2016: Rejects
Felt like being a Negative Nancy for whatever reason plus I wasn't sure if I had more than 100 albums for my half year list that I'm compiling right now. So I decided to make a list of all the albums that were either not quite good enough to make it, meh or just plain shit. Some of you might dig what's on this list so take what I say with a pinch of salt. List is loosely ordered from least to most offensive. |
| 31 |  | St. Francis Duo
Peacemaker Assembly
Free Improvisation - The Wall of sound they manage to create (particularly in the first track) is quite impressive, but the booming bottom end sort of muffles the drumming and it's quite is irritating because I wanted to hear more of it unperturbed. |
| 30 |  | Henry Threadgill's Ensamble Double Up
Old Locks and Irregular Verbs
Jazz - Lovely recording but just a little too subdued for too long and a little too scatterbrained when it tries to be exciting. |
| 29 |  | Hekata
Dirge
Hardcore - Nothing out of the ordinary, just some solid crust punk with heavy grind leanings. Didn't quite make it. |
| 28 |  | Irezumi
Thirty
Ambient - Beautifully produced but a little melodramatic at times. |
| 27 |  | Sacrocurse
Destroying Chapels
War Metal - Granted, it doesn't do anything ~wrong~ but in so tentatively following the bestial black death formula it's ends up doing not much at all. |
| 26 |  | Cian
Strain Studies
Electronic - A lot of initial appeal due to being quite unlike a lot of music I've heard but said appeal begins to wane with repeat listens. |
| 25 |  | Fallujah
Dreamless
Progressive death metal - Though "The Void Alone" is an awesome song, this direction the band is taking here doesn't bode well for the future. |
| 24 |  | Ecferus
Pangaea
Black Metal - Pretty good if you're into the whole Deathspell-sound like I am. That is, until the last few tracks where the spoken word trickles in takes you completely out of it. |
| 23 |  | Obscura
Akróasis
Tech death - It almost sounds like all the music has been put through a ~politeness filter~ or something. Everything is just so slick and unobtrusive that although there may be some sweet melodies and progressions here, they elicit very little. |
| 22 |  | Ondness
Quase Driven
Musique Concréte - This honestly functions quite nicely as background noise but as a dedicated listen is lacking a bit, especially compared to "Them Corja" from last year. |
| 21 |  | Wanda Group
Ornate Circular
Musique Concréte - A mix of pleasant and rather ugly sounds that don't really engage me or induce any kind of emotional contrast, but worth checking if you're into this. |
| 20 |  | Pyrrhon
Running Out Of Skin
Mathcore / Death Metal / Free Improvisation - Honestly, it doesn't really sound like these guys were trying make something great here, just having a bit of fun. For that reason I can sort of get behind it but I'm hoping they apply themselves a little more thoroughly next time. |
| 19 |  | Nucleus (USA-IL)
Sentient
Death metal - An album filled with good ideas that unfortunately pales in comparison to the sum of its parts. |
| 18 |  | Graveyard (ESP)
...For Thine Is The Darkness
Death Metal - Super solid OSDM revival that's unfortunately very forgettable. |
| 17 |  | Grischa Lichtenberger
Spielraum
IDM - Eccentric in a way that it's endearing a some points and kind of annoying in others. |
| 16 |  | Weekend Nachos
Apology
Powerviolence - This was my first exposure to this band and it was alright, just nothing special. Might check their earlier stuff assuming it's on the rawer side. |
| 15 |  | Chippendale, Gustafsson and Pupillo
Melt
Free Improvisation - Technically very impressive and the interplay between the musicians is remarkable but it's just such a chore to listen to. |
| 14 |  | Brutality
Sea of Ignorance
Death Metal - Not especially bad in any way just really boring. |
| 13 |  | Genocide Organ
Obituary of The Americas
Power Electronics - [2] |
| 12 |  | Kanye West
The Life of Pablo
Hip-hop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdwhKRZuBw |
| 11 |  | Nails
You Will Never Be One of Us
Hardcore - Way to clean and one dimensional to convey the supposedly uncompromising anger this band is so lauded for. |
| 10 |  | Katalepsy
Gravenous Hour
Brutal Death Metal - See my soundoff. |
| 9 |  | Caveman Cult
Savage War is Destiny
War Metal - A generic lump of Blasphemy worship that sounds like it's been scuffed up in post-production to fool you into thinking it's way more lo-fi than it actually is. |
| 8 |  | Cassio Figueiredo
Presenca
Field Recordings / Ambient - I dunno if this is trying to be all ominous or contemplative or whatever but it fails at all of them, particularly when the wave forms start peaking uncontrollably and hurting my feeble ears. |
| 7 |  | Brain Drill
Boundless Obscenity
Tech-death - Checked this out due to morbid curiosity and like everything this band's done it's fun for about 2 tracks then gets old really fast. |
| 6 |  | Mark Barden
Monoliths
Modern Classical - A 2deep4me collection of squelchy half-thoughts that go nowhere. The low-point is the bit in "die Haut Anderer" where ol' mate Barden decides it would be a great idea for the pianist to hammer the same note for 5 minutes solid until the piece ends. I'm sure there's some extravagant metaphor for abortion or something here that's going way over my head but it just doesn't make for good listening, sorry. |
| 5 |  | Sutcliffe Jugend
Offal
Power noise - Went into this expecting great things given the reception this had but what I got what a mind-numbingly boring slab of death industrial jargon interspersed with blown-up techno beats and some shout-y bloke on top of it all. |
| 4 |  | Skaphe
Skáphe²
Black metal - Sounds like something a teenager would come up with after listening to Paracletus once and thinking "I can do that". |
| 3 |  | The Body and Full Of Hell
One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache
"Powerviolence" / Noise - Title is a little misleading because the sound of this album is so awful you wind up with a headache after about 10 minutes. |
| 2 |  | Ghoulgotha
To Starve the Cross
Death metal - I can't believe I managed to fool myself into thinking this might have been okay but no, it's cut from same cum-stained cloth as the debut. |
| 1 |  | Swans
The Glowing Man
Haven't actually listened to this but it's prob really boring so w/e |
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