For the record, I’m not a huge fan of the first person approach when it comes to reviews or metal writing, but as this is a personal run down, and seeing as it’s you lot, I’ll break that particular fourth wall just this once…Continue reading
Category Archives: Album of The Year
GUEST POST: DÄLEK’s Top 10 of 2016
Ghost Cult once again brings you another “End Of Year” list, with memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the world. Underground alt hip-hop legends Dälek runs down their list of favorites for us. Dälek released their own acclaimed album Asphalt For Eden via Profound Lore.Continue reading
GUEST POST: Simon Glacken Of I Like Press Top Ten Of 2016
Ghost Cult once again brings you another “End Of Year” list, full of memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the world. Today we have Simon Glacken of I Like Press, one of the top publicists in the UK. If you happen to not know his name, you certainly know the bands he reps due to his tireless work such as Anathema, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, Darkthrone, 65daysofstatic, Bloodbath, Black Moth, The Pineapple Thief, My Dying Bride, TesseracT, Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, SikTh, Mos Generator, Crippled Black Phoenix, and Cradle Of Filth to name just a few. We thank Simon for his thoughtful and detailed list of his Top Ten Albums of 2016.Continue reading
GUEST POST: Stephen Brodsky (Cave In/Mutoid Man) Best Of 2016
Ghost Cult once again brings you another “End Of Year” list, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the world. Today we have our the one and only Stephen Brodsky of Cave In and Mutoid Man fame. In addition to typically busy schedule with his man bands, we were lucky to see him perform with Converge at the House of Vans in Brooklyn this year as well. He graced us with his eclectic list of books and music he enjoyed in 2016.Continue reading
Ghost Cult Magazine’s Album Of The Year 2016: Gojira’s Magma
This past year will go down as one of triumph over tragedy, more so than any other recent memory. It seems that across the board suffering in the world and on a personal level has been paramount in people’s minds. The same can be said for French metal gods Gojira, whose Magma (Roadrunner) is nothing short of brilliance, created from a place of angst and suffering on a level the band hasn’t dealt with before. Not only is it is a technical and artistic marvel, it stands apart on an emotional level for the creators, as well as the listener. The if the best art is made from a well of pain, Gojira hit the bottom of the well and came through an ocean on the other side to get here. Continue reading
Ghost Cult Album Of The Year 2016 Part III
Casting a beady eye over the albums that shaped the soundtrack to our Ghost Cult Albums Of The Year List for 2016, one thing becomes obvious… there are no dominant stylistic trends, no bandwagon sub-genres, other than a plethora of bands looking to push boundaries, whether that is to create new sounds or to refine and redesign. Intelligence, integrity and progression is king, and challenging and interesting approaches to designing and creating music are prevalent, with the deconstruction and cerebral reconstruction of heavy music an ongoing and fascinating development.Continue reading
Ghost Cult Album Of The Year 2016 Countdown Part II
Heavy music. We don’t just love it, we breathe and live it. And we want you to drink in every album that made the list of our favourite albums of 2016. Heading to the business end, to find out even more of the very best of the very best of this years’ heavy music, read on…Continue reading
Ghost Cult Album Of The Year 2016 Countdown Part I
Our goal is to bring the latest genre-pushing work from heavy and underground music’s most innovative artists directly to you, and the end of year “Album of the Year” list is a time-honored tradition that enables us to do just that. Added to the fact that we’re a big bunch of geeks who love a list, the Ghost Cult countdown also helps us highlight the bands and albums that have not only made the biggest impact on us this calendar year, but showcase the releases that have stirred something deeper and more visceral in the hearts of the Ghost Cult team.Continue reading
The Ghost Cult Album of the Year for 2015: Ghost – Meliora
1. Ghost – ‘Meliora’ (Spinefarm)
Released on 21st August, Ghost Cult’s Album of the Month for September and now our official Album of the Year, managed, even in a year in which Slayer released a divisive selection and Iron Maiden unveiled a 90 minute double album after a five year hiatus, to dominate conversations, causing arguments and endless discussions about it’s place in their canon and Ghost‘s status in the world of rock and metal.
For a “new” act to take on the established acts for column inches and internet debate is testament to how successful the Satanic vision of the original Nameless Ghoul has been.
The band formed in 2008 with a simple mission to spread the word of Satan through the medium of retrospective rock with the devil’s harmonies carrying and subverting the masses.
“This is the album where Ghost have consolidated the tricks and tropes that drew us into their strange vaudevillian universe to begin with and the album that will hold us there for some time more. Meloria sees Ghost honing all their tricks into one accessible and often infectious package.”
Much as dream follows day, Infestissumam saw a definite evolution and movement on from Opus Eponymous, and so Meliora is a further celebration of the Ghost sound, of their continued exploration of a musical niche, adding rock opera tendencies, even, at times, grinding War Of The Worlds into the feted gristle flowing through their distinctive Satanic mills as 70’s synths flutter, guitar solo sing, and holding it all together into memorable hook-filled hymns is Papa Emeritus III.
You can throw superlatives, or analyse things to the nth degree, or you can enjoy that most special of things – an album filled from top to bottom with great songs.
And more than anything, THAT is why Meliora is the Album of 2015.
Ghost Cult Top 50:
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Ghost Cult Album Of The Year 2015 Countdown: 10 – 2
Part five of the Ghost Cult Album of the Year countdown for 2015.
One staff team. Over 550 albums covered by Ghost Cult over the last twelve months. One epic race to be crowned Album of the Year.
Read on to dive deep into the Ghost Cult Top 10…
10. My Dying Bride – ‘Feel The Misery’ (Peaceville)
“When the history of doom metal is written, English miserabilists My Dying Bride will have their own chapter; preferably written in gothic script by a quill. After twenty-five years in the game, their long march towards the sinister continues and Feel the Misery has to rank among their best works.”
9. Cattle Decapitation – ‘The Anthropocene Exctinction’ (Metal Blade)
“The grind influences which the band are largely known for are present here, but combine with a number of other reference points and styles in a way that transforms them quite beyond the ordinary. The base-line style throughout is a crunchy, Grind-touched Death Metal that’s as comfortable with punishing grooves and sinister melodies as it is with blasting, but they expand their palette further with quasi-“industrial” effects, atmospheric passages and creepily-effective clean vocal sections.”
8. Paradise Lost – ‘The Plague Within’ (Century Media)
“Not a descent into the darkest bowels of harrowing Death-Doom, then, but expecting it to be would be rather silly. What The Plague Within offers is a sincere, heartfelt amalgam of older influences and current songwriting from a band who have always had the courage to follow their own muse where it leads them, even if it seems to lead them back.”
7. Faith No More – ‘Sol Invictus’ (Reclamation/Ipecac)
Ghost Cult Album of the Month – May “The band picks up basically where they left off with 1997’s Album of The Year. After all; resurrection may be for those who got it wrong the first time, but the same cannot be said of Faith No More whose return is a welcome and worthy one. Let’s hope it lasts as long as it can.”
6. Iron Maiden – ‘The Book Of Souls’ (Parlophone/Sanctuary/BMG)
“For a band with such a celebrated history, it is a joy and delight to confirm that The Book Of Souls stands resolute as one of the best things the band has produced. Ever. An album that works on a number of levels – the strength of the songwriting, the collective and individual musicianship, the range and power of the entire album are all deeply impressive. The Book of Souls is the collective endeavour of a band still resolutely in love with music and still gracious and humble enough to want to share that with its audience. Happy and glorious, from epic start to bombastic end.”
5. Clutch – Psychic Warfare (Weathermaker)
Ghost Cult Album of the Month – October “Thank goodness for Clutch. Clutch aren’t like most bands. Wait: Clutch are not like any other band. Now into their 20-something year of making smart, intelligent rock music, Psychic Warfare sees Neil Fallon and co in the rudest possible health, invigorating and invigorated, creatively refreshed and simply staggering and swaggering. Clutch are a band of sublime brilliance and Psychic Warfare might just be the album you’ve waited all year for. Long may they reign supreme.”
4. Napalm Death – ‘Apex Predator – Easy Meat’ (Century Media)
Ghost Cult Album of the Month – February “That the band still emits a burning intensity, railing against injustice and The Establishment, is reassuring and adds the crucial element of gravity to what is, in essence, a joyous and energising sound. Angry machine gun rattle, powerful skewing punk, flexibility in pace, a hefty boot, veering grind… I bloody love the nose-breaking, careering chaos of it all”
3. Enslaved – ‘In Times’ (Nuclear Blast)
Ghost Cult Album of the Month – March “In Times is a record of staggering, jaw-dropping brilliance. In Times distils the essence of Enslaved in brilliant, grandiose fashion but, like all great albums, suggests new, as yet uncharted opportunities. To use sporting parlance, suggesting that the band are at the top of their game is to truly misunderstand what’s going on here. Enslaved are not just at the top of their game; they are in the process of trying to change the game being played.”
2. Lamb of God – ‘VII: Sturm und Drang’ (Nuclear Blast)
Ghost Cult Album of the Month – August “About halfway through Sturm Und Drang, vocalist Randy Blythe screams: “How the FUCK did you think this would end?!” It’s both a question and a statement of defiance, summing up five years that have been nothing less than challenging for this band. That they have returned and delivered an album this ferocious, this energised, this brilliant, is utterly remarkable and testimony to a sense of collective tenacity and drive that can only be admired. All Heavy Metal records should sound this good.”
