By now you've seen all those top ten rock and metal lists featuring Metallica, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, Gojira, Nachtmystium, Enslaved, Opeth, Amon Amarth, All That Remains, Trivium, Meshuggah et al. So here's a list of ten slightly more indie acts that might not be on your radar yet, but which you owe it to yourself to check out:
10. Arsis - We Are the Nightmare (Nuclear Blast)
Technical death metal is rarely this inspiring. A breathtaking blend of speedy unconventional guitar work, abrupt rhythm shifts, double-bass drum thunder and real honest to goodness hooks.
9. These Arms Are Snakes - Tail Swallower and Dove (Suicide Squeeze)
Post-hardcore insanity merges with strong songwriting on this Seattle band's third full album. Direct and uncompromising, TS&D blasts through challenging math rock progressions, battering ram rhythms and bizarre grooves that'll remind you equally of Fugazi and Blood Brothers. But what else would you expect from former members of Botch and Kill Sadie?
8. Abigail Williams - In The Shadow of a Thousand Suns (Candlelight)
Honestly, we're not sure why this modern black metal album didn't crack more critics' year-end lists. The band even has a super-cute chick on piano/orchestration -- and the girl knows how to compose better than a lot of classical musicians. In The Shadow of a Thousand Suns is epic, brutal and shudders with horrific beauty -- like a haunting blend of Cradle of Filth and Immortal. (Click "more" to see our seven other choices.)
7. The Faceless - Planetary Duality (Sumerian)
These dudes look about 15 in their press photo and they've only got two records, so they can't have been doing this for too long, but they sure got their s--t together fast. And fast is the operative word. The songs on Planetary Duality are speedy, complex and uncompromisingly savage, never sacrificing brutality for melody. And somehow there are actual hooks in there, too. Don't miss 'em when they open for Cynic and Meshuggah.
6. Protest the Hero - Fortress (Vagrant)
A trenchant force of screamo-prog-thrash, Protest the Hero raised the bar with this album, a head-spinning smack in the skull which demonstrates what Coheed and Cambria would sound like if they listened to At the Drive In and Necrophagist instead of Pink Floyd and Rush. In just two albums, PTH have accomplished more creatively than many bands do in a 15 year career. May they reign forevermore.
5. 5ive - Hesperus (Hydrahead)
Droning, delirious and devastating, this Boston experimental instrumental metal band combines blaring distortion and ambient buzzing all at the same time to create repetitive tidal waves of sound. Their first new album in six years should be a welcome offering for anyone who ritually kills brain cells to the tunes of Neurosis, Earth, Isis and Pelican.
4. Earthless - Live at Roadburn (Tee Pee)
This stoner metal stuporgroup features members of Nebula, Impaled Nazarene and Hot Snakes and plays hallucinogenic jams that shudder and bend, transmogrifying time and reorganizing matter on a subatomic level that resurrects the ghosts of Hawkwind, Blue Cheer, Loop, Monster Magnet, Chrome and Neu! And if they don't do that, they at least echo and resonate with enough power to make the sober feel like they're tripping balls. They're especially good live, as this three song double CD demonstrates.
3. Genghis Tron - Board Up the House (Relapse)
Challenging and, at times contradictory, Genghis Tron play a gutsy blend of death metal, noise metal, electronica, house and industrial that yields maximal clatter with just three members and no drummer. Board Up the House is ceaselessly adventurous, wildly careening through new turf without a safety net, leaving a messy trail from for others to imitate and learn from.
2. Torche - Meanderthal (Hydrahead)
Remember when Queens of the Stone Age did "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" on the album R -- the ass-kicking, catchy-as-hell song that proclaimed the virtues of "nicotine, Valium, Vicodin and marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol"? Well, if the rest of the album had lived up to the propulsive charge of the track, it would have been a lot like Torche's Meanderthal, which blends the harmonies and hooks of Jimmy Eat World with the lumbering thud of a herd of wooly mammoths.
1. Psycroptic - Ob(Servant) (Nuclear Blast)
We're not sure whether we're more impressed with this band's ability to break out from Hobart, Tasmania and become a force in extreme metal, or their uncanny knack for shredding, ripping, grooving and exterminating, virtually all at once. The blast beats and double-bass pummeling on Ob(Servant) are as colossal as Psycroptic's brief, catchy breakdowns and soul-sucking vocals. Over and over, the band members prove their gift for switching between death-defying speed, oozing, slow jams and jazzy segues without emphasizing how schizophrenic they actually are. But what's even more surprising than how frickin' eclectic Psycroptic are is how so many people are too busy praising deathcore tripe and trendy noise metal to give these guys the props they deserve.
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