still think it’s a great record, but after what happened I can not look at it the same way. Ballou: Every time we do a record now, I always have to prepare myself for kids and reviewers to say it’s not as good as Jane Doe. Whenever any band does a landmark kinda thing, they’ll never get past it. Metallica’s never gonna do another Master of Puppets, you know? Slayer’s never gonna do another Reign in Blood—or Pantera and Vulgar Display of Power. So I don’t let that stuff affect me too much. Every once in a while I’ll read something or someone will say something to me that will make me feel like I’ve peaked, but when we were doing Jane Doe, we definitely weren’t of the mindset that we’d peaked. We

weren’t chasing our own shadow. Which is pretty much how we work now, but it’s always in the back of your head. Not “Are we still good enough?” But “Are people gonna think we’re still good enough?” I don’t want my music to ever be driven by people’s opinion of it, but, you know, it’s hard to go about life completely independent of other people’s opinions of you. So it was nice to be in a situation, with Jane Doe, where I didn’t have to think about that at all. In retrospect, is there anything you’d change about the album?

Bannon: No, nothing. Koller: No, because the imperfections and rough edges are what gives the record so much character. A lot of my playing was really spur-of-themoment and improvisational, and what I play live for those songs now is so much different than what’s on the record. Newton: Oh, yeah. I’d rewrite a couple of the songs, for sure—like “Fault and Fracture,” definitely. It has parts that don’t need to be there and parts that are too long—same with “Heaven in Her Arms.” And I don’t like how the record sounds overall—it’s so compressed and metal.

It sounds like it’s cutting into your ears. I guess that’s what some people love about it, but to me it sounds robotic. I like records with dynamics, where it goes from quiet to loud, where you can hear the guy breathing in the background when it gets quiet. But this record seems like it’s one volume—really loud and in your face—all the way across the board. At the time, I thought it was pretty cool, because there wasn’t another hardcore record that sounded like it. But in retrospect, I’m not very happy with how it sounds. And you can really hardly hear the bass on most of the songs—which is OK, I guess, ’cause I wasn’t happy with my bass tone. Overall, I think the songs on You Fail Me and No Heroes are much better, and I love the recordings on those records. Pound for pound, I think both of those records are better than Jane Doe. It’s the time and place syndrome, though. People heard this record at a certain point in their lives and equate it with certain memories, so it holds a special place for them. For us, it’s the record where we really started to change as a band. We came out of our shells and said, “This is what we’re capable of.” With certain bands, it’s always one record that sticks with people. Like

Entombed’s Wolverine Blues—that was the record where Entombed started to change, and it grabbed people’s attention. And there’s no other record like that record. So I can understand why people say that about Jane Doe, but it’s not my favorite record, personally. Ballou: I wouldn’t make it so loud. [Laughs] No, I don’t know if I really would. But from an engineering perspective, I had to listen to Jane Doe while I was engineering and mixing No Heroes, because I had to make sure the new record sounded as least as good as that. And in the minds of some of the people in my band and some of our listeners, sounding as good also means that it needs to be as loud. Every stereo I’ve seen has a volume knob, but for some reason, people seem to demand that their records be obscenely loud. There’s not really much more space on a CD to make it louder than Jane Doe, so it’s getting challenging to make records that have as much or more impact from a sonic perspective. Other than that, I don’t particularly care for the chorus of “Fault and Fracture,” but there’s really nothing on the record that gives me idiot shivers. Prior to Jane Doe, there’s stuff in every song that we did that gave me idiot shivers. A

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hall fame s ue nm o b l a i c spe of fa installment R38 ll ha in a ser es explor ng i

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Band of Horses The Making of Mastodon’s Remission story by Andrew Parks photo by Orion Landau

hile it’ll never be regarded as the kind of breakthrough record Leviathan became, thanks to universal acclaim (indie rock critics and all) and its inclusion on not one but three video game soundtracks (Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Project Gotham Racing 3, Saints Row), Mastodon’s Remission LP is much more important in the scheme of the band’s history and modern metal itself. On the surface, it signaled a simple change in Mastodon’s approach, from the cut-and-run chaos of 2001’s Lifesblood EP to a fully formed journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth vibe. As in riffs that shift gears by the second, drums that put the poly- in polyrhythm, and basslines that actually add something other than a molasses-thick bottom-end. OK, so the hydra-head vocals of guitarist Brent Hinds and bassist Troy Sanders still had some blossoming to do before they’d reach the distinct ranges displayed on some of Leviathan and all of 2006’s Blood Mountain. And as the band openly admits, their abstract, communal tales of a workhorse and some “burning man” guy often came together the same day vocals were tracked. Speaking of studio time, did we mention that Remission was completed in 10 days? Three of which were lost when a tape machine broke, while the rest were powered by a tension/release cycle of balancing back-breaking day jobs (Hinds, for dBHoF38 one, was working from the break of dawn ’til late afternoon in a conMastodon, struction crew) with the pressure of nailing a real-deal studio record Remission with A-list producer Matt Bayles (Botch, Isis). ¶ As you’re about to Sludge learns how to gallop read, everyone survived with his respective psyche relatively intact. In fact, Mastodon recently rediscovered the raw power of their own released label material when two Brooklyn gigs with Neurosis demanded a careerMay 2002 Relapse spanning set list featuring such solid-gold barn-burning classics as “Trilobite” and “Where Strides the Behemoth.” While their sound at the first show may have been in-the-red to the point of nearly blowing every speaker in sight (before Neurosis, mind you), there was no denying why Mastodon should never lose sight of their salad days. prelude

HURRY TO MYSTIC PLAINS Before we talk about the recording phase of Remission, why don’t you share how you guys first met; at least more than what’s been written in every single Mastodon story—that you met at a High on Fire show Troy booked.

Brent Hinds: Well, there was a big ice storm that night. It absolutely froze Atlanta, so I stayed over for a long time, playing Street Fighter and taking Mescaline. We bonded immediately, before we even played any music. I remember being like, “Wow, you guys already went to Europe with Today Is the Day and played with Neurosis? Man, you’ve got your shit together. Let’s jam.” 57 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

Bill Kelliher: Way before any of that happened, the Unsane was playing in 1997—right around when I had a ticket to fly back to Rochester. I had all my shit packed, but I went to see them anyway. [Hinds and Troy Sanders’ old band] Fiend Without a Face was opening up. When I saw Brent, I was like, “Holy shit, that dude’s playing really crazy, wacky guitar. Where’s he been the seven months I’ve been here?” And then Today Is the Day played. For the very last song, [frontman] Steve [Austin] needed to borrow Brent’s guitar for “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.” I never knew in a million years that I’d play with Steve Austin, and Brent and Troy from the opening band that night. (Kelliher joined Austin’s rotating lineup in 1999 along with Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor.)

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dBhof

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BURN YOUR GAME PLAN

— remission —

Brent and Troy were already settled into the Atlanta music scene when you guys met. Bill, did you have a hard time adjusting to the area after living up north in Rochester?

Were any of you surprised at how well you worked together? Given your respective histories outside of Mastodon (Brent and Troy played their last show as Four Hour Fogger at the High on Fire gig where Mastodon’s members met; Bill and Brann had recently quit Today Is the Day), it could have easily been Brann and Bill vs. Troy and Brent.

Hinds: We had an immediate musical and spiritual connection. I can’t describe it that well because we didn’t even think about it. By this time in all of our lives, we already had a

I was working from seven to five on a construction crew, then recording the album from six until one in the morning. I’d be in there screaming with mud still on my boots. —brent library of riffs that we’d been collecting but hadn’t gelled with the right people yet. We made Lifesblood within the first four months of knowing one another. Sanders: The beauty of it was that we had been a team for seven years or so outside of Mastodon—myself and Brent, and Brann and Bill. So this just made sense, as if these two small teams made one all-star team. At the time, too, Brent and I were writing songs that were heavy, note-y and quirky, and Brann and Bill were doing heavy, evil, dark and quirky songs. It was a perfect match, really—a blind date that actually went well. 58 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

hinds— Brann Dailor: It was fun back then, like being in a new relationship where you’re giddy and saying “Yay!” all the time. The blend of everyone’s styles worked right off the bat. I didn’t even care where it went [creatively]. I was just excited to play something that was a little bit metal, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. Plus we connected personally. For instance, Brent is like the dudes I used to hang out with in high school—he’s seriously into Neurosis, used to take a lot of acid when he was a kid and just had a lot of war stories from growing up alongside heshers. Kelliher: With Today Is the Day, Brann and I didn’t write anything but the hidden track at the

Scott Kinkade [Live at The Trocadero Balcony Bar]

Kelliher: Well, Brann and I got a rehearsal space as soon as we got back to Atlanta. We had a couple guys try out for some songs we had written, but nobody had clicked yet. I remember Brent found our number and called us. When he showed up, he was already three-sheets-to-thewind drunk. So Brann and I played a couple of the songs from Lifesblood that he and I had written, but Brent didn’t want anything to do with it. He was like, “Let’s do something like this”— chugging on a low string and playing one sludgy, noisy note. He was out of his mind. When he left the space, Brann said, “Who the fuck was that guy? Why did you bother bringing him to the space?” And I said, “Dude, you got to see him when he’s sober. He’s amazing.” The next day, Brent knocked on our door and just started wailing away on my guitar. It was like, “Where was that guy last night?” The High on Fire show was a few days later, when we also met Troy: the quiet guy with a van and a solid head on his shoulders. The next thing I knew, Troy was sleeping on my couch and Brann was sleeping in the other room. Pretty soon, a couple weeks turned into months and I told [Troy] to just pay some rent and move in. Troy Sanders: That’s how I began to love Bill— by sleeping on his couch for a year. At the time, I’d gone through some back and forth issues with my personal life and wound up in a dark place. So when we met in January of 2000, it was the perfect time to put the darkness behind us and start reacting with positive vibes. Kelliher: One funny thing about back then: I remember Troy hadn’t made Kool-Aid or macaroni and cheese before. It was like, “Dude, you don’t know how to make Kool-Aid? You just add water.” Anyway, he showed up to practice with this roaring bass and nice distortion. When we started, he’d play the weirdest notes. It was nice to not have a dude that simply does whatever everyone else in the band wants him to do.

end of [the 1999 album] In the Eyes of God. It was more like us revolving around Steve’s vision than anything. Since he’s been around for so long, he probably thought, “This is my baby; I don’t need anyone else’s input.” He’s more of a solo artist than a bandmate. These guys had a different take on everything. I remember learning songs with them early on and thinking, “Whoa, this is what I’ve been missing.” When Brann and I were in [the technical

that the band is nothing without each and every member. We’re lucky to have everyone grounded and ready to put someone in check if need be. People often mention Brann’s drumming when they talk about Remission. Did his skills behind a kit push you as guitarists?

Hinds: My last band, Fiend Without a Face, was pretty crazy when it came to the guitars, but with Mastodon, I can write anything I want and

Everything came from “Crusher Destroyer”— from this short, brutal bull running straight at you. — t r oy

sanders— Brann can play it with me—he can make it come to life. I realized how great he was the second he sat down and started playing. He went off with a drum solo or something when I first met him. You could just feel the wind coming off the sticks and sawdust flying everywhere. Sanders: Brann’s the best drummer I’ve ever shared a practice space with, so I had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to jam with him. Was it hard losing your original singer [Eric Saner] at first, or did it not affect things too much because you hadn’t been together long enough?

Kris Hale [Live at The Masquerade]

death metal band] Lethargy [from 1995–99], it was awesome for what it was, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I like complexity, but I’ve been in too many bands where people said, “Let’s play the hardest stuff we can.” Why? No one likes that but the people playing it and maybe some of the musicians in the audience. Sanders: Mastodon’s been a democracy since day one. Dailor: We definitely were an all for one, one for all group from the beginning. We all understand

Kelliher: He wasn’t around long enough for it to. He kinda just showed up and screamed. Hinds: It didn’t affect things because we wouldn’t let it. Troy and I tried to cover all the vocal areas with whoever could scream over the riff being played. Like if I was playing a crazy guitar part, he’d scream, and vice versa when he was busy with the bass. There’s an obvious difference in our voices today, but we just screamed our balls off back during Remission. There was no Pro Tool-ing at all on that album. It was just two-inch tape and old school punchins, which kinda makes me feel like a cowboy. Sanders: I had never done any vocals before and Brent had a little bit, but he mostly focused on the fretboard before. You know, I had spent hours and hours on the phone to book us a tour straight up to Canada and back without a booking agent. So when our singer bolted, I said, “Please, let’s do this tour. We can step up to the mic.” Collectively, we knew we were onto something and that we needed to at least give it a fucking shot. That first tour [as a quartet] was a nice test of our will and strength. We didn’t mind it at all. After that tour, we felt like the four-piece setup would work, that we didn’t need to waste any time looking for another fifth member. 59 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

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UNIFIED EYESIGHT, GROW For the most part, you haven’t stopped touring since Remission came out. Given that fact, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of that time period?

Hinds: That album’s always in the back of my head as a staple for Mastodon; I’m always referring back to it in certain situations where I want that creepy arpeggio feel. Remission’s my favorite Mastodon album by far. I like the way it was more effortless—nothing could have been forced because there were no expectations and nothing to compare it to. All we had out was Lifesblood, something we did at my friend’s studio in Woodstock, GA. It was a good studio, but the guy recording us was waiting to get out of there the whole time. We’d want to do a part again and he’d be like, “Oh don’t worry. It’s fine!” Kelliher: Remission feels like an eternity ago. I mean, we’ve definitely been on the road nine or 10 months out of the year, each year. So when we did come off the road, we were like, “All right, we’ve got three weeks before our producer’s in town. We need to get this shit written.” Dailor: We were really hungry then, and still discovering each other’s talents. Lifesblood and our first demo were put together as quickly as possible so we would have something to tour behind. There was no pressure then, either, to live up to previous work. How much time had passed between the recording of Lifesblood and most of the writing for Remission?

Dailor: We did Lifesblood after four or five months together and wrapped up Remission not even a year later. Hinds: We had the majority of the riffs in mind before we even did Lifesblood. As in, “Hey, check this riff out!” “Hey, check this riff out!” “Oh man, that riff would go with this riff. Let’s put them together in a song. Hey!” The next thing you know, we have “March of the Fire Ants.” [humming the melody to the song] There was a lot of independent stuff going on, too. Like Bill would go home and come back playing “Trampled Under Hoof” all the way through, except for a few things I added. And then another day Brann came in with a riff [humming a couple chords] and it became “[Where Strides the] Behemoth.” Boom! Right there. I’d get so inspired by practice that I’d bust out an acoustic at home to contribute even more. You can never have too many songs. Dailor: It came out a lot of different ways. What I remember most is having a lot of time to hang out and write because we were a new band and didn’t have to tour much yet. Sanders: Basically, Remission was our first collaborative effort as Mastodon, much more so than Lifesblood.

100 greatest metal albums of the decade

mastodon

What track did you finish first?

Hinds: “Crusher Destroyer.” They kinda poured out like diarrhea after that. I’m not even joking, man. Sanders: Everything else came from there for sure—from this short, brutal bull running straight at you. I was attached to every second of that record, from darker stuff like “Trilobite” and “Trainwreck” to the way we ended everything with “Elephant Man.” It meant a lot to me then and it still does now. Hinds: Back then, all we did was drink beer and jam, so it only took us a couple of months to write the album. Now it’s more difficult to even get together. Kelliher: Yeah, I didn’t have kids or a house back then. I don’t have much time to write now because I’m busy with life, man. I get up at seven every day, take my kids to school, and then I have a million things to do before picking them up at five and making them dinner. By the time nine comes, exhaustion kicks in. Remission was basically like, “We need a song? OK, here’s one.” pa r t I I I

SLAVED INTO BRITTLE Nowadays, you guys do nothing but music. Did working a steady day job get in the way of recording Remission at all?

Hinds: Definitely. I was working from seven in the morning to five in the afternoon on a construction crew, then recording the album from six until one in the morning. It was pretty much that way for me until the album was done. I’d be in there screaming with mud still on my boots. I was totally exhausted, but I was also 25. I’m 34 now, and because our job is playing music, it makes us lazy. I used to build houses all day long and now I sleep until it’s time to go to band rehearsal at two in the afternoon. No one wants to swing a hammer all day and then go record all night, but it did a lot for my stamina at the time. Sanders: It was all about going home at 10 exhausted, and then waking up early the next day to do it all over again. That’s where dedication comes in. Kelliher: It wasn’t the best conditions and we couldn’t do anything about it because we had bills to pay. I was working a day job constantly back then—rolling burritos and making margaritas, thinking, “I can’t wait to get out of this fucking place.”

dBhof — remission —

same page about the subject matter being on a grander, monolithic scale that moves mountains. Tell me more about working with Matt Bayles.

We want this record to blow up in your face when you put it on. —bill

kelliher—

Hinds: At least I was pissed off enough to deliver some screams. That made [producer] Matt [Bayles] happy. Some of the guitar playing was a struggle, though, because my hands were so fucked up from the construction site. How did the lyrics come together on this record? That’s always been a collaborative thing with you guys, right?

Sanders: Yeah, everyone chimed in with whatever fit the music. Like with “Crusher Destroyer,” I felt like it was about this bull with this fierce red aggression towards a matador. So we wrote the lyrics from that. The song “Trampled Under Hoof” sounds like you’re being trampled by a bunch of beasts, so we wrote lyrics around that. The song “Mother Puncher” literally makes you feel like doing that. Basically, the lyrics on Remission derive from raw emotion and the riffs themselves. Dailor: It was all about how the songs sound cinematically. No one ever gave us the indication that they wanted to write a song about their parents or their ex-girlfriend. Everyone was on the 60 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

Hinds: Matt is like a drill sergeant in that he’s always saying, “Do it again, do it again.” After a while, I had to be like, “Dude, I’m not doing it anymore.” Working with him is not the same as hanging out with him and having chicken wings and beer. Matt Bayles: The tension was a result of a few things. One was me being adamant that the tracks be played until they were as right as possible. I was not easy to please and they all played parts more than they were used to. The other thing is all of them were working jobs, and Brent was working construction, so he was coming to the studio after a long day of work and I know I was a bit unforgiving about getting the best out of him. I know it drove him somewhat insane. We eventually talked it out. Hinds: There were a couple moments where we had to stop recording. Like the time I had a big ol’ pair of muddy Red Wing boots on and kicked the door, saying, “Goddamn it, I’m not going to do it again!” You gotta remember that me and Matt didn’t know each other then. He didn’t know that I have a fast temper and if he said certain things to me, I’d blow up. I had to have a talk with him outside the studio at one point. To be fair, it was tough for Matt, too, because he was staying away from home and sleeping on an air mattress at Bill’s house. Kelliher: Paying someone a thousand bucks to record nine songs is one thing; you just hit record and say, “it’s rolling—go!” It’s a lot different than putting out a record for a popular underground label. So I understand Matt’s perspective, even though I thought things sounded fine sometimes when he thought they needed to be done again. Dailor: Since we had limited time with me, I was lucky and nailed most of my stuff. I think Matt’s harder on guitar players and singers, so I think I got off light.

Scott Kinkade [Live at The Trocadero Balcony Bar]

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Crystal skull-fucked Mastodon’s paths to glory circa 2002 pa r t I V

BASKING IN AN AFTERGLOW Was there ever a moment in the recording stage where you felt like you had something special?

Hinds: There was never a point where I doubted the integrity of the band or that we were making a great album. I remember playing it for my buddy Steve here and he was like, “Damn, you guys are going to be fucking huge.” None of us were aware of a scene; at least, not outside some Coal Chamber bullshit I couldn’t be bothered with. Kelliher: I remember hearing some of the vocals and thinking, “Wow, you guys sound tough as balls.” Lifesblood was more rudimentary—just growls and grunts. Maybe that’s because those guys would get naked and drink a bottle of whiskey before doing their vocals [on Remission]. Steve Austin used to do that with Today Is the Day, too. Just because you wanted to feel incredibly vulnerable?

You only had 10 days to record Remission, but it ended up taking three studios to finish it, right?

Bayles: Remission was supposed to be done in its entirety at [Man or Astro-Man’s studio] Zero Return. However, the day I landed in Atlanta I got a call from them saying that their tape machine was broken. Since I landed on a Saturday, that meant the broken part could not be shipped ’til Monday, then it was returned on Wednesday, so it really set us back. Kelliher: It turned out to be a long process. It just felt like we were getting deeper and deeper in debt with the whole thing since the first four days were fucked right off the bat. Dailor: I was actually glad when the tape machine broke because I didn’t sleep at all the night before. I was just so nervous, thinking, “this record is gonna suck, man,” so I was lightheaded and felt like everything was a dream in the studio. We were supposed to have three days for the drums and we ended up having one. I remember going to have a beer, thinking I was done for the day and then those guys coming to get me, saying, “Hey, can you finish up tonight?” Which bummed me out, because I never drink before I play. And Relapse wasn’t into the initial mastering, right?

Kelliher: Yeah, once we got everything done, we had this local guy master it. I remember bringing some Converge and Melvins records, and this

choad ass guy was like, “You want it to sound like this? You can’t hear the bass or anything.” And we said, “That’s what we want, though. We want the record to blow up in your face when you put it on.” So he puts on this Papa Roach record he worked on and we’re like, “What? This guy doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.” I remember working so hard and handing it to Relapse, hoping they’d say we have a masterpiece here. Instead, [Relapse owner] Matt [Jacobson] said, “Yeah, I don’t think it sounds that great.” I was flabbergasted, but he meant the mastering, not the songs itself. When it came back re-mastered, it sounded a million times better. It didn’t have any balls to it before. Dailor: I could totally tell the difference with the re-master. Like when “Where Strides the Behemoth” comes in, it’s supposed to knock your head off and it wasn’t originally. It’s hard to differentiate anything once you’re near the end of a recording process, though. You just have a level of blind faith, really. Bayles: Unfortunately the band had the album mastered locally and I was not there. The dude did mostly R&B, I guess, and did not know what to do with the record. I remember talking to [label manager] Gordon [Conrad] at Relapse and he was trying his best to not sound disappointed, but he clearly was. For reasons I can’t recall, I never got a chance to hear the mastering. They sent it to someone who knew how to deal with the genre, and they took care of it. 61 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

Sanders: Well, singing was new to us at the time, so we decided to drink half a gallon of Jack and take our clothes off. That’s how you deliver vocals—by letting your balls hang out. Brent did it first and said, “Trust me man, it works.” Hinds: You gotta let your balls out, man! Dailor: I don’t think I was in there for any nudity, but it makes sense. All they needed was some war paint on top of it. You hit the road and stayed there as soon as you finished Remission, didn’t you?

Hinds: Yeah, Relapse put us on the road with High on Fire immediately. And then right after High on Fire, we did a ridiculous amount of shows with Clutch, the Hidden Hand, Cephalic Carnage [and the] Dillinger Escape Plan. I don’t even remember when the Remission shows stopped and the Leviathan ones began. The only way I can tell the difference is I had long hair when Remission was doing its thing. Kelliher: I remember feeling like we’d really made it when we got that Clutch tour. Tell me a little bit about the music video for “March of the Fire Ants.” A lot of bands find pretending to play in front of a camera awkward the first time around. Did you?

Hinds: Nah, it was fun as shit. We had friends come down and made a big party of it, which is how we did every video after that, too. The camera really focused on Troy in that one. Were you letting him be the frontman that day?

Hinds: Troy was in the middle of the room when we set up and he’s stayed that way since.

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100 greatest metal albums of the decade

It has nothing to do with who’s the leader or who writes what. We’re all in charge of this band, you know? When you play music like Mastodon, it’s demanding of a person to deliver that shit correctly all the time, night after night. Nowadays, we’re getting Bill—and even Brann—involved [with the vocals], too.

dBhof

mastodon — remission —

What did you think of the concept?

Hinds: It was creepy enough—it reminded me of Tool a bit. We’ve always been inspired by them and how mysterious their videos are. I actually didn’t want us to be in the video, but Relapse was like, “No way. We’ve got to see your stupid faces.” The push behind Remission might seem like a blur in retrospect but do you remember your first appearance on Headbangers Ball?

Kelliher: I remember it being February 14 and my voice cracking when we all said Happy Valentine’s Day to our girlfriends. Luckily, Jamey Jasta fucked something up, so we had to do another take.

WITH VISIONS INLAID Paul Romano’s artwork has obviously been a major part of the band’s aesthetic since Remission, the first cover and complete layout he did for you guys. What did you think of what he did at first, though?

Dailor: My sister died when I was a teenager, so there are two halves to my life: before and after she passed away. Throughout the years, I’d always have dreams about her—the kind that stick with you. Well, one night she came to me and we were in this basement that looked like the set of that Woody Allen movie Sleeper—with just white furniture and a shag carpet. So we were looking through this basement window and saw this nuclear missile on this launch pad. It teeters back and forth, then goes off and hits the launch pad it was resting on. I start to run but she says we’re OK; we’re safe in the house. So as it dies down, all of these animals were running out of the forest on fire. One of them, a white horse, fell down in front of me with its eyes bugging out of its head, engulfed in flames. That was super powerful and stuck with me, obviously. So I told the guys about it and they thought it was a good idea for an album cover. We just needed someone to paint it, so I talked to Paul Romano at the Pontiac Grille [in Philadelphia]—a Mastodon show with Dying Fetus. I said, “We need a real painting. You can do that?” And he said, “Yeah.” I was happy with it because I thought it was intriguing. It makes you want to know what’s behind the cover—what’s in the record—and has this classic feel to it. Kelliher: I didn’t know what to expect aside from the crazy stuff in Brann’s dream. Paul did

I was happy with [the cover art] because I thought it was intriguing. It makes you want to know what’s behind the cover— what’s in the record. —brann some work on Lifesblood, but he hadn’t drawn anything. [The Remission cover] definitely fits, though—it’s a deep painting for some deep music. You can’t have this awesome record—lyrics, music and all—and then have this crappy cover no one put any time into. Paul understands us because he’s an intellectual artist. He reads the lyrics, he watches us and he gets the feel of what we’re exactly doing. Hinds: It’s hard to top the Leviathan cover, but I really like the burning horse on Remission. Although at first I thought, “This ain’t a horse coming out of a fire; it’s a fire coming out of the horse.” It took me a while to figure out that it is more “avant garde.” Man, the High on Fire guys are such vikings and pirates. They’re punk through and through, so their old bassist, George Rice, said, “Yo, your album cover looks like a carousel.” At first we were like, “He’s right. What the fuck do we do?” I didn’t know Paul from the Man on the Moon when he did that cover. Dailor: Now we’re already talking about ideas for the next record. What did you think of the finished album in comparison to Lifesblood?

Hinds: I was smiling from ear to ear. Bayles: I dug what was going on with their 62 t o p 10 0 o f t h e 0 0 s

dailor— first EP—there was clearly a lot of talent and ideas; they just needed to be clarified. The performances were not what they could be and I thought that was the main issue I had. I don’t know if I have enough distance, or ego, to say whether it was a turning point, but I can see that they influenced a bunch of bands that have come since. That was a vital era for a new frontier in American extreme music. Mastodon, Botch, Isis, DEP, Converge, Cave In, Coalesce, etc., all had their own way of expanding the genre. Dailor: I thought the record was great, but I was second-guessing myself a bit. Looking back, though, it was definitely something different for that time period—just a dirty, hard-working, sweat-it-out record. I’m not going to say it was a huge influential record or something, but metal was definitely stagnant at that time. Kelliher: I loved the final CD. I thought we took everything to a different level. Everything was getting bigger for us, from the tours to the fact that we had an actual producer now. I just put Remission on for the first time in a while the other day because we had to learn “Trilobite” for those Neurosis shows [in Brooklyn]. And I thought, “Dang, there’s some decent songs on here. We should bring back some of this stuff—maybe use this as a stepping stone for the next one.” A

Scott Kinkade [Live at The Trocadero Balcony Bar]

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