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Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast.

Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.

My name is George.

This is Jay.

This is Will.

This is John.

This is Matt.

This is Markisan.

And this is the 2019 Best of Mid-Year episode,

where we will do our top 25 albums.

So far for this year. Before we begin, I want to mention that the other day we set up everybody on the podcast with podcast emails. So if you would like to email anyone individually on the podcast, because maybe you really like Will, but you hate John or vice versa, or y'all hate me and you just want to talk to them. You can email any of us using our first name at metalheadspodcast.com. So there you go. Get a hold of us. Let us know what you think.

But we can email each other and say who we hate on the podcast too, right? Yeah. So far, all we've done is send dick pics. And by dick pics, I mean not penises, but like people named Dick. Richard. So, you know, put it to better use than we are. Okay. So before we get into the top 25, we are going to do our top five album covers as we have been doing of late. Shall we get into that? Does anyone care to mention what they thought of this year first?

Let's do that when we get to the albums, I guess. Fair enough. All right, well, if we're going to dig into the album covers, then let's start with Markisan. Okay, number five for me is Black Sight's Exile. The Piggy. Yeah, Adam Burke. This cover features an image of a pig god atop a platform with thousands of hooded figures watching it. And this kaiju swine either has the fire powers of Ghost Rider

or he's being roasted alive. I honestly don't know if I should feel hungry or if I should run for my life, but I do know that this is a magnificent cover. It is pretty cool. All right, Matt. My number five is Panopticon and the Crescendo of Dusk. It's kind of that, I don't even know how to describe it. You kind of get the sky. That's the one that looks like my painting I did. Yes. Maybe that played into it.

And you put me at number five, damn it? The Aurora Boy I was going in. I didn't want to go to the top. I didn't want to play favorites. Exactly. Yeah, crescendo a dusk. Awesome. Gian. So my number five, Ashi Aram, Living Tomb. The Artist, I'm taking a cue from Markisan Artist is Dan Seagrave, which I think everyone has heard of. If you're not familiar with them, covers Edge of Sanity and Tomb, Gorguts, Memoriam, Morbid Angel, Rivers of Nile.

If you're not familiar with the cover, it just looks like an underground kind of lost tomb. I guess it's built. It's almost like an underground city. It's been forgotten with some living dead walking around, which is kind of cool. Yeah. And it's a green cover, which you don't see too many covers like that. It seems like there's always these blatant blood red covers all the time. Aside from my children, it was one of the first things you saw when you walked into my house today. I saw that. I said, is that a hint? I had the record.

Yeah. Had the record out. It's a pretty good album too. Spinning it last night. My number five, which mine really are not in that particular of an order, except for my number one is definitely my number one. But my number five, Ultimas, Something Wicked Marches In. And it's the Polish artist Zibnyu Bilak. And it's this, I'll try and mark a sign. So it's almost like a pen and ink drawing. And it's kind of like,

It reminds me of like,

where's Waldo?

There's so much going on in the absolute middle.

Uh,

like the whole scene is just like this intricate drawing of metal chaos,

I guess is the best way to describe it.

Um,

it's really fucking cool.

Very detailed.

All right.

All right,

man.

Well,

my,

I went for a weird basic choice for my number five.

It's a record that I like.

Um,

and it's super basic.

cover but it's very effective it's the hollywood vampires rise it's uh

the nasferatu address i mean you can't go wrong with nasferatu on the front of your album and it's just like uh

what's what's the color here it's like a orangish color and then in contrast is it's like a negative

photo type thing and it's pretty kind of fucking spooky actually that nasferatu well you know that movie

too right i mean that early nasferatu images from that movie are very effective let's just put it that way

I like their cover. Hey, Jay, I've heard of the band Hollywood Vampires. Is it metal music? Not that this album is. Yeah, I don't know. Not to say these have to be metal albums. Like Alice Cooper sings on at least most of the tracks. Okay, all right. I'm just curious. It's basically Alice Cooper, if he has me. I mean, you know. Oh, it's Johnny Depp in there too, right? Yeah, yeah. Joe Perry. Is Joe Perry even healthy right now? Don't know. He was, I thought, no, I thought he was actually sick. Joe Pesci? Yeah, he stepped in for Joe Perry.

Fuck you at the drive-thru. I just saw that. Such a great moment, that movie. It really is. Every time I go to the drive-thru with my kids, I want to yell that out loud so bad. They fuck you everywhere. It's like, I want to be like, fuck Mel Gibson and turn it off, but it's really the weapon movies are still pretty damn good. All right, me. My number five is Superstition, the Anatomy of Unholy Transformation. Wow.

It's a black and white pen or engraving or something. And there's a reaper angel that looks to be coming down out of a hole in the sky. And there's this vortex of skeletons swirling around him and stuff. It's pretty cool. Is it me? Or is there a lot of that kind of black and white pen and ink covers all of a sudden? Yeah, it's like a death metal thing. Seeing more of them, which is cool. It's different. It's a very like, what's his name?

name Gustav Dore kind of thing. It's kind of like most metal shirts too, you know, black and white. I was just lobbying when John and I arrived here and we stepped out of the nice air-conditioned car and we're all wearing black shirts. It's like 90 some degrees already here. And I said, I'm going to petition heavy metal to change the color of most shirts from black to white. You know, I did that. I bought a whole bunch of not straight white, but off-white shirts for the next

Next Death Fest outside and then he brought it indoors. Well, do you recall the last one that was outdoors, I brought a white Blue Dows Nord shirt and completely turned it yellow with sweat. So I was like, oh, that didn't work out. That's interesting because I knew somebody else that showed up in a yellow shirt, naturally yellow. Oh, that was Jay. Actually, I bought that there, but I was so pleased. At first, I liked this shirt, but second, I was like, oh, yeah. Did you bring your pink cowboy hat? It was fucking hot.

By the way, Jay, you were the easiest person to find when we were looking for you. Hey, before we go on, how about the five of us say what we're drinking? Nothing. It's empty. Oh. But it was Atlas Dance of Days. I also had an Atlas Dance of Days. I had the Atlas Ponzi. This is like our, you know, gear up beer, you know, something besides like these big giant stouts and starter barrel aged. Oh, I like the Dance of Days from Atlas. So that's a good one.

I'm drinking a Brimminghorn Wolfwoods. So I didn't want a heavy beer to start. I just start with a mead, which is like three times as much alcohol. Right. Ten times more sugar, ten times more alcohol. I'm going easy. Well, I needed it because the first thing I heard when I got on cast was a Wilgasm. So, I mean, stiff drink. I'm drinking Thim Bull Vedder by Hammerheart. It is a Oats.

Smoked Wheat Double IPA. It's been my jam for quite a while. I buy them anytime I see a bottle of it, I buy it. That's a lot of action just in the words. How's your coffee, Jay? Yeah, I'm just really hitting home. I'm still getting over a cold, not that that matters, but I mean... It's not even 10 o'clock in the morning, though. Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't be drinking beer right now anyway. Is there bourbon in that coffee? Because you'd feel a lot better. No, you know what? I did one of those things last night where you think you're over a cold, so you have a couple. And now I got up this morning and I feel that much worse. I was like,

Well, you know, when Marc-a-san moves to Hawaii, he's going to make you look bad because he'll be drinking, and he's even a couple hours behind you. No, no, no. He won't have gone to bed yet, though. Yeah, it'll still be 3 o'clock in the morning. Well, for these mid-year casts, I'd have to start at like 7 a.m., but I'll still be drinking. Yeah. Just power through. Hey, Jay, when you're sick, you always go to the booze. You stay away from the beer. I know. It was a bad mistake last night. I was like, how many days? I mean, you'll feel worse because you'll be hung over more, but, you know. Yeah. Well, I love that Jay's voice is so

that even a cold can't destroy it. I might even add to it. Every one of his picks sounds like tube mode. Tube mode. Yeah. My ears are all plugged up. That's the weird part. My ears are plugged up. What's up with the bleeding ears, man? Did I tell you about that? Yeah, you did. That sounds kind of scary. No, I had an ear infection, I guess. I was putting the stuff in there that makes it feel less painful. Then you're supposed to put a cotton swab in there.

I kind of fell asleep on the couch or something and I pulled the cotton swab out and had blood on it. I was like, what the fuck? It wasn't like a ton of blood, but I was like, well, that's not cool. That seems to have stopped. Good. Either that or it's flowing in the other direction. Internal bleeding. I had an ear infection one time and it hurt. I thought, you know what? I can get through the night because I was not going to go to the hospital for it versus just going to a regular doctor. So I said, fuck it. I literally had a blow dryer on my ear trying to equalize

the pressure. Finally fell asleep. I woke up and I had ruptured my eardrum and it was just like it oozed like completely down my face on my couch. There was no blood but it was like man ears are fucking awesome. It's like we brought faces of death to the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to hear about your puss tunnels. Just your fudge tunnels. That's a new band right there. That'll be the podcast band.

All right, Mark is on. Number four is Without Light, The Dread Gospels, album art by Jonathan LaMantia. Jonathan's a friend of mine, and he's an amazing horror artist who has drawn covers for Heavy Metal magazine and comic books. And I always thought he'd be the perfect fit for metal album covers, but as far as I know, he's only done this one or maybe one other one. So it's a wraparound cover of these tentacle demon tornadoes that are sucking up a

a bunch of these red skinless creatures who look like they are attached to a planet of purest evil. Wow. Can you just describe mine when I say them? No, George, you did a fine job last time. That was way more than I ever do. That was totally trying to like hold my own against you. You were great. Just be yourself, George. Nah, nobody wants that. Just be you. It would just be fart noises. Don't ever change.

See? You're just being yourself. Now there's that three or four people like, was that real? No. Wait, that sounded wet. Satan's taint. Satan's anus. Okay. All right. Matt, I think? All right, my number four. Misery Index in Rituals of Power. I would describe this as some type of bad story.

I believe these are statues I would compare to what is on Easter Island but

within the stone are skeletons some look like they're screaming some look like they're trying to get out

but I think it's pretty badass indeed

all right my number four

is Sayar, Forgetting Paths

I don't know how to pronounce the singer's stage name. His name is Stefan Todorovic, I believe. He's the singer from Gorgoth, I believe, or the current singer. If you're not familiar with the cover, it's kind of got a in-between fall and winter feel. You know, if you live in a heavy area with a lot of trees, kind of trees are barren and its path is kind of overrun. So I don't know if it's a metaphor for a forgotten path in your life or this guy just likes this forgotten path out in the woods that nobody takes anymore.

Maybe it's the left-hand path. Ooh. That's not the artist, but I like that. And they're a band that will be actually coming to the States in a couple weeks. Oh, where are they playing, John? They'll be playing at Atlas Brew Works in Washington, D.C. Come one, come all. Ooh. Never heard of it. Sold out. If you don't have a ticket, you're screwed. Ooh, I'm screwed. Because I can't make that drive, I will see them here in the 612, but I'll be thinking of it.

of you guys? I do. Well, George, you know, you just rhymed. You could probably work at the brewery and then you could watch them from the other side. Yeah, you could perform services. All right, my number four. Thank you, Will. This is probably a band no one's heard of except for me because they play Atlas all the time, but Thonian Horde. I haven't heard of them. Yeah, their album came out this year, Downfall, which is a really great album, by the way. And their cover artist was Gilbert Miranda for Laguna,

and it's uh as you guys can see here it's a very black and purple um cover but it's like another like pen and ink drawing or engraving and it's got like a big gothic cathedral in the background and it's got this demon woman who's got boobs showing on and various spectacular boobs it's always started with that yeah yeah it's got like these big like almost like uh water buffalo horns on her head she's got owls on each arm and shoulder chasing with

with lions chasing after a priest and a nun who definitely look like they're in fear for their lives. I'm scared just hearing about this one with these animals. Dude, check them out. There you go. What's his number three? There you go. Hold it up. Hold it up to the camera. Yeah, let us see. You got it closer. I'm sure was that your five. No, that was my four. No, I mean the other one on the page. That was your five? That was my five.

Okay, my four are now getting a little bit more into the realm of metal versus my last one. I know this record struck a chord with at least two of us this year, but I also like the cover very much. Legion of the Damned, Slaves to the Shadow Realm. It's a cool cover, man. To me, it feels like, and I'm starting to wonder, I don't know a lot about this band, except I know they've been around for a little while, and I'm starting to wonder if not unlike Immortal, they have a running storyline or something.

something like that which I really need to check it out if they do have a running

storyline this seems to be the part in the storyline where the White Walkers start heading down south you know what I mean it's a really cool looking cover by the way the artist is do you know the artist I do not it's a Guglia Havanaznak from Hungary Julia Guglia that sounds like a foreshadowing coming up right there you know maybe it sort of does

That stated, it's just like a good, cool, graphic novel-y type cover. It's pretty fucking badass. And it's a great record, too, so that helps. Per usual, I don't have the artists. I should know this by now, but I don't. Shame on you. It was all I could do to get five album covers in, like, a day. My number four is Spirit Adrift Divided by Darkness. Nice. So it's kind of cool,

because there's a lot going on in there. It's like there's this path of skulls and there's this girl with a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other. And underneath the path, you can see there's these wolves. It reminds me, this is what sold me on it, was the wolf looks kind of like the wolf from NeverEnding Story, like the nothing or whatever. And I'm like, oh, that's badass. And there's a dude. And there's a tree that has a mouth.

and there's stars and there's like a

one of the stars is

we're spilling

beer everywhere

anyway it's really cool

stop flailing about George

it wasn't me

trust me that sounded really cool

that's going to sound cool on the pod

sometimes we have

a crowler we just popped in sometimes they're

great and sometimes they just

It comes out the other end. Yeah, I did that the other day, too. It did not want to go into the cup. Yeah, it just goes down the side. You're like, hello. Right. It's an imperfect sign. There you go. But they're great. Catch the runoff. Right. Is that me? That's you. This is me. You guys would like to like we're doing the thing where you pour the champagne pyramid there. That was nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's what he was doing. In case there was runoff. So John got us a

Prowler of Maine Beers Lunch, which is a phenomenal IPA. Oh, yeah. We should do this. Cheers. Cheers. Drinking out of our laser engraved Metalheads podcast tulip glasses. Courtesy of Will. That's good. Yeah, they're phenomenal. I got them made because George always has shitty glasses. To the rest of the world known as pint glasses that most people drink beer out of. Shaker glasses because they're made for shaking drinks.

You know, while we're kind of in an in-between place here, I'll tell you, I've had for years the Bose noise-canceling headphones, which really do, I think, sound quite good and everything. Underwaterautom.com. Five, six, seven years. I had them for like five, six, seven years, and they pooped out on me the other day, finally. So I got my money's worth out of them. So I had to go buy some headphones last night, and I got the new ones, the new Bose noise-canceling. Noise-canceling technology has apparently come a long way, because if my house was falling down right now, I would not know, dude. Like, I could own, I cannot.

I don't hear anything but what you guys are doing. If everyone on the screen their eyes get real big and you just see the mouth of something there's somebody who just opened that door behind you. I mean dude these things shut everything out. All right back to Mark's on for number three. All right my number three is Ossuarium Living Tomb. John mentioned this earlier it's album art by Dan Seagrave.

He did a good job with the description. I would say it's a broken down

horror castle of death that somebody abandoned in a swamp.

Is that horror castle or horror castle?

Horror.

Both.

You're so dirty. You're so dirty.

Probably because every nook and crusty cranny

is infested with hibernating bone demons.

Probably.

You know what that sounded like?

That sounded like a handyman's dream,

like what they do on a real estate site.

You know what I mean?

Hey, Marcus, is it me or do you feel like the one dude that's in the water who's getting ready to walk up the steps, he's just doing a loop constantly and it never stops? Oh, he just makes that so much creepier, dude. And there's a guy on the right side that's walking down. Yeah, it's just the constant up and down. Honestly, dude, you made that a lot creepier. I didn't even consider that. I thought it was like a tourist going like, well, let's see what's going on up here. Whoa! I don't know.

I kind of them as like the caretakers. Yeah. I took a wrong turn. I took a wrong turn. Where's the rest of my group? Matt. My number four, I naturally assumed that that guy was taking a bath because they don't have any running water inside. Osirium, Living Tomb is my number three. And literally, as you guys were talking about, I was looking at him thinking like, yeah, he's showered.

He's probably looking for a towel. He's just going to get on with his day. You know, at the Castle of Death. Are these like the zombies walking around in like an old Roman bath or something, Matt? Yeah. Turkish, you know. But yeah. Between John and Marcus Son, I have nothing to add. You guys summed it up perfectly. That's a good cover. Yeah. All right. My number three.

Sirens, or Sires, Holy is the album. The only way I could describe it is it looks like it's the Grim Reaper acting as the Pied Piper pulling in all these rats in this kind of barren, desolate area. I don't know if it's either morning because of the red sky or it's like the end of the planet. That is cool. But it's just kind of this creepy little... It kind of looks like a half halo, half mushroom cloud. Yeah, it's hard to tell. Explosion going on.

The band is Forlet. F-O-R-L-E-T. Sires. S-I-R-E-S. The album is called Holy. Okay. Holy Diamond. I forgot the most important part. The artist is Adam Burke. We've heard of him. She's all over 2019. The style of artwork, think of the last Hooded Menace album, is probably a good descriptor of his character.

depictions.

I'm going to look it up right now.

You know, if I totally wasn't cut, I would totally call my guy the hooded menace.

Can you, I mean, is it able to add, are we able to still add that back on?

Apparently there is like some device where you can try and re-stretch it out.

Yeah, it's called the clothespin.

So my number three,

sticking with Dan Seagrave's Memoriam,

Requiem for Mankind.

Nice.

And it kind of looks like this is like Darth Vader's castle in a way on,

what's the name of his planet?

Darth Vader's planet.

It was in episode three and Rogue One.

With lots of lava.

Yeah.

So anyway,

it's like a,

it's like this like Gothic kind of grave slash castle thing with a statue of two soldiers.

with guns standing on each side. And then there's like a casket in the middle of this like molten, almost like Raiders of the Lost Ark, like the molten pit of death. And then... It looks inspired by Glacial Tomb. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. And now I'm just embarrassed that I'm blanking out on the name of the planet. Mustafar. Mustafar is the name of the planet. Oh, yeah. Mustafa. Yeah. Ooh, Mustafa. Oh, that's good. That's a good color. I like that.

Yeah. Dan Seagrave does nothing terrible at all. I bet his wife doesn't think so. So eloquent. All right. Mine is, and my next two, I think, in particular, both covers that I think look just like I would hope they would look. Meaning when you listen to the record, that's kind of, I might not have pictured this, but it sure captures it once I see it.

Two Mold Planetary Clairvoyance. Too early. Too early. Are you serious? It's not out till end of July. If it's on your list, you better find something else on your list. I got some fixing to do. Well, you know what? I'll stick with it for this list because this is the covers list. But that's a bummer. Jay's number three is any one of ours so far. Yeah. I'll have Ossouarium. Give me one of yours. There we go. Good job. That's a bummer.

That's an excellent choice, Yashi RMJ. Thanks, I put a lot of thought into it. On today's episode, the part of George will be played by Jay. Oh, that's a bummer. It's been a long time, George, but you're off this nine, finally. Of course, he was jumping the gun as opposed to doing last year. That's true. I have to say, when I was putting together my list, there was a couple of them like, oh, that was last year.

from the future. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, in California, it's out. Yeah. Well, that'd be Japan. Yeah. So that moves us on the map. Or George. Me. So, courtesy of Will, I know that mine is by Dan Seagraves, and that is Memoriam Requiem for Mankind. I'm disappointed in some of you guys. Like, you know, listen, you wouldn't say like, oh,

My favorite album is this album and not say who is the band. You are correct. I just have, like I said, I had zero time to put my album covers together because, you know, I didn't think we were going to be doing this episode. And so my list was very last minute. Okay. Okay. We're getting there. Yeah. Hey, I've got a list at least. Yes. That's a good list. You had to listen to me bitching and whining and going, I can't put together a list in time. And all I said was, why don't you just look at the

the albums you bought this year and just pick five. Look, I just did mine in three seconds. Yeah, well, I did ones that are not necessarily on my list, so. Does it have to be on your list? Nope. All right, Mark San. Number two is Gorgang Neon Groves album art by Juanjo Castellano Rosado. When I look at this cover, I see a future version of the Ossouarium art. Picture, if you will, dear metalheads.

A single piece of brittle castle trapped in a forest bog, now covered by tentacle-like vines. All the bone demons who resided in the living tomb are gone now, but the remains of one ancient resident has somehow remained intact. This poor devil would certainly be lost to time and the unvergiving swamp, if not for a miraculous bright blue radiance that suddenly shines upon his open tomb. Here, in a place where only death has ruled

for aeons, the long fossilized form of the last demon suddenly begins to bleed. That's pretty fucking good, man. Let's just wrap it up right there. And this is why Markisan is doing all the text for all of our future episodes. He did the last one, by the way. Could you tell? Is it weird that he's got chubby? I love that cover. No, it's not, actually.

Matt. Try to follow that, by the way. Matt's like, why do I always have to follow him? Try and draw mine out or something, because this is going to just sound horrible. The band is Frosthelm, and the album is Pyrrhic. I do not know who drew it, but at first it kind of felt like very Lord of the Rings-ish. It has this kind of gigantic mountain with many layers, and it looks like kind of something oozing out of it with a light.

But then you look down lower and there's a dude kind of at the base with some type of weapon and a lot of dead people around him. And I thought, you know, he's got some shit to do today. He's got a to-do list. That's a really, really great cover. Good choice, Matt. Thank you. John. All right. My next two, I know at least one person will appreciate them. Jay, I think you'll like these. Both my next two covers have a very retro sci-fi look to them.

And I know Jay's a big fan of all that old artwork like I am. For sure. My number two is Lord Dying Mysterium Tremendum. Artist is Stephen R. Dodd. And it's just, it basically is kind of an image looking at kind of a alien planet. Three little pyramids sticking up. I don't know what they are. It's kind of almost looks like 70s. Yeah, it's got a very 60s, 70s look. It's almost as if like you're the eyes looking

you've just landed on this alien planet you've never been to before and that's the first image you get so we talked about this when we had temple avoid on about how their album cover their two covers kind of you had could extrapolate so much from them and then we come to find out one was an old book i think wasn't it the first album which one yeah it was yeah yeah you know so i love those old sci-fi books where you had to try to pull so much out of the image to kind of figure out what the story was about well and then and in some cases when they were kind of the lower grade

they had nothing to do with a book. You read the book and you're like, wait a second, where's the guy with the worm in his head? You know what I mean? Well, Jay would be like, you know, evil men from Mars. And it's a picture of a half-naked lady with just like the little bowl thing over her head and like a little air pack on her back. And you're like, huh. Yeah. On a surfboard for some reason. I go to book fairs and I pick up old sci-fi books just for the covers. It's kind of like metal. I still do that now with metal too. But with books, that's

That's how I get them. I love the crazy covers. I just got one called The God Whale. And it's a fucking mechanized giant blue whale on the cover. I think you posted a picture of that. I did. It's so great. It's so cool. I have no idea what the story's about, but I don't even care. Won't live up to it, I'm sure. So, number two.

Slag Heads Lesser Workings Volume 1 and the art is by Head Split Design. I just thought it was really cool. It kind of looks like a half burnt, half frozen, sort of decaying skin man and looks like they captured him in slow motion doing toe touches. Exercising with like crazy fire and embers like in the background. Yeah.

That's what it looks like. It's pretty cool. A jazzercise demon. Yes. A jazzercise demon. Yeah. You don't exercise your demons, you jazzercise your demons. I only say that because I've been watching Stranger Things and that popped up in the mall. Yeah. All right. Mine is well known as a favorite record of mine, but the cover captures the essence of the record very well. And it's

I would call it the old and the new, possessed, Revelations of Oblivion. You know, like, obviously I love this record. I've talked about it a lot and stuff. And if you go back to their first, the Seven Churches and the way it looks, which is just red on black writing, it's cool and everything. But this, now they've kind of come into the future now or into the now, as it were, and it's a lot more complex what they're doing, a lot more well-produced. This is what it looks like.

to look at. You can really spend some time on it. I'm not going to overdescribe it. Oh, and it also has Bazuzu on it, which is a common emblem or icon that shows up on so many metal records. And there it is right in the middle. And that's finally. Awesome. All right. My number two, as I mentioned to these guys earlier, you could probably turn on the news and see something similar. This is Sulphur English Inter Arma.

It's got the burning tree. I just, ever since I saw this, it's been a very striking cover to me because you don't see a lot of yellow and orange unless it's a Merciful Fate album. And every time I see this, I'm just like, wow, I just, I just have to look at it. It's really cool. And, you know, the, the, after the second earthquake in California, they've been showing a lot of video footage of this house burning and there's a tree in front of it.

There's been a second one?

Yeah, last night there was another one. Oh. Fire. 7.1. Are you serious? Yeah. Oh, wow. Fire. They got lucky that it's centered out in the desert. Yeah, same episode. Yeah. Yeah. Ridgecrest. Yeah. They got real lucky. Trevor felt it. I saw that. First thing I turned out. Really? I didn't even know there was another one. I opened up Facebook this morning on the crapper and I was like, and Trevor was like, I felt that one. Yeah, it's a public service announcement. Never let George give you his phone.

And so I was like, huh, better check CNN. And there they were. They were like, there's another earthquake last night. All right, back to Mark's on for number one. Before you say it, can I just tell you, I think a bunch of us are going to have the same number one for some reason. I don't think you guys are going to have. Not me. Okay. Nope. My number one is Critical Defiance Misconception album art by Bastion.

I'm familiar with the album, but not the art. Yeah, you should check and look at it on your phone. Badass tech soldiers in a blood cloud about to enter a portal to a hell dimension between two collapsing towers, possibly in space. Also, there is a flayed skeleton left that may or may not be a flag. Hmm. That was so possibly in space.

I love that cover I like it too because

yeah there's some sci-fi in in metal but I haven't seen a cover that's this good that's really captured something

that's like hell and sci-fi at the same time what I've noticed is you pick a lot of covers it looks like it has military men with guns on it

space marines I think you like the outer heaven cover before his point being Markisan is that

Will's 2019-20 calendar from his days, and the Marines will be coming out soon if you're interested. Men out of uniform. I actually thought of that. No uniform with his gun. This is Will's gun. His little Walther P-38. What a piece of shit gun, by the way.

When I was a farm instructor, so many people, if you put your, if you shot the gun and you put your left thumb behind the slide, so many people who went to the hospital with like gashes in their thumb, getting stitches. Cause anyway, it's a piece of shit gun. Garbage. James Bond is an idiot. Fucking Brett. Matt. All right.

One. The band is called Orados. The album is Gods Without Name. The best way I can describe it, it totally feels like a painting. You can feel that texture in it. I'd say the bottom half is cloudy, barely visible, like a single-room church. As you go up, there's just this faint skull in the clouds. It's just super dark and depressing and cool. Coolio. Again, completely underwhelming.

the way I describe it, but go check it out. Maybe get a print for the house. It's more on your delivery because it sounds like you're about to fall asleep. I'm trying to hypnotize. It's a subliminal messaging to us. Buy this album. Hey, Matt, let's do an experiment. Describe that beer you just drank. This beer is fucking delicious. That's about the same. I don't know anything about the beer. Smoky, hoppy, double,

India Pale Ale.

Yeah.

It'd be funny if one day we discovered that Matt was controlling us all with his hypnotic voice.

Right?

You listen.

Obey.

Obey.

Obey.

Obey your thirst.

Let's go to John.

All right.

My number one, Marcus, I think this actually is a very sci-fi and metalish looking cover.

Okay.

because you were saying that I have I have the full version of it so it would be if you uncut if you uncut if you unfolded the gatefold on the album the album is entity the band is nucleus and I believe that is also in Adam Burke and yes when you open the whole thing up it gives a little bit different view which it looks like a number of different spaceships are attacking either some I don't want to call it a city

I don't know if that's what it is or if it's some kind of like space station they're attacking it and it looks like a giant space station yeah it looks like one is either attacking it up front or it looks like what is it what was Darth Vader's massive ship the executioner yeah that crashed into the Death Star it kind of has that feel this kind of space stations on fire upside down there's like a city on top so you're actually looking at it from outside down because in space there is no up or down right so it kind of has the feel it was a

Close Encounters, when the ship turned upside down. That's the tagline for Alien. Yeah. So it's a very cool cover, and it's got this kind of impressionist feel to it. So there's no real heavy detail, but you can make out everything on it. It is very cool. Yeah. Good album. It's on my honorary mentions. See, and there's a lot of cool sci-fi like that. It's a great cover, but it doesn't have the horror element to it that I liked with the Critical Defiance one. So that's what I like. It mixes the two. I will tell you, if you zoom in closely and look through one of the window ports,

some people look pretty scared in there as their ships getting blown up.

That's why I'm worried.

Hey, Marcus, if you like sci-fi and horror, you should check out a Star Trek episode with the Tribbles.

It's pretty horrific.

Greatest episode ever.

Wait a minute, Will. Hold on.

Is that them right there on that Four Let's Sires album cover?

I think so.

All right.

My number one, I thought for sure this would be Jay's number one.

I thought for sure.

Legions of the Damned.

The Slaves to the Shadow Realm. This is, I said it before, by Guglia Havnaskzak, a Hungarian artist. Anyway, like as Jay described, there's a big giant castle in the background, and literally it looks like something from either a horde of orcs or White Walkers, kind of like, or a very good way is

What's the guy, Bruce Campbell with the chainsaw? Oh, Evil Dead. Evil Dead, yes. Army of Darkness. Yeah, the Army of Darkness armed with weapons. And then there's like a central figure almost looks like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars riding a skull horse with a cross like strapped upside down on the horse. And it's like a very evil blue dark storm clouds in the background. It's fucking, it's badass. And some of the people are holding,

Decapitated Heads and some of the Heads, I think in this, or that was a different one. There was like Pope Heads, but it's a different album cover. So anyway, it's fucking badass. Speaking of Emperor Palpatine, is it me or is that episode nine trailer, is that not Emperor Palpatine at the end? He's going to be in it. Oh, he did. Have you not watched Star Wars and there's a single The Force? Have you not read any of the comics? Hello? Yeah. Should be interesting, I guess.

Yes.

Darden.

Did you not read Dark Empire?

I don't know, did I?

That was the whole premise of it.

What?

Of him living.

I'm not dead yet!

I think I'll go for a walk.

Right in.

Moving on.

Obviously, so I screwed up on this one too, so I had to change it because our cutoff

was obviously June 30th, right?

Yep.

Fuck.

Okay.

Well, that's why I thought we were all going to have the same one.

I assure you my list list is sound. Well, you can tell us what it is still, even though it's wrong. Well, I did give it a replacement, so I'll tell you what it is. And I honestly thought we would all probably choose the Immortal Bird record because it has a great fucking cover on it. But that's fine. It comes out on July 9th or whatever. So I will go with instead one that was on my Honorable Mentions record that started slow with us and then kind of came back and at least a couple of us got fond of it. And it's Ordos the End.

I really like their first cover and this cover reminds me of I'm I'm betting you know this Markisan Wayne Barlow's Barlow's Inferno do you know that oh anybody else know that nope oh dude you guys got to look up Barlow's Inferno it's this guy who did this art book about the hellscape as it were and this nine circles of hell and all that stuff it's and the art on it is insane now that this this doesn't have the same definition as that meaning high definition

kind of fine.

These are more impressions, but I think

The End is a super fucking spooky cover.

So I'll go with that one.

It's a good one.

Nice.

Cool.

Yeah.

That's the one where they have the hooded characters

like coming away from something in the background.

Well, that's a good question.

Coming away or going towards, it's hard to tell.

So because I actually took it the other way.

But yeah.

Coming or leaving.

Like a monolith in the background. And also, their first record was just as eerie. I look at it, and I like this kind of like, you can kind of make out what's going on, but not all together kind of thing. Georgie Boy. My number one is Possessed. Oh. Nice choice. Which is what? Revelations of Oblivion. And I think of this as Hogwarts in Hell.

This is what happened to Hogwarts. Wait, I haven't seen the last movie, so he doesn't win? No. Oh, god damn it. Maybe that's Hogwarts in the underworld. Yeah, this is the anti-Hogwarts. In the upside-down world? Yes, in the upside-down. The upside-down. All right, so there you have it, our top five album covers of the mid-year. Do we want to talk about our listeners?

before we begin the album list?

Yeah, let's talk about it.

Let's talk about it.

All right.

Who wants to start?

I mean, what do you want to say?

Oh, well, I mean, I guess I'll start.

There's a lot of good music this year, but I didn't, not a lot of them just captured me like I didn't have this holy shit moment where like this is my number one and there's nothing in the world that's going to knock it off.

Because even this morning, I think I could take, I think a couple of us said this before, like we could probably take like our six through 25, mix it up in a bowl like you're playing like the Powerball and just spit them out in an order like, yep. And they're all good albums. And John and I were talking about this on the hour-long drive up here is that I think, so I physically own over 80 albums that have come out in the first half this year.

I've probably listened to 30 more on Bandcamp or something that I've previewed. I'm like, ah, put it in the wish list or I'll get it later or something like that. But these are still 25 solid albums, but I'm not, this is not just like this. I don't have an overwhelming connection to a lot of them. But if you're my top five, like I fucking love all these albums, but it just, I don't have that like, holy shit moment with them yet. Yeah. I mean, my number one is,

pretty number one.

But I would say with the only exception being my number one,

any one of these albums,

I would consider that they should be higher on my list.

Anything on here.

My 25 could easily be my 24 or my 23 and so on up the list.

Any of these could be higher.

What I do like about this when we do it in the beginning of the year

and the end of the year is that some of the ones that your honorable mentions now

end up high up on your list at the year end because you just either spent more time with them or you just look at them in a different perspective and some of the ones are like on your list now like obviously you don't have room poor bastards get cut they're getting cut oh there's a bunch of stuff gonna get cut i mean because we got by the way a brutal second half of the year coming um like i just noticed that cattle decapitations is in the can yep um carcass is probably coming out i mean i'm

I went for the big money there. But obviously, there's a bunch of other titles I can't think of. Oh, man, there's a bunch of stuff of mine that's going to go straight into the graveyard. Yeah. Crip Sermon, Tomb Mold, Immortal Bird, all of those albums, I think, are contenders. Yeah, a number of things that we've actually heard, but our second half albums. Yeah, it's going to get brutal. But I agree more or less with Will. I wasn't too deeply passionate. There's a lot of stuff on here I really, really like.

I didn't put anything that I don't kind of stand by, but nothing that three years from now I'll be selling to people, you know? I found my taste to be strange. I fell into like pockets of genres that I really dug throughout the year. Whereas there was a lot of releases that came out that I dug and I should probably, I shouldn't say I should dig them more, but I was, I just didn't like, again, they're really good albums, but I just didn't find myself like crazy driven to them. And I feel like I would describe my taste as almost a little bit bitchy so far this year.

You know, like, definitely awaiting that Carcass album. I feel like that's been my most anticipated album for, like, the last. We've even when we've done the list, I'm like, oh, yeah, Carcass was always like, okay, it's coming out this year. It's coming out this year. And I'm feeling like opening that's coming out. But yeah, kind of strange so far. For which there's no guarantee, by the way. The only guarantee this year is that Tool is coming out in August. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Is that metal? Yeah. I don't consider it metal, but.

I know people do.

I kind of feel like the early albums were more metal and then the later albums are more rock.

I consider it metal.

I don't know what else you,

I don't know if I could put it in a rock category.

It's like an alternative thing to me.

I mean,

like,

you know,

kind of classic and hard rock and there's maybe there's a classic and hard alternative.

I mean,

like Nirvana was heavy,

but it's not metal.

Soundgarden,

early Soundgarden anyway,

was kind of heavy,

but it wasn't really metal.

I just put Tool in with those kind of bands. Damn you, the 90s. Yeah, the 90s. The 90s fucked everything up. Nine Inch Nails just had a few times, but that's not metal. Well, I agree with you guys about the list. I was shifting things around right up until cast, and I feel like I could easily shift stuff again. And maybe I will during cast. I don't know. So other than Jay, who's made the most recent change? Mine was like two hours before podcast. Mine was right when John picked me up.

I made one when we all sat down. I think I did finish mine yesterday at some point. Jay, up until you found out certain things were what they were, what was your most recent change? Probably two days ago, in all honesty. I knew this was going to be a hard list, so I really, and I've been, probably like you guys, I've been kind of more or less keeping at least the possibilities list pretty much since February, maybe March.

of putting things in order. And I kind of did that, like I said, two or three days ago. And I didn't really change anything. But obviously, thankfully, I had some honorable mentions and I was able to scoot those up just now and to account for what just happened. Transpired. Those things that I just learned. Yeah. Let us see what other bathroom talk transpires here on Metalhead's podcast. All right. Let's do this.

This is the top 25 albums of 2019 at the mid-year. And we will start with Markisan number 25. All right, got to commit. Number 25, Ossuarium Living Tomb. I really like this debut. It's dirty old death metal. Gets me riled up. But I just feel like I could use a few more tricks to it. You know, there's a lot of bands that are doing death metal that I think they're evolving.

the sound, like Tumult, I think these newer death metal bands had to step it up. But this is a really great start, solid death metal album, and I'm looking forward to what they do in the future. Yeah, I think there's like this wave of, you know, kind of Tumult, Outer Heaven, Osarium, where it's sort of like this like slightly buried, unrecognizable lyrical vocal thing going on, and the production is like good, but it's kind of just all like blended and muddied and stuff.

And it's like, I wouldn't call that good production. But it's done purposely that way, I guess. See, I think they are slightly different because to me, they're a little more deathy doom and they slow it down a little more. But I do see your point, Marcus. I could see why with so many other bands doing the same thing. They have to do a few tricks on the album, but there's just not enough. It's pretty much the same old school death metal.

It's really good. I love listening to the album. But I feel like they have to take it to the next level for it to go up on my list. That's all. That one was for Trevor. It needs to be a little bitchier, like Matt. You know what? Who doesn't love a little bit more bitchy? A whiny death metal band? Or hypnotic? Death metal, not in a good mood.

Matt? All right, me, my number 25. This band comes from Switzerland. They are post-metal, and the band is Herod, and the album is called Sombre de Son. It is on Pelagic Records. That's really all I know about them. You put a little French twist on that, too. I'm really trying to step up my pronunciation game. In fact, I've spoken to people who speak French, and I want to not let you guys down this time.

Even if you're still awake and listening. I really want to eat a croissant right now. So. You know, when I was in Canada, I was in the French speaking part of Canada fairly recently. And you go to so many places and they greet you with bonjour or whatever they greet you with. And you're like, hi. And they're like, oh, yeah, you're an idiot. And they switch straight to the best English. Another one of you. Fucking non-French.

You know what's funny is that's what the French think of

French Canadians. Quebec. Yeah.

They think the same exact thing.

Fake French.

Posers. Yeah, I think they just go

they don't even mention the word French.

Hose it.

Les posers. Have you seen Letter Kenny?

No. No.

I've seen a few clips. Yeah. It has a great show.

It's a Canadian show.

It's hilarious. You just need to watch this show.

And there's

They head over to a French-Canadian town and everybody there's all very French and their assholes. That show is so great. Letter Kenny. Go watch it now. It's on Hulu. It's on Hulu. I've watched like four seasons of it. It's amazing. Hey, George, real quick. George gave us the Motorhead Road Crew American IPA brewed by Arcadia Brewing Company up in K-Zoo, Michigan. Kalamazoo? Yeah, K-Zoo. I'm sure locally you call it K-Zoo, by the way.

I was a local. I never called it that. But anyway, my question is, how long have you had this beer? Longer than this. Oh my god, that's why. Actually, it wasn't good when I got it. You're an asshole. I tried to give it to you at the end of year and you didn't take it. How much do we have to do before we break another beer out? I'm pouring it down the drain. I can't drink it. Just chug it. Go out of the neck.

Come on. You know. All right. Before my number 25, I'll chug it. You guys watch. Hey, Marcus, the only lava I want to see is on an album cover right now. It's pretty bad. Anyway. Yeah, no. I should have told you that it was bad. I knew it was bad, but I wanted to see what you thought. But you had no problems pulling it out. Hey, take one of these. Yeah, no problem pulling it out. George. Should we talk about what we're drinking? That's better? Yes, please.

Well, I'm drinking Exiled Angel from Scorched Earth Brewing. It's a Belgian-style golden ale barrel aged in gin barrels. Nice. That is sweet. So you already went through that whole thing of mead. I did. It's not that bad. You were a champion. I'm halfway through this one. It is strong. So can we do our 25 so we can get a beer? Yeah. Go, John. All right. My number 25. Hopefully I get these pronunciations right. I believe the name of the band is Mastis.

or Mestis.

And the album is De La Quest.

They're Portland, Oregon, Death Doom Band, Funeral Doom Band, I guess.

It's their second album release.

It's a solid, I think they're more Funeral Doom.

I guess some people think they're Death Doom, but it's a solid Funeral Doom release for me.

But with most Funeral Doom, I listened to it a few times and I'm like, I'm going to take the year off now.

That's enough.

But there are some nice moments where it picks up a little bit and it's just not, you know, one snare hit every 47 measures. But it's a nice, it's a solid album. I like it. Cool. My number 25 snuck onto my list right at the last minute as John was pulling up to my house to give me a limousine ride here. This is kind of compliments of the dad of Northern Darkness.

Kind of compliment that these guys,

I'm pretty sure just either did play or are going to play Atlas.

Either way,

I wasn't at the show yet.

Either it wasn't at the show,

but a my knock dreaming in a dead language from Raleigh,

North Carolina released back in January,

just solid,

solid black metal.

Just fucking Matt hearts.

You super like lots of hearts.

Is that a pick of the month for you,

Matt?

I feel like it was. I believe it was. My P.O.T.M.

That sounds personal. Get to a doctor.

I am a doctor. Can't you tell by my voice?

Dr. Rector. I like cocaine.

Call me Dr. Feelgood.

I'm going to call you Dr. Bitchy.

Ooh.

That feels like a business card right there.

Isn't that a kiss song? Dr. Bichie, yeah. Not Dr. Bichie. It's on Rock and Rollover, I think. Yeah. I'm honored if Gene Simmons wrote that one. Yeah. Well, he sings on it. All right. All of them. All right. I'm going to take Marcus's, Markisan's tack here and kind of critique my 25 and say what's wrong with it.

Because I am. Because I know this won't live through the year. And I also know George and Marcus Sun both very visually on our thread, our chat thread, rejected this album for their lists. But I liked it. But there's something really specific about it I don't like. And I liked it a lot at first, and it's kind of starting to get on my nerves. But I still want to give it some hype. And that's the Death Spell Omega album, The Furnaces of Pallenge and EZIA.

I thought you liked it.

I do. I think it's really solid, but the more I listen to it, the more I cannot take the atonal guitar lead kind of harmonies this guy puts on. Whoever their guitar player is, they need a different guitar player because he's always in some either super obscure key that kind of goes with what they're doing or doesn't go at all. I can't tell which. It's the only thing about their record I can't stand and it's on almost every song. And I really kind of like this record.

So I'm going to give it a shout out. It's my number 25, but it won't survive until the final, the end of the year. If you've listened to it at all, you probably know what I'm talking about. It's just got these really atonal. Yeah. It's like, what do they call it? Discordant kind of. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, like Voivod did stuff like that too. Voivod. If you know, but this one, this one keeps grinding my gears, man. And it's just like, even though I, again, when I first put it on, it's like, wow, this is fucking cool.

But there's another record on my list that I think outdoes it. And it's a similar style record. In any case, Deathville Omega, The Furnace of Pelangian. All right. If you're wondering what the faces we're making are right now, John and I are eating one of the cookies I made to try and get the taste of his fucking beer out of our mouths. Wow. Last time I give you guys beer. Last time you accept beer. You don't hold an IPA for fucking like...

year.

Yeah, dude, if that's a stout, it's probably aging nicely.

I thought that was the whole point of IPAs, that they traveled for a long distance as well.

Yeah, but like maybe two months.

You can't go around the globe twice.

Yeah.

I forgot about that when you asked about it.

I was just thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

Jay, it's only because it took the boat that long to get from where it was going.

Yeah, I assume.

But maybe this is the case that they left on and went back home.

They're like, oops, we still got one in here.

I mean, traveling inside George's refrigerator from one side to the other for six months is not exactly the same kind of trip. The moral of this story is, fuck George. I would drink your beer, George. Oh, your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. I don't follow that. It's a song, I think. Drop it like it's hot. Number 25, George.

Hath of Rot and Ruin. I first heard of these guys when Matt from Sludge was pimping it. And I was like, well, I got to check it out if he likes it. And I liked it. And you can see why he likes it. Yeah. And the fact that it's at 25 is like, what? But that's the story on my list today. You know, I think it's the production that kind of might put it down to 25. Production on that record is not amazing.

or the mastering or something.

There's just no bottom end to it.

But it's a great record.

Yeah, I almost bumped it, and I was like, I can't bump it.

So something else had to stay off the list.

I really like that record a lot.

Can you hear the sink in the background?

That's Will dumping out the beer.

He's sanitizing our glasses right now with high-pressure valves.

He's shaking his head like I failed him in life.

Somebody's washing this on the tip of my tongue is something. It tastes like let me ask. I'll tell you Anacostia tastes better than this. It's certainly fresher. Oh dear. That was terrific. Thank you for the cookies. Those are my award winning peanut butter rainbow unicorn tear happy cookies. It was delicious. Spectacular.

You give me tasty cookies. I give you shitty beer. Pizza was really good. Yeah, I gave you pizza. Thank you very much. Oh boy. That would be we're going to drink a big bottle of mead right now. There you go. I don't know if you can see that Markisan Sentinels. We're about to pop open Brimminghorn Meadery, which is fucking one of the if you have not checked out Brimminghorn Meadery in Milton, Delaware yet, they do have an online mead

I'm in it. Yes. And they, by the way, the guys there, John and they're awesome. Robert. Yeah. TR, which I don't know how you get TR from. Or JR. Sorry, JR. Speaking of TR, he goes there all the time. He actually went there for this release and met Matt Barlow. Oh, nice. So we're drinking the, we are Sentinels mead, which was made

for Matt Barlow of Ice Earth fame and Ashes of Aries, but I believe this is geared towards the Sentinels band that he's in right now. Yeah. I'm hoping that they'll ship to Hawaii. I thought of you recently because I have a bottle of that very mead, and I was like, that's right. Markison's in the club, and he's moving pretty far away. And I'm not going to be making mead because we'll be getting an apartment because we don't know if we're going to stay.

in Hawaii. And I make mead with my friend who lives out in Wisconsin in the woods. So I'm not going to be making mead. So I would like to get some brimming horn, but we'll see. I might have to send him a message or just take a look at the website. And for the record, I've had this one and it's very good. I like all their stuff. And shockingly, it's red mead for his red hair. Well, while George is rinsing, do you want to tell us what kind of mead?

As I get older, I need glasses to read. They welcome the club. Special edition, Glorious Kingdom. Grape and apple mead with spices aged in oat barrels for three months. It is a mere, it's kind of interesting, it varies between 11 and 14% alcohol by volume. Which is interesting because in the beer world, being a brewer, you can only be off by like a couple tenths of a percent. And this varies by 3%.

I actually have a club exclusive mead on deck. I saved my club exclusive versions of the mead for this cast in particular. Not to say I'm a pretty big mead fan and I need to drink more of it. Well, hopefully you can get in the club because I think it's the best way to get the Brimminghorn and Brimminghorn is the best mead I've had here in the States. Maybe an opening in that club.

Just stay friends with me, Will.

Well, I will say that

JR sent this to me

personally.

All right.

Name dropper.

Well, it's because he wanted to come to a show at Atlas.

The Shaper Despair show.

So I got him some stuff and sent it to him

like t-shirts and whatnot.

And so in return,

he sent me mead.

And it's delish.

Cheers, brothers.

Rock on.

All right.

Skol.

Definitely better than the motorhead beer.

So we're like an hour and a half into this,

and we've gone through one pick.

Yeah, yeah.

We have really good momentum.

This is the fun part.

Yeah, we're still going up the hill on that roller coaster.

You got to get that first one out of the way.

All right, let's go.

Let's roll.

24. My number 24, Matt mentioned this for album cover, Frosthelm Pyrrhic. Nice. This is thrashed into black sorcery with sweet, sweet hooks. They were a lot more thrash on their last record, but they slowed things down on this one. I think it's worked really well for the band. I quite enjoy spitting this one. And it has an awesome album cover, as Matt detailed for us. But would have been better detailed by you, just FYI.

Ben, Matt.

Me, 24.

So this band, years ago, by years, I mean like 2010-ish.

I knew nothing of them, and then I read about their genre being a mix of folk metal and Gothenburg metal,

neither of which I'm diehard about, but then you put those two together, and something about it just sings to me.

The band is El Vedi.

The album is Ategnatos. They're from Switzerland, and this comes via Nuclear Blast. I think I've listened to that one. It literally sounds like a mixture of folk metal and mellow death, and it just does it for me. I love it. It does it for you? It does it for me. Right. John, what does it for you? My number 24.

as the 24th album of the year. From, I believe, Markasson's current Neck of the Woods, soon to be former, possibly Neck of the Woods, Nucleus Entity. Good sci-fi themed death metal. It's their second release. I want to like it more. This, Markasson, would be my, your Osierium, this is my Osierium. I like it. They're solid. They're tight. Just need a little more from me. But it's a good album.

I totally agree with you, John. I think I could like it more if I listen to it more. But for right now, it sits here. Yeah, I'll just say it's not on my list, but it's incredibly well done tech metal from my home today, as you mentioned. But it just lacks the riff. There's a lot of technical dickery on it, but not the big fat cock. Dickery. I think part of the problem. Did you just say technical dickery? Big fat cock. He's been around us.

I just I picture it can only be like Cox do technical dickery or are they less apt at it because it's just sort of like fills the whole space no like your diction you can explore that on your own time will but yeah nucleus it's a really good album I just there's not a lot of you can't grab on to it I think part of the problem that's memorable too is the songs all run together so it's hard to differentiate the break in between some of them but it's a very good album though and I like it and I'll probably end up liking it more as the year goes on

Do you think it'll make your list eventually? Oh, it's on the back end. It's got a chance to fall all the way off the honorable mentions at this point. It can either go to the way at the end of honorable mentions or to number one. See, I just real quick. I didn't really say much about how I came up with my list, but really outside of my top five, anything's game to be on or off for the year end. My top five, I feel confident about, but we'll see. All right, Fred. My number 24, I'm not sure if I'm going to get,

I don't know what people's reaction will be for this. Either that it's even on my list or if it's on my list and it's at number 24. Candlemas, The Door to Doom. Oh, okay. T2D. Came out in February. Guys from Sweden. Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Yeah. It was a long time ago. It does. I was shoveling snow when that came out. I like it. I just forgot about it. Yeah, it's good. It's just sort of like doesn't. It's really good. I listened to it again yesterday. Yeah.

It's good. I need more time with it. And I spent some time with it. And maybe that's the indication that it's at number 24. It's like, it's Candlemas. Like, it should be on the list, right? And it's good. But I'm like, I don't know. Is it made of the first two months? Were they just there? And then March came and, like, albums started dropping hard. And we all got attached to other bands, I think. Yeah. So. Trey? Mine is a band that George has sort of, I don't know if he's pimped them.

a couple of times, but they come up. George has mentioned them a lot, and he had some commentary on this particular album that the first one was pretty great coming out of the box. Second one kind of lost everybody's attention, and then the third one, they kind of came back around, and they're putting albums out rapid fire. And I have listened to all three as they've come out, and I do agree that the new one is a very solid effort. Memoriam, Requiem for Mankind. Third time's a charm. Yeah, third time's a charm, indeed, because this is indeed the first time they've made my list, so even more so.

So true. Yep. But a super solid album by them. Totally fun to listen to. Yes. Um, yeah, it's pretty down here, far down here at the end of the list may not survive. We shall see, but, uh, uh, solid record. Awesome. Yeah. Agreed. Before I do my 24, can I just, just throw a little more love towards Raminghorn? I go, I go to take a drink. I could just sit here and sniff this all day long. It smells so fricking good. John farted.

It tastes like autumn incarnate. George's metal basement cave cool studio smells so much better than George and John's hotel room at Decibel Fest. Thanks to Jay. Anything smells better. I can't tell if Jay's expression on his face right now is like, I'm so embarrassed or fuck you guys. I'm proud of myself.

I don't know about it.

You're like the

At one point, you know, when we're like

I think, Will, you mentioned the road

When we did our movies, metal movies

At one point where we're living in that kind of world

And it's the road, and it's like, you know, there's this one time

A decibel fest

There was the great Jay

Who had made his presence known to the world

And we could not get out of that fucking room

And everybody here

Was there for it

It smells like the ossuarium

Covered look

I don't want to drag this out but I think we can all agree the best moment of that is when TR was standing and just look at us what the fuck is that? Metalheads Butler! Metalheads Butler! It's funny I texted TR the other day and I said hey Metalheads Butler! Did he respond? Yes. He says do you need me to take your picture or pour you a drink or what do you need? Give me.

My number 24 is Superstition, The Anatomy of Unholy Transformation. It's a New Mexico death metal band on 20 bucks spin. If you haven't heard this, you should check it out. Aren't they going to be playing at Atlas soon? Yeah, yeah. They're playing with Tomb Mold coming up in like a couple weeks. Awesome. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be, I'm excited to see those guys. Cool. That's about all I got to say about that. So, all right, back to Markisan for number 24.

Number 23 for me is Ultimas, Something Wicked Marches In. I'm glad everyone's now pronouncing it Ultimas. Yes, you fixed that. You corrected us. I actually even spelled it with a U on my list so I wouldn't fuck it. So really, are people still getting fooled by that V? V in metal is never V. I know. Well, neither is it in Roman. Like Oiod.

That's closer than what you pronounce it.

It's not OYID.

OYID.

That was a good one.

Really well executed death metal jams that I have fun singing.

Yeah.

It's weird because I almost considered that an EP.

Because it's pretty short.

What is it like 33, 34 minutes or something?

You know, it's funny because I look back at like, well, Slayer is like 20, uh,

28, 29 minutes.

I'm like, is that the cutoff?

I don't know.

Wait, mine's like 34.

Oh, those are the bonus tracks. I like the short albums more and more, to be honest. Yeah, I've said that many times. I think seven songs is about perfect. 40 minutes is the just sweet spot, especially with Vrwanda by vinyl. 20 on each side is perfect. I was listening to that Merc Rider album at the beach. I was telling you guys about the one where it looks like the cover has Philanotte on there. It's a 119-minute album. Wait, is that a Therian album? Did they want to stay just under the two?

I guess man I was just like flip it over or was it no maybe it was an hour and 19 minutes hour 19 minutes sorry not 119 minutes hour 19 minutes so 79 minutes yeah but I was just still long as hell yeah that's rough there's a couple albums I left off just because they're too long I get fatigued listening to them yeah you know even though they're really good I'm just like man just cut a couple songs or cut these songs down yeah I mean that's a fair point are you rinsing

You're drinking a Gatorade and Birmingham? I'm just trying to hydrate, man. Okay. Just be happy George is drinking beer, man. I'm very happy. Very happy. My apologies, sire. All right, we're on 23? What are we doing? Yeah, it's Matt, I think. My number 23 from Norway. Also on the Pelagic Rofter. Wait. I did.

Yeah, so, from Norway, also on Pelagic Records, some more kind of sludgy post-metal. The band is called Savor, and the album is called They Came With Sunlight. Are you getting paid to pimp these fans? I signed a couple endorsements. This is what happens when you're bitchy. All right. That's all I can say. More obscure bands await you at bitchymatt.com.

By the way, I should mention since last episode, if you were listening, when Ray from Immortal Bird was on here, I did in fact acquire metalheadspodcats.com. And I hope to be pointing that at a new page on our site soon with the guys with their cats. Cool. I have pictures from Markison by nobody else. I will have pictures of our neighborhood cats that I take care of quite

of it. So do my children. I have this one that's spectacular. I just, I don't have no idea where it is. Like I find this picture. You can have hundreds of pictures. I just won't have any with my cat because I'm highly allergic to them. So I can't have them close to my face, but you'll get plenty. I can Photoshop it like, you know, cat butt in your face. No, no, that's not natural. It's not natural. You want to get it when it naturally happens when you're sleeping and you wake up, you're like, what is this before my face? Oh, it's a cat. What is this? Which we've all experienced once in our

It's cat butts. But you need to pause at that moment, George, and just have a meow. I always kind of tuck the tail. Yeah, there we go. There's Jay's little one. Jay needs to be letting that person show well. John, give us that meow again. Look at that pretty kitty. Meow. One more time. Meow. So I can sample that later.

All right. My turn. So I should state that every single one of these albums on this list, I got from George. No one else. He's influenced me on every single one of these. So even if these are bands that I've been listening to for 30 years. I bet I know who this is then. This is all George. And I'm grateful for this one because I actually love this album. It's the new Mord, Stigmata, Dreams of a Quiet Place.

They're Polish black metal post black metal avant-garde. I believe it's their fifth studio release. I wouldn't say it's proggy, but it's a little more experimental. And it's a solid album if you're into that type of black metal. And Poland seems to have a lot of black metal right now. Yes, it does. And children singing. Yeah, what's great about Polish black metal, you don't have to skip any of the songs. Except for Behemoth.

But there are no children singing on this album, so you can listen to the whole album and enjoy it all the way through. There's clearly no children. That snarky little laugh at the end is the best part. Yeah. She's laughing right at me like, I know you hate this. Wills Walther P38 is back in the hole. Yes.

Number 23, all the way from Washington, D.C., Witch Trial. Self-titled album came out in April. This is like this great mix of speed metal, punk crossover, thrash. It's got two members of the guys who are in Genocide Pact, Connor and Nolan. They've played Atlas a couple of times. They just fucking bring it. And I love the album. I predict this one will be

later on.

Oh,

yeah.

Cool.

Check it out.

Which trial?

All one word.

Well,

this,

this is the first time I've done the mid year.

I've always ever done a year endless.

This is really weird for me.

Cause a lot of these bands,

I don't know if they're going to survive or if they're going to move up,

if they're going to drop off.

I really have no clue.

And so I would say about this stuff from my perspective,

about half drop off.

You know,

the key mark is on the mid year.

Don't get attached.

No, I'm serious.

Kind of like that show of the leftovers.

Yeah.

Like, you know, go ahead and have your fun with them, but don't kiss them.

Yeah.

Like, if you have favorite characters in Game of Thrones or Stranger Things, don't get attached.

Don't get attached.

Because you're going to dump them and they're just going to be, come your end, you're going to be like, who?

Who?

Number 25.

Who?

Yeah.

I also wonder, you know, we were doing the albums of the month and I'm looking at it. I'm like, are there albums that I might pick that will rise above the ones that I picked for album of the month? Will those albums of the month remain? You know, it's funny. I had to go back because I haven't looked at our website in a while and then they're all listed there. And I'm like, oh, I completely forgot I put that as album of the month. I know. I was like, I should probably look at that and make sure all those are on my list. Exactly. That's why I did it. Do you guys want me to send that to you next time? Because I keep a running tally. Yeah.

I was on vacation. I still need to post this month or last month rather. It's a good check because it's like, if I don't put this on here, am I a hypocrite? Exactly. Well, no, because I think January was such a dead month for all of us. I could see where you wouldn't have your January album of the month on your list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. I mean, here's the thing. You can do whatever you want. Like 24 and 25 are already going. They're already off your list.

They're gone. At the end of the episode, Matt will be addendum. I have an addendum to his. I'm going to change number 24 and 25. I've already got it redone. Is that in the contract? He's already redecorating post-metal. Can we start over? BitchyMatt.com. There's like an addendum in those contracts. Like, I just have to mention you once and then I'm done. Matt has renegotiated his contract while we've been talking. Exactly. Put the fucking t-shirt in the mail and get it to me. You're done. All right.

I take comments at Matt at bitchy Matt.com. And I'm spent. All right. Who's next? I have no idea. Who was that? Will? That was me. May as well. So Jay. Jay. Here's one that I forgot came out this year. Because it came out, I guess, in February, I think. I'm the only one that likes these guys, but I do like these guys. And their records are always a good fun. Trill Fest, Norwegian Fairy Tales. Cool. Plus the videos for this ones have been great. They've got a lot of cross-dressing in the

videos and stuff, really funny stuff.

And we're big on cross-dressing here on Metal House Podcast.

That's right.

Well, you know, I hope they come back to America again soon.

They were here a couple years ago, and they were so much fun live.

And the records are, sometimes when I'm bored and I don't know what to put on, I'm like, I'll put on a fucking Trollfest record.

They are cool.

And it's, yeah, it's a cool afternoon.

You know, I mean, it's good stuff.

And this is a solid record that they did.

All right.

Cool.

Nothing says party like a gaggle of trolls.

Indeed.

My number 23, I can't believe this is 23, but hey, what are you going to do? Worm Witch, Heaven That Dwells Within. It's a good one. Yeah. The more I listened to that, the more I was like, Jesus, this is a good song, too. This is a good song, too. And it's way a huge step above their first one. Yes. Which was pretty good, too. They reminded me of, what the hell? I can't believe I'm blanking. It's only been like three beers. Ben from Louisiana, from New Orleans, is in a

The Maryland motherfuckers. Mighty Ducks. That's good. It's like my mom. Remember that kid Mike you went to school with? You remember him, Mike? No. I grew up in the 70s, Mom. Everyone was named Mike and Jennifer. And Kevin. All right. Mark us on number 22. 22. Jeez, we're already there. Okay. See, it's just rolling right along.

I feel like it should be higher.

When I first heard the record, I actually thought it would be my top five.

But it doesn't even get past 20 at mid-year.

But it's a great revitalization of the band.

You know, getting Johan Lankvist back was like a shot of adrenaline for this band.

They needed it.

The vocals are never sounded better.

And that includes, I think, the first Canabass album that he was on. But I love guitar work. I think his vocals are better on this. I do, too. It was like 30 years ago. It's called technology and production. It's so good. The guitars are great on it. They're epic. You get the Tony Iommi guest solo. That doesn't hurt. So I thought this would be higher, but it's sitting here at 22 for me. About the Tony Iommi guest solo, it does not sound like Tony Iommi at all, dude.

It took me, I had to keep going back and be like, which song is it that he plays that on? And I was like, no, it's this one. Yeah, it doesn't sound like him, but that's cool. You know what, Mark is on? Because I had it on my list and it was like, I think 24. And I think for me, it was just my mood this year was in a different direction. I think that's the best way I can describe. And so that's the beauty of the mid-year. It was like, you may, the second half of the year, when it gets cold, fall rolls in, you may be in the mood for some more candle mass. Do you know what it is for me? Except when you're in Hawaii and it's just summer all the time.

I think for me this album's not out yet but the Crip Sermon album which is a lot in the same genre as Candlemas is just so much better and so I think that's what dropped Candlemas for me fair enough can we take a break while I beat the shit out of George right now there's some by language you're trying to not agree with

for another episode.

Yes.

All right.

Matt.

All right.

My number 22.

I've never been a diehard for this band, but I definitely have enjoyed this album quite a bit so far.

It's at 22, basically because I've spoken of my distaste for the lack of the intense keyboard player.

The band is Swallow the Sun, and the album is When a Shad, It Was Forced Into the Light.

Wow.

Right?

Right.

Right.

Why are you wowing?

Because he's sorry.

I like to say wow.

I just like it.

Wow.

Here's the thing.

With the mood I'm in right now, you might see that number 12 too.

I may be shifting.

You might just be like, no, no, no, no.

It's my number 12 now.

Bitchy, Matt.

So what are you going to do about it?

Yeah.

So Matt's negotiating.

Apparently he's got a new bid in.

Changes.

Well, the FDN, it could be a long-sleeve shirt.

So that kind of...

And a sticker and patch.

Hell yeah.

Do you know how we were doing the pictures of us with a word underneath it?

Matt's word should be bitchy now.

Itchy.

Obey.

I need to work on those two.

Obey.

Oh, yeah.

There you go.

I'm curious what everybody's word would be.

Obviously, Will's is obey.

Obey.

Actually, it was Obey Will, but we could change that to Rue Metal Will. Yeah, I don't know what everybody else's word would be. I'm afraid what my word would be. Neil before Son. That's right. Matt at Metal Heads Podcast, let me know what you think. They're customizable. All right, my number 22. I'm actually surprised this is on my list because I've been down on this band for a while.

It's not disturbed either.

So, and I'm surprised. I didn't think I'd like this album, but I think it's a decent album.

And it's the new Dream Theater, Distance Over Time.

They have just the post-2001 period after that.

I've just not been big on anything.

I was a big fan of the early 90s, mid 90s stuff.

But this is solid.

They still have the same issues that I don't like, which are weak verses or weak choruses.

What else is there? Weak verses and weak choruses.

Weak riffs.

Weak everything.

So the riffs are good, but all the lyrics are bad.

No, the lyrics are bad.

Maybe it's just the wrong combination of words for choruses or the direction.

Images and words?

I like that a lot still.

But I don't know if it's going to make it on my list.

Oh, it's almost like a pity pick. Which is what happened when we all got married, by the way. Yeah, but we're not the ones. No, you know what it is, Marcus, is that for a band I like so much in the 90s, it's hard to not like them as much anymore. I love Dream Theater, but I have not liked any of their stuff for a long time. It's been a long time. There's always been songs I've liked, but never consistently on an album.

The fact that they, when they went to Jordan Rudis's or keyboardist, it just got a little too, I mean, they were always going to have a lot of technical stuff, but it got way too much. A lot of wankery. Well, I think with this album, and they've kind of been doing this for the last few albums, they promised it would seem to be heavier and it's just not. So I think the heaviest thing they've done in a long time. It's heavier. Yes. But yeah. I think I just came up with the motto for our podcast here. Excessive wankery. Yeah.

For sure. Oh, I've got my word slash phrase. It would have been get off my lawn. But now it's keep that shit in your own yard. Well, I'm trying to think of a pithy transition, but I can't. So I'll just go. My number two, fetid, steeping corporal mess all the way from Seattle. Old school death.

metal band kind of reminds me a lot of like nucleus to mold outer heaven when did that come out june did it yep i check all of them all right i literally so you can see my list right here i don't want to look at your list now this is i've already talked about all these but i put i checked the month all right just checking because last i looked it wasn't out that's i'm not saying you're wrong i just said it's out thank you okay

If Markisan says it's true, that's like better than the internet. That's like the gold standard. Yes. Holy shit, I better check that. Okay, Markisan, now you gotta really be vigilant because it just takes one fuck up and then you're done. Then we're ruthless. Well, listen, that's not true. Jay's fucked up like multiple times already on this show. Yeah, but Jay doesn't have any credibility.

He's half Pinocchio. Why is his nose so big? When your expectations are low, you're like, hey. You can only go halfway up, right, Jay? That's right. I'll take it. Yeah, old school death metal. I mean, just it's solid. It's good. Lots of riffs. They're coming to play Atlas in the fall, so it'd be fun to see them live. Boy, I'm looking at your guys' drinks. It's like you're sitting in front of the fire with a cigar or something right now. I don't want to drink it because it smells so good. I'm just like, man, I just vikinged my drink in a second.

I mean this does smell this smells like a Yankee candle it's like yeah without the four month lingering smell speaking of uh so just for the record fetid came out June 7th luch that's right that's why I say Yankee candle yeah I mean seriously there's so much like apple in this it's ridiculous it's almost like you're on an orchard you're the apple of my eyes it's like it's like you planted an orchard of apples

inside a vineyard.

How you like them apples?

I like them a lot, actually.

It's a little salty.

There's no need to be that excited about Mini Driver, by the way.

George wants to be British today.

Did you guys notice that?

Oi!

Oi!

You missed my Matt sample.

It's a little salty, but it's not bad.

If I could be no for one thing, that would be us.

It's a little salty, but it's not bad. And there's your tagline on the website. Maybe you should add that to the bio tagline. You know, you need to follow it up with mine. Which one? It's a little salty. Oh, yeah. Chapped ass. Okay. Hold on. You know, salt really hurts when it goes on your chapped ass. Followed up by. Oh, I like dicks.

I was looking for.

It's like pinata sounds by George.

Perfect amount of length.

Absolutely holds my attention.

I gotta fit this in somewhere.

And then of course.

And then of course.

Must dick would be good.

A preview for later.

Take your goddamn pants off!

We seriously have not been drinking that much today, too.

It's really funny.

Only on 22.

All right.

You know, when you listen back to this, like, we're all sober when we start.

We're like, oh, yeah, what's your number 20?

Oh, well, I'm okay.

What's your number 25?

And, like, 22, we're like, yeah, everyone's got a good buzz on now.

I can't pull it off.

I buzz pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah. You usually know because I was like, my number fucking seven. Where are we? 21. Me. Huh? Me, my 22, which we can run by pretty quickly and save some time. It's actually a good solid record and it's not on here just as filler. I've listened to it a bunch of times and dug the shit out of it. The descriptor from the band coming out when it came out was 80s. And that's pretty true. Dark Throne, Old Star. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. It's not an 80s.

black metal record so much as just a fucking 80s record, even though it's got, you know, black metal vocals on it. But it's it's it's funny how some of those bands like from the kind of true cult developed into now they're making sort of like what the non true cult bands would have been making in the 80s and the 90s. As strange as that sounds. So like better production, they're all embracing and that kind of thing. This is a fun record to listen to, man. And obviously legends. Yeah, true cult with V's, by the way. Sorry, George.

True Culp's filled with Vs. Yeah, indeed, of course. Oh yeah, Travou, Cabal. There are no Vs in the universe. My number 22 is Misery Index Rituals of Power. That's all I've got to say about that. Okay. 21, Mark, it's on. 21 is Half of Rot and Ruin. Nice. A crushing but inventive death metal album that surprised me on almost every track. Growled choruses,

And then there's like a laid-back sexy guitar solo break in one of the songs. So I didn't know what was going to come next. I mean, it's very much a death metal album, but then they have these little flourishes throughout that I kind of enjoyed in that album. So I thought it might actually come higher, but... There's some opethy and thievery there, to be frank, and that's fine. I mean, that's not a problem, because I dig the record a lot. But yeah, yeah, it keeps you guessing. And again, I understand why Matt from Slate

Lugged likes it and he was the one to turn me on to it too by the way of his Facebook page. Matt. All right me 21 from Florida or Florida however you pronounce it. I feel like this album is hung on my list since it came out and that is Soul Mass the Weakness of Virtue. I forgot about that one. Nice pick. That was this year huh? Don't you forget about me. That was John's pick of the month for January. And Will's. Yeah.

Don't don't don't you forget about me. Speaking of 80s, I was talking about Soul Mass this other day because at the last show we had an atlas with the chasm and from Mexico. They were headlining. Damien from horrendous was there who is the producer on that Soul Mass album or the engineer or whatever in his studio. He did something. Yeah, it's subterranean.

Who's that guy in the back of the room? Just hanging out. Checking his email. Yeah. All right. I guess that means it's my turn. Yep. Our friends from Wisconsin and Minnesota is my number 21. Ukiyaru, Madness and Creation. Number 21! Yes. Their third full length. You've heard us talk about them a lot. It's a solid album. I like it. It is. A little different than the first two, I think. I think we'd all agree on that. It's a little bit more melodic. Yeah.

I think so. But you wouldn't know that from seeing them live. Because they bring it live. They brought it. Yes. Damn they were good live. But if you haven't heard them you may want to check them out if you like that kind of black and melodic death metal or. And even if you don't check it out anyway. Yes. Oh yeah. I will. All right. Willem. 21.

I forgot that I had as my album of the month. And I went back and looked at it like, oh, this is why I like it. Wretched Fate, Fleshletting from Sweden. These guys do some super heavy liberal use of the fame boss HM2 pedal that is just screams old school Swedish death metal. Solid album. If you like it, it's if you like Entombed, you'll like this album. I like Entombed. You'll like this album. I like this album.

Esto es una de los dos dos.

It's one that goes back to my youth. Recalls a lot of, let's call it Bathory, early, early Bathory slash Venom slash whatever. Bewitcher, Under the Witching Cross. Yeah. A lot of fun. It is a really fucking cool. Yeah. And that's, and sometimes that's how you get on my list. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like, it's a good time. You put it on. It kind of takes me back. Nostalgia. And yet, you know, not a complete rehash of anything. Good stuff.

I feel like I got that from Matt. Oh, did you? Are we talking about an STD or an album? Like what? Both. Be Witcher. Didn't you mention Be Witcher? Possibly. No. It's totally me. Spoiler alert. It's not on Matt's list. A lot of times. That sounds like something I'd say. Right. Am I a good actor? No. Let me check my t-shirts. Yeah. You don't have to be when you have hypnosis powers.

Are you guys getting sleepy? Yeah. Yes, Master. All right. My number 21, yeah. If this was a Pete Townsend album, it would be Let My Doom Open the Door. But it's not. So it's Candlemas, the door to doom. Interesting. There's a Candlemas cluster in the lower 20s. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you right now.

It's in the wrong place, but fine. Somebody's going to be really embarrassed when they have this as number one. We're all like, what? Yeah. Oh, I'm already feeling a little like that from some time. You'll see. John's pulling a J, dragging Ukiyara down. I see how it is. Oh, God. Ukiyara's not even on my list, so. J, always dissing the guests. I think there are those ones that are like almost

podcast bands like and then there's always one standout one of us is like i don't know and i gotta be honest with you i don't see what you guys see in that band really be perfectly honest i always try to be a little kinder than that don't yeah just not my cup of tea well you're drinking coffee dude oh there's the problem that's the problem there's your trouble tell you my trouble is this glass has been empty for so long jesus christ guys are fucking alcoholics nobody's forcing you to drink it that fast

20? Yeah, Markisan 20. Number 20. I think John maybe introduced this band to me. The Moth Gatherer. Esoteric oppression. Credit goes to Matt to introducing me to that band who gets credit to George. Oh, look at that. It all goes back to George. Just because of Ordos. That's the whole only thing that I, Ordos. Okay, I heard Ordos first. Fuck you.

We are all winners.

It's sludgy post-metal with some slow, meaty riffs to it.

I really like this album. I spun it again recently. I hadn't in a while.

I was like, fuck, this needs to be on my list.

But it had been a while since I put it on.

Excellent choice.

Good.

Thanks, John.

Thanks, Matt.

Thanks, Matt.

Thanks, George.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, George.

Great job.

What are you about to pour there, Will?

Team Metalheads! I'm about to pour the... Hold on. The way you're gripping it, it looks like it's something else you're going to do. Big black grip. The adroit theory, Dia de los Muertos, Russian Imperial Stout, but don't rinse out your glasses because we just had the apple and grape meat. That'll go great with that.

that has the purple lettering on it that is aged in French cognac barrels. I've had a version of that and it's quite good. When we had the Outer Heaven horrendous Fauxhammer show at a droid for the anniversary party back in January, I got two cases of the Dia de los Muertos and every single one is a different variant. Aged in different barrels.

I don't think it's a mid or end year episode without an adroid theory a big giant Russian imperial style but yeah all right poor John and that or hardy wood yeah it's uh or did Matt just go no it is me um I'm realizing wait what was your number 20 moth gatherer moth gatherer yeah Matt's right um which totally gives me like son's little lamb vibes I don't know why anyways the

The album, not you, Marcus. So my number 20, I'm realizing like many names on my list, I've never pronounced out loud. The band is, I'll just start out with that the album is on Season of Mist. They are from Canada. I think the band is Numenorean. And the album is Adore. Numenorean? Adore. Cool. 20. They're the band that's got the controversial last album cover. Yeah, with the dead kid. Really?

Oh yeah, I didn't know it was controversial, but I was like, that's what Bill. Some people got kind of burned up about it. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Are you guys saying you're firing me? No, no, never. For like a different one? Never. No, I actually like that. I'll keep you forever. You have to. I need time to listen to that album. Slayer. Forever. Hello, Shaggy. I don't know what that was, but it was something. Thank you.

Probably disowned me for putting this album so low, but I'm not the biggest fan of this band, but I did enjoy them at the Decibel pre-show when Will just got leveled and popped right back up and then provided us with hours of bloody fun. Such a good set. Wait a minute. We're recording? On a boat?

It's gonna leave a stain. Anyway. On the white leather. Yes. The album is Inner Armor, Soul for English. Richmond, Virginia. Everybody has heard us talk about these guys. This is the first one that really resonated with me. Not so much because it was proggy, but I thought they experimented more with their sound on this album. And even though they experimented more with the sound, it still translated really well live. And their set was just crushing. Yeah. You know, and we've all talked about it a million times since then.

It's a very good album. I like it. And I will probably continue to venture more into their previous three albums. Definitely. I would say. Paradise Gallows. Paradise Gallows is way better. It's so fucking good. It's good. I like it. I just think that maybe my preference for the type of music falls more with this one. But so far, those are the two that I've enjoyed so far. If you haven't seen Inner Arma, they're one of those bands that is definitely better live than they are on the album. Yes.

They also cut out all the filler. And there's always filler on their albums. I've seen those guys a bunch of times. I mean, I saw them at the Rock and Roll Hotel, I think when they opened for either Pelican or Russian Circles. And it just, the place was just, it was crazy. Yeah, I was at that show. People always say, oh, well, this band is so much better live. And I've never felt that before. I'm always, a studio is always better than live. Live may be good, but not the case here.

I totally agree that I feel like you cannot capture their energy, their live energy on an album. It just, you can't do it. And wow, are they fucking incredible. Well, first off, they sound good. Not album replica good, but it still sounds like the album, but it sounds like a live version of the album. Now that I've heard them live, I can hear it better. I go, oh, I know what this is supposed to sound like. I understand why this sounds like that.

Because my previous issue with them was the production. I was like, eh. But now that I've heard them live, I get it. Yeah. I think also, too, and I think we can all attest to this, it's not just that. It's also the fan interaction, watching them. I mean, I, in standing, not in the back, I was just by the bar, which was only 20 feet away from where everyone was standing up front. Just watching everyone just moshing or slamming, whatever you want to call it, and people falling down and getting back up and screaming and yelling.

I think that adds to the atmosphere of their show. Looking over at Will and going, what are you going to do? Bleed on me? Well, I would say if you like Inner Arma, come to Atlas on Friday, August 30th. I just might. I will not be there. I'll be at the beach. What? Who's going to bleed? I'm kind of bummed about that. Who's going to bleed? We'll just push somebody down to the ground and have them back up. You have to bleed.

All right. 19. We're in the teens. No, we're not. No. You're number 20. Oh, my number 20? Do I have one? Yeah. No. 20. I thought we were only doing our top. Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. All right. All right. Who's next? I have no idea. No. My number 20. Thank you, Jay. Legion of the Damned. Slaves of the Shadow Realm. Jay.

I don't know if this was a private message

on Grindr or something that he sent directly to me.

But he said, because he knows I'm a big creator fan,

he's like, if you like old school creator, check this out.

And that's exactly what it's like.

You know, I'm saying this half tongue in cheek,

but you know I fucking told you guys about this album months ago.

I know, but George, you have to understand.

If you told us about this album on an episode,

You realize when you go through your list, we all fuck mentally and physically. What the fuck am I bothering for then? If nobody listens to me. It's for the listeners. It's not for us. Yeah. Will's not going to listen unless Jake hits him up on match.com. Yeah. I mean, it probably had a little more weight because I would not do that to Will very often. But so like maybe once every six months, I'd be like, Will, I think you're going to like this one. Yes. But I kind of just get back on that.

It starts out really, it could be Endless Pain or Pleasure to Kill or something. In all honesty is where it starts out. But then it goes a lot of different places. It's obviously more modern. This is what I wish creators sounded like now, in all honesty. I was just thinking the other day, I was like, we need another creator album. It's been a couple years. It's been like two years. But Milo's voice changed. This guy's got Milo's old voice. But it's not a total theft thing or anything. I mean, there's more to it than that. It's a good record. It stands on its own. Yeah, it doesn't really have like,

Well, there was some band from Australia that was literally lifting Slayer riffs. Yeah, I know. I forget who it is. I mean, it was like... I mean, it was almost telewrites. Yeah, it was like thievery, but this is just worship. Yeah. And that's okay, because there's a million bands out there that worship Black Sabbath, and some of them just say that out loud. Yeah, and some of them sound too much like Black Sabbath, and that's not what these guys got going on. They've got their own thing. It's a good fucking record. I'll be watching these guys now.

I would swipe right on them

sorry I don't know what that I know what you're going for but I don't know what I know it's a

dating app yeah it's a tender thing but I don't know which way right means

I think that means good okay I don't know it's good yeah I don't know I've never used it

oh yeah none of us have

never that's not how we all met just grinder

you know I don't know if we're the same as grinder but

bitchy Matt on tinder

My 20 is one that I was talked about a couple of times by several of you. And you guys always have influenced me. But when certain titles keep coming up, I'm like, okay, I better check that out. Because there's not enough time to check every fucking thing out. But you guys are right about this one. I know it really hit home with a couple of you. Crips, Cadaver Circulation. It's fucking heavy as fuck. Like heavy as fuck, dude.

That's the first way you get my attention. You can be fast, slow, whatever, do me. I don't give a shit. But if it's got that kind of like dead weight, lead heaviness to it, I'm going to make it through the whole record. And then I'm probably going to love it. So George, what was your face for? I told you guys about that. No, no, no. It just sounded like somebody opened up a tire and everybody was like, ah, and all the air was coming out. We opened the crypt. Exactly, exactly.

And everyone's dead for the methane gas. It's appropriate that Jay is the one that opened it and the methane gas. It is funny. By the way, Matt, explain to your children that the anal vapor coming out of their butts is methane. And if they fart in their face, they will die. Fair enough. Just saying. That's a very relevant conversation to be had. Have you had that conversation well? Yes, because my kids love the fart.

They call it booty sauce.

Yeah. And they're like, and like, they're totally, they don't mind like farting on someone.

I know that's what I'm saying.

Like, Oh, you're sitting on my left. So let's just fart. I mean, you wouldn't think to stand up and maybe go in another room before you poop yourself.

My son's nickname is Lord toxic bottom.

Jay's got nothing on my son. I have to say.

No offense, Jay, but my son does have superior to anal vapor. There is another. You know what I mean? There is another. There is another. Holy shit. Do you call him LTB for short? No. But I will now. Oh, shit. Oh, man. Is it my turn? Number 20, Joe. Okay. I can't believe this is 20, but what are you going to do? Memoriam, right?

Requiem for Mankind. Wow, it's low for you. I thought it'd be higher. I thought so too. What are you going to do? They're not breaking any ground or anything. They're great. It's a good record. I did a lot of that. Actually, it moved down the spot from this morning. Can't wait to hear what your number 19 is. My number 19 is what moved it. Obviously. Markisan 19.

is Idle Hands and Mana from Eisenwar Toshin Mead Records. A very unique blend of heavy metal, goth rock, and new wave. This album is very different. It's very emotive. It's very catchy. It's fucking fun. And I like listening to this because it's just so different than everything else that I have on my list. Less dick would be good. Sorry, had to do it.

Not a judgment on the album at all. Just thought it would be funny. No, listen, I like hearing my own voice. It's nice. Man, I am hammered. I'm a big fan of mine. I think we've passed the Rubicon. Cross it. Cross it. Yeah, whichever. Do you know what the Rubicon is?

It's like a Roman thing. River. Yeah, whatever. Do you know why it's important? Why they call it that? Why don't you enlighten me? Julius Caesar. Yeah, yeah. He brought his legion back from the wilds of... Oh, I was thinking of the river Styx. That's like Greek or something, isn't it? Well, it's a mythological... Basically, people in Rome said like, if you cross the Rubicon, like, that's it.

Like you're done, you're attacking the city, you're taking over, it'd be like a coup. Yeah. Like if you cross the Rubicon with your legion, that's a coup. No Roman army could be in the city limits. Yes. Because of that reason. Do you think that it was like part of really casual conversation though? Like, oh, fucking cross the Rubicon, bro. You know what I mean? Like fucking, okay, 10 bucks for a fucking beer. Oh, cross the Rubicon, bitch. No, this is more like, oh shit, a coup attempt. Yeah. No, more like, oh shit, when do you do it?

And therefore he was known as Julius Caesar Salad. We're like, what's this fucking river doing in my way? Cross it. Cassius, get up here. What's this shit? On my command, unleash hell. Yes. By your command. One of the best lines ever in a movie. Yeah. Unleash hell. I know it's gladiator. Have you ever seen any of the gladiator movies there?

He's talking over there. Are you not entertained? I see it right there, Gladius. Is that not why you're here? You ever been in a Turkish prison? You've never seen a grown man naked? It's a good line, but it's not as good as the line I'm thinking of is, what'd you guys drink in Big Gulps? Well, see you later. Matt. Number 19. Et tu Brute.

I've been doing this with you guys for a while.

And if you haven't figured out yet, I just make this shit up. We better start checking that these are actually real bands. I'm like, oh yeah, check this one out in French. It means yesterday already dead. That's fucking badass. I'll make that up. Matt, you need to start your own cast called French Kiss. I think he's got Matt. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love,

Matt would look fetching in a beret. I just want to say that. I've got three of them. I saw that picture of you on Facebook with your wife and the kids and it was all posed. I actually like went by it and my feed because I thought it was an ad. And I was like, wait a minute. That looks like Matt. Oh, shit. That's real. Actually, I'm actually that that feels like a compliment. It looks like a

It looked like an ad. I was like, oh, it's an ad. I'm like, wait a minute.

Are you saying that, Matt? Because that's not exactly how things went prior to the picture?

Ah, man. You know, it was one of those deals where I was like, yes, we can do professional photos. And we were both like, you know, like I'm totally like, let's all four of us just stand in front of a camera. But then when they start to get to be like, well, look at each other, look at the kids, pretend you're laughing. And it was like, oh, man, this part of it I'm not so good at. So that was my best acting.

And my wife's too. So it was a professional. Yes. It was at that point. And also don't get too full of yourself because it looked like an ad for herpes medication. Hope you're feeling better. I'll just put a little logo on the floor first. So you're looking down laughing at the kids going, ha ha, you got it too. Yeah. Got a little something on your lip there. Oh my God.

Oh, John's 19. So, uh, John, John's 19. Is that a Bible verse? I can still smell the meat in this glass. Yeah. So, uh, since we're letting gas seep out of the, uh, Crips, cadaver circulation. That's a little cluster. All right. Jay, Jay, there's a fuck where there's one, there's more, you know, so.

Yeah.

Wow.

Sorry.

Apparently those whistlers are really got George going here.

Yeah.

George looks like, I don't know if he's going to fart.

George, pass out right now.

I'll be honest.

I don't even know if these are real or not.

You all right, Georgie?

I'm good.

George has been watching stranger things if he can't tell

yeah I need that

12 year old

oh wait they're 14

I'm only on episode 3

well I finished 3

I'm on 4 now

so I know we've talked about

usarium

do you guys actually know what it means

it's like a crypt or something

the bone

it's a

Asuarium is something made out of bones, like a temple made out of bones or a... Not a temple, but... Or a boner made out of crypts. Will's going to tell us. Yeah, I apologize. No, no, no. Jay, you guys are all very, very close. It's a carnal house. It's a house for storing bones of the dead. My number 19. Well, sorry, I'm a living tomb all the way from Portland, Oregon. And this one I feel as though...

I bought this one on vinyl. There's only five on my list that I have on vinyl. And this is the first one of this year that I bought on vinyl came out in February. I like this album a lot, but I think I need more time with it. But I think it was either Markasson or someone mentioned that, yeah, it just needs a little bit more, a couple more tricks on it. And it'd be higher, but I dig it. Death Doom, it's my favorite genre at this point. So, yeah.

They got time. I mean, it's a really good album, and I think they're going to grow from there, you know. So we'll see. Grow or not a shower. Jay. Oh, that's me. Yeah. Okay, George, here is an album that I can, a band that I can tell you without doubt you introduced me to. Hell yeah. I worried at first that they were some sort of white nationalist group, but they are not. Thank God.

We found out in the end

because they come from Germany

and their name is Stellar Master Elite.

But they put out a good record.

Anything that says Master Elite,

you got to wonder.

You got to be a little bit careful.

But when George first discovered them,

and this was several years ago,

we did our research to make sure

that we were not getting behind something.

I didn't jump on it when George first told me about it,

but this was one of those things

where the new one came out

and I was like, George loves these guys.

Let's check it out.

This is probably a really cool record.

And this is probably the first one I've said that I'm pretty positive is going to survive

until the end of the year. So Stellar Master Elite, the name of the album is Hologram Temple.

Yeah, I was really worried that was going to end up like a Shamash album. It's like the last album was fucking awesome in the new album.

But it didn't.

No, no, it's solid stuff. So if you haven't checked them out, you should check them out, whoever you may be.

Yes. My number 19 is Nocturnus AD Paradox.

Old Band, but not a new album. Yep. Okay. Been a while between albums. Yeah, it's been like 20 years or something. The Key? I think that used to just be Nocturnus and now they're Nocturnus AD. Yeah, something to do with, you know, all that. After disbandment or something. Speaking of which, I got to bring it up. We were talking about it the other day. Rhapsody. What the fuck is going on with Rhapsody? There's Rhapsody.

Then there's Rhapsody of Fire. Then there's Luca Torilla's Rhapsody and Rhapsody of Fire. Because they split up into two different groups like everybody else. And now... Okay, so there's Luca Torilla's Rhapsody with Luca Torilla. Rhapsody of Fire with Fabio Leone. Now there's Torilla Leone's Rhapsody. Why didn't you just put it back together again? I just saw one of those versions at Prague Power last year and I don't remember which one it was. It's impossible to know. There's too many Rhapsody.

And don't they play from all different periods? I don't know. It's crazy. I stopped caring. Anyway, moving on. It's better to be like me and never cared. Yeah. Markisan number 18. Number 18 for me is Polcra Morte Divina Autumn and Aniles. What did he just say? Ceremonial records. This is a terrific death doom with a soaring yet mournful guitar.

that really made this album stand out for me. Really cool songs on it. A Spanish band? Or a... Polka Morte. Or something. I think I know who you're talking about. A dead polka band from Poland? No, I think I know who it is, but... Like, hearing it and reading it are two different things. I know Will likes this band. Okay. Do you like them, Will? I do. Right, let's just move on then before anybody

I thought I was expecting crickets there for a second. Jesus Christ. I know you guys have heard this one. How do you spell it? P O L K A. P U L C H R A. And the second word is M O R T E. I think I know this band. You do know it. You guys have all heard it. You're just forgetting. I haven't. It's in my wish list, apparently. Will we get in trouble if I play it?

I'm going to probably get this off my wish list.

It's badass.

Even though it sounds terrible on your phone, it's still...

Hey, Marcus, I remember the album cover.

So I do remember this by seeing the album cover. Yeah, I know you guys have listened to this. Yeah, we did. It's very good. It's very good. Matt. I gotta pee. Matt's not peeing, so Matt. My number 18. Strangely enough, in recent weeks, this album has had the most heat. It came out, we had the promo. I listened, I liked, and it's kind of bounced in and out of my list since, you know, probably February. And then,

I put it on a couple weeks ago and it honestly, like I say, it's hot and it's climbing and that is Venom Prison, Samsara. I need to listen to that again. I liked it when I heard it, but it's been a while since I listened to it. I haven't listened since we first got it. To me, it feels like such a blend of multiple genres. And like I say, we got the promo and I liked it. I was like, that's cool. And then, you know, it was kind of hanging out. And then I put on the other day and I was like, holy shit.

Like this has just ripped my face off. Yeah, I should have listened to that again the last couple days. It's all good. All right. John. So my number 18 is a new version of a band. I don't know if you gave this one to me or not, George, and I'm being serious about that. But I feel like I want to become a pirate after listening to this album. For all the right reasons. Because when I listen to this music, I feel like

I'm sailing on the seas ready to just conquer. Of cheese? Well, that would be fun because then you can at least eat. But this is the album Exile. You can always eat. The album Exile by Cull. I didn't think I'd like this. I'm not big on symphonic metal. Balsagoth in new clothes? Yes. With, I guess, what, a new singer? Yeah. But it's got some catchy tunes to it and the symphonics aren't too bad. There's not a lot of black metal on it, even though they're considered a symphonic black metal band. Yeah.

I don't know if it'll make my list at the end of the year, but there's enough songs on it for me to want to check it out every so often. So it's got an interesting running theme in the background. Yeah, it's cool. All right. I don't want to wear a patch or anything, but I wouldn't mind being a pirate. I was all like, is there a running wild album out I didn't know about? You would look so sexy as a pirate. I mean, I'll take the parrot on my shoulder, but... Wait, catch me up. What was Matt's band? What was John's band for 18?

I was a bit in prison. Okay. And I went with call exile. Okay. Thank you. Carry on. Carry on. So, Will, what's your number 18? My number 18 critical defiance, uh, album is misconception came out in February. These guys, it's old school thrash done really, really well. Um, they're from a chili and, uh, this,

This kind of just harkens back like it reminds me of like nuclear assault, uh, dark angel. It's kind of like this just I know there's a lot of bands who are trying to do like old school thrash and I there's not that many bands who do it that well and I just feel like this is a band that gets it and they just do it really well and there's a lot of bands that do like old school death metal and they do it really really well but there's not many bands in my opinion who do like old school thrash really really well and this is a

one of them.

Yeah, I kind of dig it.

Yeah, I think Marcasson told me about these guys.

Yeah, you know, it's funny because I was looking at this and sometimes you can tell the band just by the logo.

You can tell they're a thrash band because their logo has lots of straight pointy angles.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, actually, it was very thrash metal-y.

And the album cover is awesome, as Marcasson already stated.

Yeah, it looks like a bunch of marines or soldiers in the chemical warfare gear, like coming out of like Satan's anus. You know, I there are two albums that I've chosen that if you guys wanted to kick me off the podcast, it's fine. This is the lesser of the two, meaning is you wouldn't kick me off anything for this one. But I was sticking by them because the records I'm enjoying. This one is basically, as previously mentioned,

an Alice Cooper record and it's Hollywood Vampires Rise. I really like this record. I had a lot of fun listening to it so far this year. It's metal adjacent but it's really fucking good and you just have to skip the two songs that Johnny Depp sings which are fucking cover songs. Does he do the Johnny Thunder song? I haven't gotten that far. No he does one by that writer Jim Carroll. You guys know the Basketball Diaries? But that's all aside the point. The

The Rest of It Is Kind of an Eeky Speaky, Spooky Wookie, Alice Cooper 1970s record. It's good. It's weird that this is out there. It's like that, but that's what it is. George is super happy now because he can put Great Brunswick Forest on his year-end list. I said there was two of them. My second one, you guys are going to freak out, but I'm sticking by my game. I'm glad you brought that up, Will, because I went back and was looking at the webpage.

and looking at all of our lists from the past. For whatever reason, I was doing it. And I don't know if anyone noticed this, but on last year's top 25, we all have our top 25 listed. George, however, has an additional entry listed for his top 25. So he has his number one. And then right below it says, oh, but this is my actual number one for all genres.

I didn't see one for Jay. I didn't see one for Will. You did not. Nobody had one. I didn't see one for John or Matt or Cassano. That's because we don't use asterisk. But I saw one for George. It's funny. It's funny. It's good to be the king. You know? Just saying. He who controls the future controls the past. The victors write the future. The victors write the history. Or we just got to get George really, really drunk. Then we got to get his password and get on the site and change it. I'll give you the password. You won't know.

I love you.

The password?

It was.

Anyway.

I love big schlongs.

69.

Okay.

Where are we?

You.

Me, 19.

Okay.

Wait, we did 19.

I did 19.

18.

18.

Sorry, John.

Number 18, Waste of Space Orchestra.

Synthiosis.

I'm happy to put it on there.

It should have been higher.

It really should.

It's so good. It is good. But it's work. It's not really work. It's good. I just couldn't do it. Cool. I'm happy. Well, you did at least 18 times. Yeah, yeah. Nice. There's one. So good. Yeah. That's the old Aranzi Pazuzu slash Dark Buddha. Dark Buddha Rising. Yeah. Good stuff. Which, by the way, oh, I can. It's going to be on my list. I can tell later. It doesn't matter. Yeah. All right. Back to

Mark is on for 17.

First of all, I have to mention that I just cracked open this club-exclusive Bremming Horde mead called Cernelian Hind.

More mead. Good lord, man.

The sweet mead with the natural flavors of saffron, tarragon, dates, and palm sugar, made in honor of the Cernelian Hind of Artemis, in which Hercules had to capture in his third labor.

I know we still have 17 to go.

Jesus Christ. Yeah, but I'm tough. You're tough. Yeah. All right. Yeah, if anybody can hold their... Dude, seriously, you can hold your liquor like... I really can. Okay, we're on 17. Let's see where we are at number 10. Matt's acknowledging my powers, so... Liquor holder. Yeah, but Marcus, are you sure he's not using his powers to manipulate you? I am not sure. I am not sure. You guys don't realize it, but you're actually asleep. You will drink more meat. This is Inception Part 2.

and convince you guys that my list is the best. No, I think what you'll do is you're going to give us the idea of your number one, and then at the end of the year, we'll be like, I don't know why I chose this, but here it is. We all really stand behind this album. That's right. Matt's telling me that my number 17 is Spirit Adrift, Divided by Darkness. They transmogrified their old doom sound with a face-melting form of classic heavy metal. I really like this album a lot, but I saw them

They played a lot of the songs

and holy shit

this is another band I feel like

they're even better live

there's so much energy on

these tracks performed on the stage

so I think that

it might have been a little bit lower for me

but because I saw them

out live

it went up a couple notches

but I've always liked Spirit Adrift

I know so many people like

Spirit Adrift

And for me, it's the vocals. I just don't enjoy the vocals. But I'm hoping to jump on that bandwagon if I see them live one day and then it just clicks with me and I get it. Kind of like Inner Armidue with George or Chemist did with me years ago. It's just like that moment where like, now I get it. Because I know Spirit of Drift. I listen to it and I like all the music. It's just the vocals are sort of like, ah, not my thing.

If you see them live, you're going to mosh and move your booty at the same time. It's kind of like, to me, it's that kind of pit. Listening to this, I've been with Will on the last however many albums, one or two albums, and this one clicked with me. To me, it's like Ghost done well, or better anyway. This one definitely sounded the best. First off, these guys are metal, so that takes the ghost part right out. What I mean is,

It's hard for me to explain the connection I feel with Ghost on this album. But it's definitely less hokey than Ghost. A lot less hokey. Yes. No robes, no incense. But that's a fine thing. That's kind of like what I like about it. I'm not a big Ghost fan, but I enjoy... Didn't we go to the show together? Yes. I know. We've seen them several times together, you and I. Well, I've only seen them once, so I don't know who you're cheating on me with. That was the main thing.

We really didn't see them at Maiden. We saw them, we didn't hear them. Were you at the Opeth, when they opened for Opeth and Macedon? I was there. You were there. I went to the Opeth Macedon show. Yeah, so we were probably there. Yeah, it was like a big bluegrass festival. No, no, no, no. This is before the bluegrass. That would be kind of cool, though. Anyway. You should go to Nashville with George. Yeah, Nashville was interesting.

We need to interpretive dance at all just to communicate. Please do it. Please mosh and shake your booty at the same time. All right. Someone's going to get hit really hard when they don't see it. One milkshake coming up. It's like, hey, check my shit out. Oh, wait, that sort of happened. It's like Will walking into a freaking. Inter-Harvard pit? No, into a parking structure.

I just wanted to get in the head with a fucking parking structure. Arm. Arm or whatever. The gate. I forgot about that. Yeah. So just quick context. We went to see a Monomarth entombed AD I think. Yeah. And I can't remember who the other band was. And George and I were waiting for Willie. Walks up inside of his head. It's kind of bloody like what happened. He's like I don't know. I was walking through the garage and the gate arm came down and smacked me right in the head.

Yeah, it's just... That's what you call random dumb luck. It's also the same night George lost his ticket before the show. Oh, George. It was quite... I'm buying a new one. Quite an eventful night for us. Okay. Where are we? 17. Who? It's Matt. I just did Spirit Adrift. All right. It's Matt's turn. His headphones are off. He doesn't not hear us. It's you, Matt. 17.

My 17.

Swipe Right.

Right has been swiped.

I'm not going to say a ton about this because I feel it's going to show up later on.

And I would not consider myself to be an aficionado of this band.

But I absolutely love this album.

And that is The Wings of War by Overkill.

Nice.

We know who's going to talk about that.

Everybody.

I will save my comments for later.

John. I think I'm the first person to mention these guys. Ever? No. And this I did get from George. I love you guys. And I heard about this band from Will on Drive Up. Progressive Black Metal from Los Angeles, California. Ashen Horde. Yeah. Travatt. I like this album. And you know. Best part about it is the clean vocals.

They kill, they slay. Otherwise, no one has the CV. No, I think they did a very nice job with this album. I said to George when he told me about it when it came out, I said, I don't want to say they sound like current enslaved, but there's a vibe like that. And his response was, I think Trevor would be pretty happy to hear that. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. So I don't think that they're doing enslaved, but they have that kind of vibe, though, to their approach. And I like that. Hell yeah.

Well done. Trevor's a cool dude. He is. He's like one of the nicest beings ever on earth. And he puts up with my shit. That's what I like about. Puts up with all our shit, really. And he's fucking intelligent. I mean, we are nothing. I don't care. He's good looking. And he's tall. All the above. Yeah, he's super smart. He reads voracious after all. Does he? Oh, yeah. He's buying the books and telling me about him. Nice.

Oh, just because I didn't get it on that, I'll just say his farts smell like roses.

In case for the record, Jays do not.

I would know.

Are you familiar with the term black roses?

You know, Jay, there's a Darwinian thing.

When your ass smells that bad and your nose is that big, stop farting.

Yeah, it's the cruel, my cruel birthright, you know, just like, you shall clear rooms, but you'll smell it better than anyone. In a million years, you will no longer fart. Or have a nose, one or the other. My number 17, mentioned before, Ultimas, something wicked marches in. Supergroup, including David Vincent from Morbid Angel.

and Rune Blastfemer Erickson, who plays guitars, and then Flo Montierre from Cryptopsy. And Vincent, he's not doing anything but just singing, right? He's not playing at all? I don't know. I would think he plays bass. I thought some of the live stuff he was, but on live, I thought he was just singing. Good call, John. I think you're right. Based on photos. He had this kind of cool, like, long leather trench coat on, you know, with this kind of Western style.

And he was just killing on stage like this is fucking badass. I gotta ask did anybody ever listen to the Jenna torturers because of him? His wife Jen. I don't know if she still is but at the time. No. The Jenna torturers? No. I have one on there. Did she spell her name with a G? The band did. I don't know if she did. Okay. No. But she was like usually like naked with like things through her nipples and. Ouch. Of course.

CD, I'm sure. I've got it and it's got boobs on it. That sounds like that would hurt. Yeah, yeah. And I was very like S&M genitorturer. I mean, come on. It's like genital torture, you know? Yeah, we got it. You had to walk us through that yet. Please, please. For some reason, my word all of a sudden. It was a very like Lords of Acid ministry kind of thing. Sure. I like Lords of Acid. Haven't heard that in a while, have you? Nope. All right.

That was Will, right? Yeah. So John, not John, Jay. Life is full of coincidences. Every once in a while, some of us land on the exact same number with the exact same band. Ashenhor at Fallen Cathedrals. You know, I didn't, I liked Trevor's first one, or I think it was his first one. But I don't think as much as everybody. Was it their third one, I think? Oh, was it? Okay. But I didn't like it quite as much as everybody else did. But this one, he got me on.

This is a great record. Really nicely done, as John said. Not too many comments dead, except that I have been listening. It goes on every couple of weeks, I put it in. Awesome. Yeah, good shit. Number 17. Will's shirt currently, Basilisk Emergence. Love those guys. Amazing. I thought we were in 18. Nah, 17. I already did my 18.

I did 18 two numbers ago.

Yeah, we're on number 17.

She's only 17.

She's only 17.

I hate Winger.

Just saying that.

But Rod Morgan, he plays drums for them, and it's so hard to see that.

Yeah, but Winger.

I'm going to call you Stuart.

No, I don't have that out in my collection.

Me neither.

I freaking hate Winger.

There's a lot of hair metal that I do like, but that is not one of them.

I do like any of it.

That's my point. Why do you like any of it? Because I feel Panther rules, man. Well, hold on a second, though, because I did Spirit of Drift for 18, so I'm first. So wouldn't you be last, George? If you're not first, you're last. But I already did Waste of Spaced Orchestra for my 18. Yeah, you asked what my 18 was because you were in the bathroom, and I said, call, exile. Uh-oh. Did we skip? 17 now.

Why don't we do this? Why don't we go to Markisan we'll do his 18 and 17 and 16. I mean, I'm on 17. So I'm a little confused. What was your 18? I just, Zero Drift. Right. What's your 17? Well, I haven't done it yet. Well, I don't know how we did that, but. So I think we were talking about how much of a badass you were drinking that meat at number 17.

Oh, did you guys pass me while I was playing? I think you passed yourself. Allow myself to pass myself. I just did spirit address. So this is like a sports team draft. They just traded to take the next two picks. All right, so let's do your 17 and then your 16. Holy shit. Okay. All right. Well, my 17 is Ashen Horde Falling Cathedral. Is that three picks at 17? Yes. Three. Just a vicious mix of prom.

B. Black, Death Metal, Killer Growls, Scorching Riffs. I also really like Trevor's Clean Vocals. That was a nice addition. I feel like this band's deserving of more recognition. Well, they clearly made the 17th best record this year. That was the longest P I think I've ever had in my whole life. All right, well, now what's your 16?

Did you just laugh at us or what was that? If you could see him you'd be scared. That is a long band name. It's three syllables. It's a mix of atmospheric prog and black metal. Kind of like a slowly tendrils its way into your brain.

I really like this. You can listen to it as background music, but you can also just focus on it with headphones. Really enjoy this one. And they're from Chicago. Matt. 16? True. I believe so. This band is second only to obituary in terms of best hair. Our friends from the Minneapolis

slash Miliwake area. Utkiaru. Madness and creation. I would not want to be a Dave and Buster's besides my family with anybody other than Utkiaru. I can second that hair. God damn that hair was nice. The best. Fans plus hair equals Utkiaru. Especially Dustin with his hair in that fan. It is a sight to behold. What's great

There's only three, really two guys with great hair. I mean, Noel's hair is okay, but he doesn't have a fan. It's not long. He's playing the drums. It's not that long. I still think it's great. He does have hair, which is more than some of us can say. More than at least three, you little fucks. I like it that he didn't have a problem with the fucks part. No, that's pretty spot on.

All right, me? Yup. Number 16. You know, I really like this album, but I go back and forth on it quite a bit, and it's becoming an album that I listen to when I don't want to concentrate as much on it. So you're saying it's dumb? No. It's just got a lot of space in it, a lot of things going on. Swipe left. I don't even know what the fuck you guys are talking about when you keep saying it. Can you swipe up? Nothing's happening. Swipe down. Swipe down for sure.

Swipe out. I don't know. Swipe or no swiping? To swipe or not to swipe. You should definitely wipe. What are they talking about? I'm so old. I don't get off my goddamn lawn. Anyway. There it is. Circle swipe. My number is 16. It's not. Well, I am swiping with my tablet, but Dreadnought Emergence. Oh. Denver, Colorado. I don't even know what you call it. Respect. Progressive metal, post metal, black metal, avant-garde metal, all kinds of metal. Yep. Fourth album.

I think is the best one they've done. I know some people disagree. I disagree with their

disagreement, but it's a solid album. Yeah. It's doom and dark prog metal. I feel like it is their best one as well, John.

They're a fully powered battleship right now. Yeah. They get very avant-garde-ish with some of their sound and they kind of let songs kind of meander to let them develop. You know, if you're down with that, then that's kind of cool. She's got one hell of a screech, I'll tell you that.

That's cool. Yeah. Just missed my list. Battleship not sunk. Swipe up. Well. Apparently they only caught the destroyer. So this is probably in a weird sort of way my most disingenuous pick.

Only because I have yet to listen to this full album all the way through. It's on your list. Yes. And it's on my list because. Or did you just realize that you have a 2015 album on there and you slip something in real quick. I had two mold on here, but apparently it's not going to release. I don't think you could do an anticipatory pick. I don't think that works. No, no. I have listened to half of it. And. I'll tell you why. Because it's fucking Pelican. That's why. And.

What does that mean?

Pelican can do no wrong.

Show your shirt.

You've only listened to half of it?

I didn't even get to half of it.

You picked as your album of the month, but you only listened to half.

That's pretty good for an album.

I know.

That's what I'm saying.

What I listened to was great.

I probably listened to the whole thing at some point when I'm doing the chores around

the house or whatever, but I've mostly focused on the first half of the album.

And as Jay pointed out, I have a real bad attention span because the second half of the album, I'm like, oh, the first half of the album was great. The second half was crap. But because it is Pelican and what I did here was phenomenal. And I'm sure, you know, Will has never heard Hell It Would Be Thy Name. Wait, it's longer than three minutes? Well, it's the last song on the album. Maybe it's the gimmick. No, but I'm saying that because

I do love Pelican. I've, I've had every Pelican album. Uh, from what I did here, I like this more than a lot of stuff I've heard from their stuff in the past. And my way of saying is what I've heard. It belongs at number 16 and it may go higher later. Nice. I'm just being honest. I can bullshit you and go like, Oh, this is how I listened. The whole thing is great. Memorized it. Totally loved it. Yeah. Like even on the podcast, it could go higher. Is it entirely instrumental? Yeah. Everything's.

Yeah. Someone else who's never listened to the whole fucking album. I only got a couple songs in. Have you ever listened to Pelican before? I mean, I'm not saying it's bad, but instrumental music is background music for me. It's not going to make my list. That's what I said. I put it in the background when I'm doing my chores. It's good. I'm not knocking it in any way. It's just not list for me. Fail. Yeah. So you did have Temple on your list one year. Yeah. No, I didn't.

It wasn't on your list? I don't think so. I wouldn't imagine. Fuck you. You're not good enough to be. You're good enough to be on a podcast on my list. That's what you're saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Marcus, are you sporting Pelican swag? I am. I'm wearing a Pelican shirt. Good call, Matt. Look at this fucker. Don't get me wrong. I'm not walking. Pelican skull. This is on my list and it's pretty high. Spoiler alert. Marcus is pretty high and Pelican is on his list.

Pretty high.

Jay.

So my,

my,

I don't have to make a lot of comments cause we've talked about this record.

This is where this starts to happen in these lists,

which is every who,

those of you who have put this on,

have already spoken about it,

but I liked it.

Uh,

half of rotten ruin.

Yeah.

Fine album.

Very fine album.

That I listened to quite a few times with the,

with the mild,

again,

caveat production's pretty fucking shit on it.

And quite frankly,

but if it just,

if it just had better production,

it'd be way higher for me.

Yeah. All right. It's a really good album. Good schnit. Can I just say that my number 16, I hate it? Yeah. Okay. It's hate. Orc Gates. All right. Okay. I see what you did there. You get it? It's wrong 15 now. Polish. Yeah. And before we get into our 15. Because the shit's getting really serious now. Shit's getting real. We're going to make a pee pee. Yeah. And we need more beer.

So yeah, I don't know what happened, but I'm definitely ahead on the records. I went to the bathroom and all hell broke loose. I already did my number 15. Yeah, so his 15's already been done, but he's going to do it again just because. Wait, what? First he was behind and now he's ahead. I went through my list. I'm like, I've talked about all these. I'll get behind you. I'm counting on it. Dude, if I got in a car right now,

Do you think I could be to your house my number one? Shit. It takes about seven hours, Matt. So probably not. So yeah. So yeah. Unless you have like a DeLorean or something. 1.2 gigawatts. I got to come visit you at some point, man. Because I don't know. Seven hours is not far. I want to come out there. Because I want to go to Hammerheart. I want to come out there. I don't want to see Matt. I just want to go to Hammerheart. Three Floyds and Hammerheart.

We need to do a trip.

Sorrel-y.

It's getting me a little bit tingly.

All right.

So we are back.

Just saying.

And before we get into 15 again, what are we drinking, John?

So a very new nano brewery opened up near me called Settle Down Easy.

I don't know, brewing, brewery, whatever.

And they have something called Darth Star Imperial Black IPA.

The Dark Side. And guess who's on the label? Our good friend, Anakin Skywalker himself, Darth Vader. In black. With a big red saber. Big red dog weenie. A big red swollen big red saber. I think it's okay. It's a black IPA. That's interesting. People aren't big fans of black IPAs. Do you want to take a second, Will, to tell us about black IPAs? Will doesn't care for it. I love black IPAs, actually. Yeah.

I don't judge. That's interesting. So it's too. Oh my God. You don't like it, huh? I like it. Guess not. So there's two ways to make a black IPA. Sorry, I get a little bushwhore right now because I sucked. There's two ways to make a black IPA. You can make a really hoppy stout, which basically means that you kind of make a stout and throw an extra fuck ton of hops in it. So then it's. Hey, Will, I'm going to check out for a minute. Could you tell me when you're done? Yeah.

And then the other way is to make an IPA and then use some sort of brewing method trickery. You can either add basically food coloring to a certain degree to make it darker or you can use there's a certain way that you can put de-hust malt black malt into it.

Weirman's mix in Germany. And then you put it in like toward the end of the mash while you're Vorloffing, which means running again. You're clarifying the beer inside the mash tun. And then it would just basically pick up all the color without the flavor. Anyway. God, I love when you talk about brewing. Oh, shit. Jesus Christ. So I think what these guys did is they took black soap and they put it in there. So this both smells and tastes to me.

like sauerkraut.

Yeah.

Which is what you don't want in a beer.

But I like sauerkraut.

I'm digging it.

But not on a beer.

You know, you let sauerkraut sit long enough, it could turn into beer.

I like it.

Oh my god.

You could ferment pretty much anything, I think.

I mean, to be fair, sauerkraut is already fermented.

I think that's what it is.

Or is it pickled?

It's pickled.

Pickled cabbage.

It's fucking...

Pickled cabbage.

There used to be a cabbage...

Or excuse me, a sauerkraut factory, if that's a thing, near my mom's house in Wisconsin, where she grew up. And fuck, man, that smells like farts. You do not want to live next to a sauerkraut factory. No, that just explains everything right now. It's hereditary. Jay doesn't live there anymore. It's like it's all kale factories. What do you think of it, John? I think it's okay. I like it. I don't think it's the end. I'll be all, but it's all right. Hey, Jay, that's nothing. Why don't you try growing up and have

across from a Brussels sprouts farm.

All right.

Not Brussels.

Brussels.

Yeah.

Asparagus.

Just horrible.

I like asparagus, but I can't eat the whole thing.

I have to decapitate the asparagus and eat the flock.

Which part do you like?

My wife hates when I do that.

You eat the bottom or the top?

Are you a power bottom or a topper?

I'm always on the top because I am the power.

Okay.

I got power.

But we all love the funky pea smell, right?

Yeah, of course. All right, Marcus, give us your 15 again. Get your own beer. Oh, yeah. So George and I went through our list. I don't know what happened. I went to the bathroom and then George lost control of the cast. I did my number 15 already with Varaha. So. All right. Boy, Will is just rejecting the beer tonight. Go get it. Go get another one, Will. Go on. Look, I'm about to go into cardiac arrest.

rest right now.

Don't do that.

Beer snob.

14 more shit to do.

It's not beer snobbery.

It's just like,

if someone takes a shit in your mouth,

you're going to have a certain reaction, right?

I like it.

So you should like to shit in my mouth.

Yeah.

I like people shit in my mouth.

I mean,

there are pictures on the internet.

Oh my God.

Scheisse.

Yes,

in my inside.

Scheisse.

See,

this is the part that sucks.

Mom,

if you were in a German

eat shitting video,

Would you tell me? You can find the best of shitting in your mouth at Two Girls in a Cup. BitchyMath.com Quite a few links on BitchyMath.com You know the part that sucks about Will not liking a beer is now I have to drink this beer really fast so he can have another beer. No, no. You guys take your time. I'm good. I was drinking a Flaming Longship from Hammerheart. Flaming Longship? Ship.

Wow, that was really cool. From who? Imperial Scotch Ale. From Hammerheart. Hammerheart. Because you can get it. Has anyone popped a P better than Matt in his whole life? If you guys come to stay with me, I will taxi you to Hammerheart. You know what? Let's throw a shout out to our good friends in Perihelion Shift. Because it was supposed to be Perihelion Shift. And because of their Finnish accents,

out as shit. Talked to Yanni recently. You know, we only talked to Yanni at like, you know, one o'clock in the morning finish time when he's fucking hammered. And he talks to us from like one o'clock in the morning until like five o'clock in the morning finish time. And it's like, dude, do you ever sleep? I came in at the end of all that. And I was like, I don't know what I could add to this. I love Yanni. All right. So is it my turn for 15? So we can move this.

I've got a low moving train. Yes. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, did you do yours, man? Yes, you did. Yeah. All right. I have not done 15. Oh, no, you're not here. Sorry. My number 15 is probably the most unique album on my list, and that is Crowhurst with the album three. I've been waiting for that. It is now here. Is that the one that when I asked a couple weeks ago, what's the one we're missing?

Name one album that you think everyone else is overlooking.

Oh, yeah.

Or missing.

Oh, yeah.

That is not what I put with that, actually.

I love that album.

Yeah, that's why I did not put it.

I'm a little surprised it's that low for you, Matt.

I would fully agree with that.

But put your comments at bitchymat.com.

You know, yeah.

I'm typing them now.

You need to do it.

Yeah, no, I'm like totally kidding that.

You need to register.

I'm bitching it.

I'm on it.

All right.

Now I'll do my 15.

Will and I had this as our album of the month way back when.

From Florida, Soulmask, The Weakness of Virtue.

Death Doom Metal.

Lyrics inspired by the lore from the software Demon's Souls and Dark Souls video game series.

Which I borrowed that from some website, but I thought you might be interested in hearing it.

Are those some chopsticks right there? Yes. Sorry, John. Possibly. Sashimi and sushi. I think those are the first chopsticks on this podcast. Just want to note that. I actually have this every time we do a mid-year or a year-end. Oh. Baby shark. I just keep them hidden. Baby shark. Hey, bitchymatt.com is available. Is it really? Register right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

You're welcome, Matt.

I'll do it.

But are we ending it with a Y or an I?

That's my question.

Bitchy?

B-I-T-C-H-Y-M-A-T-T, Matt.com.

Yeah.

All right.

Perfect.

Totally.

Grabbing it.

All right.

Hey, Matt, my boyfriend doesn't want to go out with me on Sunday nights.

What should I do?

Find a new one.

BitchyMatt.com for all the answers.

Drop his body in the sewer. Instant brutal advice. Oh, yeah. Hey, Matt, I don't know about this album. What should I do? Number 15. Third time's a charm. Memoriam. Requiem for Mankind. Wow. It's getting some decent representation so far. Oh, it is mid-year. Boom. BitchyMatt.com is ours.

Yeah!

And you should add these random site sounds.

Like you'll just be sitting here,

Oh, I wonder what this site's all about.

Oh.

Matt doing key sounds.

Long ship.

Click the about.

To find out more about Matt, click about.

Gotta love the sauerkraut beer.

God, that beer is fucking gross. Sour crowd. My number, whatever this is, and I really don't know, but I'm at least 15. I know what I've said, and I know what I haven't said, and I haven't said this. I said all I can stand, and I can't stand no more. Said all I can stand. George, if there was a record that sounded like the White Walkers, what would it be called? Mephorish. Yeah.

of the album. It's a fine black metal one that George pushed in everybody's direction. Yeah, it went so far as, I believe, put it on the Facebook page. It was like, hey, check this shit out, bitches. I checked it out, bitches, and I dug it, and that's one that I still put on probably every one or two weeks. I'm still listening to that ever since I first got it. Hell to the end. Epic, kind of blackish with some kind of chanting and all kinds of great kind of things. Honestly, it's got a little of that in it. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Good stuff. Meph Rash, Shem Ham. And a very cool cover, by the way. I considered it for cover art. Yeah, I liked it. It didn't make my list when I was talking about bands that put out albums that are too long. This thing is, like, long. No, you're right about that. But it's definitely on my honorable mention. Oh, wait, that's me now. 15, yeah? Yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not from there. It's Greek. Rod in Christ, the Heretics. Wow. You know, Angry Metal Guy hated that album. Angry Metal Guy hates a lot of things that I like. And likes a lot of things that I hate. And likes some things that I like, too. So what you're saying is... It's a very subjective website based on people's opinions. As review sites are.

Yes.

Are you guys surfing with the alien without me?

Well, Will, I hope you like this one.

Dude, just don't put black soap in my mouth.

How are you getting soap out of that?

Dude, that is...

All right, on to the next beer.

I want that one now.

On the number 14?

Well, just...

You already had one.

We're not going anywhere.

On the number 14.

Oh, no, you had one of these 17-year-old maybes.

It's not as old as the Motorhead beer. She's only 17. Let's pause and make sure Will will drink this beer. Will you drink it? Is that better? Are you ever going to drink a good beer over there? What's going on? We had a good mead. What are you talking about? We had some Atlas. That was good. No, we had quite a few good beers. We had lunch. It's like an outstanding double IPA. We had two beers. One was the Motorhead beer, which tasted like soap.

And we had this Darstar beer that tasted like black soap. So I think the theme here is Will did something before the podcast we don't know about. And he's got this taste in his mouth. Hey, look, if you put your balls in my mouth one more time and I have to wash them out with soap, everything tastes like soap. Fair enough. That's just so you can cover for the fact that there were balls in your mouth. Well, I wash them out so George doesn't know. I don't want to know.

George's balls taste like Irish spring. That's not fair. Wait. That's kind of gross because doesn't he cut that bar of soap on the commercial? Right. Okay. Meanwhile, back at the podcast. Meanwhile, back at number 14. 15. 14. Sorry. You know what, Markisan, you're completely off the hook because George has no fucking control over this podcast right now. I have to take over for the numbering. Dude, Markisan's fucking drunk.

Yeah, what's your point? I can't get drunk, but I'm organized. I have to pour them out. A simmering pot of black and purple metal seasoned with death and thrash. I love every single explosive flavor on this Utkiero. Oh, is that your 14th? Yes.

NOS.

I do love you Jay. I'll be right back. Yeah. No. Yeah. That's terrible record. Anyway, next. All right. My number 14 has already been mentioned. The one thing I'll say, I have never spent a lot of time with this band except for this album. And honestly, I think something that really does it for me is the gang vocal misery index rituals of power. Yeah.

I like things with a gang in them. Exactly. Gang style. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. I'm pretty good at that shit. Holy fuck. I can't do it. I can't do it. We'd have a competition. Okay then. So last year it was a chicken. This year it's Matt's. Oh it doesn't work.

Imperial Longship. Damn. P is for penis. That's good enough for me. Is that Sesame Street or what is that? No. It is. I don't know. I have no idea. Yeah, it's Sesame Street. I mean. So I think that's probably the first Sesame Street. You have so many sound effects over there and you're too drunk to remember them. Sir, yes sir!

He's been waiting to drop that one. It was a blast. I'm like, penis. Where's Yanni and his penis? Jerking the penis. Jerking the penis. For many weeks. Jay is my bitch. That's what I want. I think that might have been the first episode where everybody might have had just a little too much to drink. Who was it? That was at your house. Shut the fuck up.

Who's the one like

One of the guys in perihelian ship who

Yeah, he like passed out

Drinking too much red wine

Somebody left in the middle of the podcast

They just went

They took off

I thought he left because his girlfriend was mad

No, somebody like just like passed out drunk

I don't remember that

They've been on twice

Yeah

But George is about to pass out drunk

I hope somebody knows how to work the soundboard here

John, do you?

Alright

Alright, let's go

You're in

Before we continue, Will, are you okay with this beer? Yeah, this is fine. Okay. Just so we go forward, so Will's a little more happy. This is from Rocket Frog. It's called Surfing with the Alien. He's the Indian. I have some questions about the- Did you say Indian? Indian. Yeah, because somebody else said Indian earlier. No, it's India. No, that's correct. No, you just can't read. That's all right. No, I know. Somebody else said that earlier, so I wanted to continue that trend. I'm a little iffy on the title.

Surfing with the Alien, because as we all know, there's so many other people that use that title. Yeah, it's my beard, dude. Oh, hey, Will's going to hook me up. Is that a Satriani ale? Yeah. I don't think they intended that, but it sure sounds like one, doesn't it? How could you say Surfing with the Alien and not say Joe Satriani? Exactly. That's my friend. What else would you associate it with? Silver Surfer, maybe? Is it possible? No. Even though the album cover is Silver Surfer. Yeah. Silver Smurfer?

All right, so my number 14 is Hannes Grossman, Apophenia. Did you happen to notice while watching Stranger Things that they mentioned the album title Apophenia and how it has on Stranger Things? They were like, they defined it. And I was like, wait a minute, I know that. And I pulled it up and I showed it to Barb. Were they talking about an album or they just talking about Apophenia? They were talking about Apophenia, which is the,

I don't fucking know. They defined it on Stranger Things and I was like, hey, that's an album and I showed it to Barbara. And she was like, yes, that is an album. Was that during the whole you're a nerd moment? It was with the guy. Spoiler alert. No, sorry. Yeah, sorry. Apophenia is the tendency to mistakenly perceive connections and the meaning between unrelated things. Thank you. Nerd alert. Thank you, Alexa. Pretty sure it was in the second episode.

You're a nerd. Spoilers. I just found out what I thought was my love for all you guys is just really aprophenia. Whatever. Here's a spoiler. They're nerds. No, they're not nerds. They're us in the 80s when we were growing up. Every single one of us except for Matt because he's 20. Yeah. It is scary how close that show is to the truth.

That is the best part of Stranger Things. We can all relate to it. Except that one kid gets to make out with that girl a lot. And I didn't do that. There was only one guy in high school who did that. I'd like to be that age and do that. I'm like, I have no idea. But the whole idea of them running around and their parents had no idea where they were is exactly my upbringing. My parents had no idea where I was most of the time. And it was like, where the hell have you been all night? Yeah, it's a lot different now.

It's a lot different. The only thing is none of us were like computer geniuses that could crack like computer codes for like the Russians or from like any other military base. Yeah. Spoiler alert. No, no, no. War games. Matthew Broderick, war games. Now, can we talk about number 14? Did you see the thing where they went and set up the- No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's in episode two. Stop talking about it. Spoiler alert. No, I have, I don't know. This is a speculation. Only Matt and John know the answer to this.

But I am speculating

that that bitch is going to show up at the end

and she's going to be hotter than Phoebe Cates.

Maybe it is Phoebe Cates.

I would expect it's Phoebe Cates' daughter.

I mean, was Phoebe Cates that hot?

Yeah.

It was a lot of people's wet dream in the 80s.

She was when you were 13, Marcus.

So if you're under the age of 40

and you're listening to this podcast,

Phoebe Cates was an actress in one movie.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

at which point Judge... No. Judge. Judge. Judge. Whatever his name is. Judge Reinhold. Judge Reinhold. He's dressed like a pirate. And she's jerking off in a bathroom looking out the pool house window. No, it was the house window when she was coming from the pool. Yeah, whatever. And she's at the pool. She takes her top off. I think he's dreaming she's taking her top off. And then his sister walks in and catches him jerking off. Which is the most relatable thing about that movie.

because it's all happened to you guys. Get out of here! Not me. Don't you knock. It's happened to all of you guys but me. Who's 14 is it? You're 14. My 14, Nucleus Entity. Nice. All the way from the former home of Marcus Anasso, Chicago, Illinois. Soon to be. I'm still here. Yeah. Death Doom Crust Band. Jen's hometown. Yeah. Well, we'll went to school for a while. Hey, Marcus, I,

I've got a question for you. So you're kind of famous. You live in Chicago. You're more famous than this podcast. I'm not famous. Well, you are. You have a very famous comic book called Voracious. But do you know any of the local metal guys in Chicago? I don't know. I mean, I've seen them many, many times. I'm not friends with any of them. So I never had cause to go up and just... I mean, I've had beers with local bands before.

gigs, but I've never really made friends with any of the bands here.

They don't know the greatness they're in front of.

Right?

No, he just doesn't want to have to loan them all money.

They're all going to be like, hey man, can you hook me up with 20 bucks?

You don't want that.

Don't make friends with band people.

No, I don't know.

I usually just go to shows and leave.

Sometimes I go a little early and then I'll have drinks with some of the bands and they perform, but I've never really followed up with that, I guess.

I actually pissed off because I was supposed to go to the immortal bird listening party at Bucket of Blood which was last night and meet Ray because I never really met her but my cat got sick he wasn't eating and so we took him to the vet there's nothing wrong with him they give him some medicine he's eating now which is good but and we had to move stuff to storage so I just wasn't able to go there you know that was like you know Ray likes cats I thought maybe well yeah I know we gotta get a picture of her cat but yeah

Yeah, I never really tried to make friends with the bands. And I don't have any metal friends here. That's why I love talking to you guys. I have no one else to talk about metal with. I love talking to you guys on Instant Message and all that. But yeah, I just don't have anybody that's really into metal. I get shows by myself. Which is unfortunate because in Chicago, there's a show like every fucking day. Right. And I would totally echo your thoughts. I mean, I don't have many metal, well, if any, metal friends in Minneapolis.

So I'm usually flying solo. Which is, you know, I'm a one-man wolf pack. You're right. I don't talk to anybody about you guys. I don't know. I used to pay actors to walk with me. I ran out of cash. Is that really your wife and kids in that picture? Or do you just pay random good-looking people to be in a picture with you? It is a professional photo. Oh, yeah. Those are all paid models. Stock photos. In fairness, Matt, you are pretty bitchy. Thank you. Yeah. Which is bitchy, Matt.

outside of Atlas, there's like really no metal scene in DC anymore. And yet I have all kinds of metal friends here. That's kind of cool. Like who? Will. Who else? Swipe, right? Metal Chris. I see Metal Chris all the time. God damn it. You're supposed to say me. You know, it's funny. You're an hour away. I'm still DC-ish. No, you're not. Hey. You're Baltimore-ish. I'm.

Equally Dick Balch-ish.

That may be. I think that was the cue to move on to the next number.

Number 13.

I haven't even done my 14 yet.

Jay, did you hear your 14?

No, but it doesn't require a lot of commentary. Inter Arma, go for English.

Wow. How many is that now? Is that two or three?

Two.

Almost every one.

I expected it to be on the list.

Go ahead, George. Did you say it would require a lot or not much commentary? Not much. I think some good things have been said about it. So, yeah. My next one is going to require so much commentary that I'll save it for that. This is the one where it gets ugly. My number 14 has been stated a lot, actually. Ashen Horde Fallen Cathedrals. Say what?

It's looking like a top tenner right now. That's four times. Yemen. Yemen. No, not Yemen. Yemen. Like Houthi rebels. Trevath. Okay. All right. Markison, 13. Number 13 for me is Crips Cadaver Circulation. That's getting some traction to that. Glorious old school death with a harrowing doom atmosphere and murky swirling guitars.

I really like this album. Toyed with it being a little bit higher. I don't have a lot of albums where they might move higher in the year-end list, but this one might move up higher because I love all the Crypt stuff. Right now it's at number 13, which is my favorite number. And you probably also like the fact that it's like 37 minutes long too. I love that. It's not a mef-a-ash.

You get plenty of it and then you can move on to the next album. Or listen to it again. Oh, I like that. It's brutal. It's all of that fucking brutal fucking bone marrow inside me. I like that. Yeah, cool. It's a little salty, but it's not bad. Yes. And that describes a lot of things. And I'm a really big fan of facts. And my number 13, Trevor, I'm still working on the title.

I'm confident we'll get there. And my number 13 is Ashen Horde Fallen Cathedrals. Hell yeah! How many is that? Is that almost everybody? I think it's everybody. Oh. Well, if it's everybody, it's it. Boy, somebody peed in Will's litter box. Hey, but I told you guys before offline, but I'll say it on the air.

I love Trevor. I finally met Trevor at the Decimal Metal Beer Fest. And I love Ashton Horde's older stuff. I was not a fan. Even though it's Trevor, I was not a fan of the clean city. I don't get that, man. It is awesome. No, but I just felt like it was unnecessary. Unnecessary. It's a nice contrast. Yes. I like how it goes from one to the other. It's a nice contrast to necessary. You say tomato, I say contrast.

You say tomato, I say fuck you! At this point a week from now, Will's going to wonder why he has one less friend on Facebook. No, I love Trevor. My name is Will and I don't like anything clean. No, that's not true. You'll find out. I like dirty. But I do find myself that if you have clean singing and you bring in harsh vocals as an accent, it's way better.

Like a chemist. Right. But if you have harsh vocals, you're bringing the clean. The opposite does not work for me. Someone fart in here? Like what's going on? Trying to be professional, but it's hard right now. I heard it from here and I had my headphones off. Is it my turn? We did that. Is it mine? Matt, was that you? It was. All right. Yep. So I'm maybe the highest for this album, but I have it at 13.

I like this album. I've enjoyed it since day one. Maybe I don't have as much of an issue with it needing a little extra, but I do agree with you guys. A little extra would be good, but it's a debut album, so why not enjoy it for what it is? Agreed. I mean, they have room to make improvements. Without question. I agree 100%. And it's already awesome. Yeah. So, solid album, very cool album cover. And it's under 42 minutes. Woohoo!

Yes! Win! Will needs some reader glasses because his shit is far away. He's like holding it like at arm's length trying to read it. I am. And you guys call me the old man. I'm so kind of. No, I was trying to make a comment about something about Bociarum and then I realized. It's not on my list. No, it is. It was my number 19 but I thought I had something else to add to it but apparently I don't. So my number 13.

What shirt am I wearing? Basilic!

Emergence. Nice!

These guys played Atlas recently. They're from Philly.

I wish I'd seen that. I was there.

Yeah, John was there.

I know! I was pissed.

Why were you pissed I was there? You could have come.

I couldn't because I was doing the

in-laws Father's Day thing.

So, again,

we keep talking about Atlas, but as a quick

Sidebar, you can go so many times there, or you can go like half the time and still see a ton of shows because they have so much. Will is awesome. Yes. Have I not mentioned that Will is awesome? Will is awesome. Like that. There's no P in that. Will is a god. Chris wrote an article about how Atlas Brew Works is the most metal brewery in the country. Yeah. Which I have to say. Printed out and glazed on.

to a plate. Glazed with what? Hey, yeah, that's true. Metal Chris did a very nice write-up. And Hassan from Ripping Headaches does a nice job working with you guys. You guys get a ton of shows. Our favorite promoter is by far Hassan from Ripping Headaches. He's like the heavy hitter. He brings in the best shows that can fit into our small space. And do you know why, too? He's a fan of everyone he brings in. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He just, yeah.

He brought Shape of Despair in. Sayor is coming pretty soon. He gets all these very... Two mold multiple times. Yeah. And you can't lose, man. George and I go for breakfast every time before the shows. It's dirt cheap to get in. Beers are good. Yeah. You should all go. You rock. I'm trying to make beers that don't suck. Not even joking. You rock. And there's tacos at some point. The taco guy, what's his name? Fred.

Fred Corley. And if it can be any more metal, there's a cemetery across the street. Oh, we should drink a sauna. So 13-ish, Jay? Yeah, this is where it gets ugly. So first off... I think you're actually kind of handsome in a Marty Feldman kind of way. I'm working up on it slowly. First, I got to distract you. Marcus, do you follow the vault of retro sci-fi on Facebook like John and I do? And me.

Oh, it's the fucking greatest. This is the post today. It's so good. This is the fucking greatest photo. What I want to know is how come that guy doesn't need a headgear thing and the other guy does? He's green. That's right. Clearly, I love sci-fi. Hey, Marcus, it's just worth it just for that one random cover that comes up or picture. It's awesome. I'm going to follow it right now. Yeah, it seems like your kind of thing. I mean, I love sci-fi, clearly, because I do voracious things. All right, so.

My13 comes with an explanation and I'm blaming it on Matt. So, and again, I apologize. Matt or bitchy Matt? Well, you know what? Let's just get through this and then we'll find out how you all feel about Matt and me. Matt sent me a documentary recently and I did watch it, Matt. I failed to mention that to you. In fact, it inspired me to watch some other things. So this is about Valken. This is a Valken documentary.

A Vocumentary, if you will. And I went and then I was looking on what you call it, one of the streaming services, and I found another one and I watched it. And my favorite performance was by the band, whose name I'm about to say. This band played at Valken, so they are metal. So already I got to explain myself. They haven't put out a record in 10 years. They put a record out this year, and I've kind of looked into these guys on and off, and I always thought they were kind of a joke. And I don't think they are a joke. I dig.

these guys now and I got their new record and I fucking love it. It's on my list. Brace yourselves. Oh my God. Ramstein. Oh, what? Oh yeah. Interesting. I'm just, I love this new fucking record and their performance on the vodka documentary I watched blew me out of the water. It was one song. What's that? Not to cut you out. That, that is. But their stage show is what off the charts. Yeah. You were on Amazon. What? And that was the. Marcasson's face is like perfect. 2015.

I was there. What? So visually and audially, it's Rammstein. What? Thank you. I always admired my... I had a friend in high school. What? And my friend owned a copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller. And I was like, you're a fucking fruit, dude. Why are you a Michael Jackson's Thriller? But you know what? I always admired him for just being like, fuck you, I like it. You know what? Fuck you, I like this. And I couldn't be more serious. I love this fucking record. And now I'm into this band.

There were two albums that would get you shit. Is this the other one? This is the second one. There's no more, Jay. There's no more. There's 12 more picks to go. What? Nothing else. Jay is a lot more sick than he thinks he is. They don't bother me. I have to say, though, here's the thing that I will say, Jay. I saw Ramstein at a

at a festival here in Chicago. I don't have any love for that band at all. Me neither. However, live, the energy of the band and the crowd was on another level. And it definitely got them on my radar more because they're very much performers. Maybe I don't enjoy the albums as much, but now I kind of get why people love them so much. Well, here's the thing. I get it.

It's sprockets. For those of you who know what sprockets is. I totally know that. But I heard it, and I heard it right, and it clicked with me, and there's actually an artistic thing going on there, and I really enjoy that singer and the things that he brings. And I even read the English translation of the songs. I don't know, man. They're artists, and you could easily lose that. You could easily look at them and just go, it's just this big, weird, flashy thing. What? No, there's a little something working on there.

Hey Jay.

Well, I'm going to own this one. I'm going to own it.

We got to respect it, Jay, because, you know, it's a lot higher.

Hey, Jay.

I mean, you could have put it low and said, I could have put it low.

You're like, fuck it.

I really like this.

I've never listened to that one.

Exactly.

I heard like half of like do host.

And I was like, yeah, whatever.

Don't bother me.

Actually, to be honest with you, I thought if anybody liked him, it might be John.

At least Wood could tolerate it.

So I was going to ask you, Jay, are you a frontline assembly fan at all?

Oh, no.

There you got me.

Well, I'll check them out. I mean, because Frontline Assembly is awesome. How about KMFDM or whatever? Yeah, I love KMFDM. It's awesome. I've seen KMFDM live, so this is not completely out of my wheelhouse. It's sort of the same umbrella. Hello, welcome to the Metalcore podcast. Oh, dude, Frontline Assembly is awesome. That's industrial, man. The German industrial metal. Their last few albums are pretty good. I like industrial. I just don't like Rammstein. Rammstein. No, that's not saying I have something against them. I just...

I haven't liked anything at first. Their live show is just awesome. As you were saying this, Jay, that John and I had a side conversation, maybe picked up by the microphones, maybe not. So we've both seen Rammstein live. And I will say, I will agree with you that when you see them live, it is a performance. And the one thing I think that the rest of us can appreciate about Rammstein's live performance is extremely homoerotic.

Isn't there like a lot of jizz?

Yeah.

So there's definitely like the least, like when I saw them, when I saw them, I think they, I don't, I want to say they opened up for Judas Priest maybe or something.

And I'm talking like 20 years ago.

That must have been in the States because in Europe that wouldn't happen.

Right.

So this was, this was in the, um, whatever that, that Duhast, whatever that first album was.

Yeah.

And it was a Mutter.

I don't know, whatever, something between his mother.

But the point being is that the lead singer runs around and they had this scrawny keyboard player. And then the big. They still do. Yeah. And then the lead singer is like this big like power lifter guy. And he puts on a strap on and fucks the keyboard player with a strap on. Sure. Like pretending. To be fair, he plays keyboards well. I know. He's scrawny. He plays keyboards. He deserves it, right? I mean, that's why whenever we see Matt and Jay, like we strap it on and like you're skinny.

We're gonna do it. This is really funny. Using the keyboard. It's funny to hear you say that, Will, because George and I already made a Lord's of... Oh, God. Jesus Christ. There you go, George. George knows how to break the tension. You know what? Let's move on. You can't even talk on this podcast. I know. Let's... What number are we on? 12? 13? Let me just say, I know it would produce this level of conversation, and I don't blame anybody who's like that. I would even blame you if you were like, that's a bubblegum band, but they're not. There's something more there.

Yeah, exactly. And Marcus, you're exactly right. I put this high on purpose because I like it that much and I won't. It's only Romschein if you like it. Full respect. Not there's anything wrong with that. Hey, Jay, this is 13, right? I respect that because you could have put it lower knowing that we're probably not going to have it on our list. We can put it high because that's where you felt it should be. So my last, my 14 was

Fallen Cathedrals. Would Dio live there? No. No. Dio, based on current reality, would live in a hologram temple. Yes, he would live in a hologram temple by Stellar Master Elite. You did that on purpose. I did. That's my 13th. Fuck yeah. All right, so I guess we're on to number 12.

Number 12 is Black Sight's Exile. Very dynamic album that mixes classic heavy metal and progressive rock. It's by far my favorite record to blast in the car. Really good singable anthems in this one. I think Angry Metal Guy showed a lot of love for this album. I've been a fan of them. Was it?

Was it?

Yes.

It's their-

Well, that's pretty good.

It's actually their backdrop, you know, on their page right now.

I just started getting into this while I was on vacation this week, and I just couldn't-

I just hadn't gotten into it enough to have an opinion yet.

Not your gig, baby?

No, no.

I'm not saying I don't like it.

I'm just saying I have time with it to decide.

Are you talking about girls?

What are you talking about?

It's tough.

I like girls.

I had an issue with it.

I wasn't sure if I should put it in the rock or metal category, you know?

But there's enough metal riffs on the album that made me pull it over. And now knowing that John just said, if it's the album with Angry Metal Guy, that's pretty good. Because that means they have to have a consensus. A lot of times I don't agree with Angry Metal Guy, but if they have a consensus, that's good. That's the beauty of Angry Metal Guy. You can hate the review, but you're like, hey, that album got reviewed. So if Angry Metal Guy ever reviewed Clutch, does that mean Clutch is metal? No. Sure. No, sure.

a month. They never will. You don't have to worry about it. Some promises you can make, George. It's okay. Not metal. Yeah. But listen, you guys should check this one out because it's a really good dynamic album that you can just sing. Really great. I like the previous album as well, too. And they're from Chicago, so I've seen them play here before. I think they're the best one. Maybe similarly, maybe completely not, but also from Chicago. Markson, have you ever listened to High Spirit?

Oh, yes. I'm not as big a fan, but not bad. Yeah, we got a lot of good bands out here. It's crazy. I feel like our scene isn't as cohesive or as known as it could be in other cities, but we do have a lot of good bands. You need a smaller city. That's your problem. It's too big. Maybe. No, that's the truth. I've never heard Will say it was too big.

That's saying something

All right

My number 12

George you would probably only understand this statement

But my number 12 is a bit of a supergroup

And that band is Shabti

Trembling and Shorn

They're a death metal band from Maine

Featuring members of

Falls of Roars

As well as

Is he in Thrall? Is he in Thrall? Is he a drummer? Is the bass player in Thrall? Oh, Brandon? Brandon, yeah. From Obsidian Tongue. I know he's in Woods. Obsidian Tongue, Woods. Yep. I feel like he's played with Joel before. Yeah. Yeah, he's in Thrall and Blot. Right on. Yeah, I like them. And I guess we're moving on. I like Fall of War.

of us. Have they found an album recently? It's coming out soon. Falls is coming out soon. He's also the live drummer for Panopticon. Oh, Jesus. That guy. Yeah, I can't think of his name. You know, he doesn't have any free time. No. John. So, this is just so cliche, but if it's not Scottish, it's crap. It's crap! And Matt will appreciate this. I know where you're going. They are the Scottish Panopticon.

Black Metal from Scotland, they've got the whole Celtic influence thing going. And I only mentioned Panopticon because Panopticon uses the kind of folky sound in there. The kind of Kentucky sound, I guess, a little bit. They refer to it as Americana. Americana. I fully agree. It's really good. If you want to take a walk in the woods and cuddle with foxes, this is the album for you. So, cuddle with foxes. It's actually the title of my biography. Hey, Marcus, I'm just impressed you can actually get a fox to cuddle with, you know, so.

But I think it's a solid album. And I'm looking forward to seeing them. Atlus Brew Works. Where Will is affiliated. By the way, Matt's biography available on BenjiMatt.com. Cuddlingwithfoxes.com. Penis. But you can only, Matt only sells things through Bitcoin. Actually, it's called Bitchcoin. It's the new cryptocurrency.

What's your number 12, Will? My number 12, I... I may get shit for this, but you know what? You won't. I owe Zach five bucks. Possessed. You're not going to get shit for it. Revelations of Oblivion. I do love this album, but not because it's a death metal album, because it's not. It's a thrash album, and I'll tell you what, this reminds me of...

Which I think apparently they're going to make a new album. But this reminds me a lot of an old school Dark Angel album. Or even an old school possessed album. What's that? Nothing. No, but you know, it's weird because Seven Churches was such like a, at the time, a very groundbreaking album. And whether you consider them the actual first death metal album or not, just because they had the last song was death metal.

Maybe, but I mean, it's still a great album. Like, it's still a phenomenal album no matter what genre you put it in. I put it more into the thrash genre. Yep. But it's fucking, it's good. Yep. Yep. It's all right. It's all bad. That brings it to me. These guys made a record this year that I did not like as well as the previous one, which I actually liked quite a lot. But you liked it better than the last 13 albums.

Indeed. Oh, well, I mean, I'm just comparing and contrasting. And the only reason I say that is because they continued along in the same vein of what they kind of started out on with the last one. I thought they hit it a little bit last time and they expanded it a little bit this time. I still like it. It's just not as good as the last one. Nevertheless, Rod and Christ, The Heretics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought Rituals was a little bit better, but this was really good, too. Angry Metal Guy hated that album. Yeah, I heard that. That one subjective writer from

I mean,

don't get me wrong.

That's not the best review ever in the history of mankind.

Which would have been sitting remember from decibel magazine machine head.

Actually machine head.

And someone else got a non number review.

Yeah.

Nick beard.

Killed that album. Killed it. There's another album that did not get an actual number review, but it got a boner. Or if it came from John, it was a chopped up boner. Sometimes we send each other pictures of zucchinis. Emojis. Emojis. And for whatever reason, when it comes from an Android to an iPhone, a zucchini comes chopped up.

And I'm like, why are you sending me a chopped up dick? He's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? What is this? Sorry. We move on. Is it my time? Oh my gosh. It is. Number 12. No, 14. No. I'm 12. So my number 12 is just like making this list. Just make making my list. It's like making this list. It is madness.

And creation, Utkiaru. Nice. So, minus Jay, this album's done pretty well. Yes, I would say. Well, it didn't do as well as it could have, though, to think about it. Utkiaru's kind of bubbling around at like 12 to 15 mark, or, you know, it's pretty interesting that we all have it around the same spot. Jay, you do provide the best entertainment for the one guy who's not going to pick an album. You're like, well,

I gotcha boys. I'm the one. It did better. Might be fucking up that top ten. I don't know. Which we are nearing. But not yet. Stay on target. Number 11. Number 11. I have a feeling. I know this will be higher on John's list. I have a feeling I'll be on other people's lists. But it is my number 11. Lord Dying Mysterium Tremendum.

The album kind of took me by surprise because it's a complete reinvention of the band. It's more progressive, more sonically diverse. I really enjoy it. I did not know what I was getting into when I put this in my headphones, but wow, it's a really great album. And I think at any given day, it could rise higher. But for right now when I'm doing this, it's at number 11, which is still pretty high. It's a total U-turn album without quite a shot. Oh my God. Let's do this, but hey, fuck it, let's go this way now. Yeah.

I mean, their last album was okay, but it was not something I would put on my list. I think I was looking back at old lists. I think, Will, you had them on your list years ago for the first album, maybe. They may have made your top 25. He's making a who-me face? Where are we at, 11? I don't know. We are at 11. Whose turn? I just did 11, so it's not. George, did you do your 12? I did. Mark aside, did you do 11? I did. That's what I just said. Matt's turn. That was Lord Dye.

And welcome to the Metalheads Podcast. Alright, my number 11 via 20 bucks spin, also Ream, living, tomb. With a B, not up, but E. Do it like this. There you go. Alright. I'll keep this gravy. I'm doing it, I'm doing it, I'm back. Alright.

By the way, Matt, great pick. It's a little salty, but it's not bad. True. My number 11. Maybe the highest of everyone here. I don't know. Maybe. Memoriam. Requiem for Mankind. Yes. I just kind of just dug that it was straight ahead of death metal. I'm new to Bolt Thrower. I was never a big fan. George was always talking about him. So I said to George, I'm going to explore.

some hints. George gets all the credit for these guys. And I like what they do. So I gave the suspense. And I have to agree, from the first two albums, this is by far the one I like the most. Yeah. Yeah, me too. We're not breaking any new ground, but it's just solid. It's got a lot of hooks. Solid ground. Solid. So, hey, who knows? I don't know where it's going to end up at the end of the year, but for right now, it's right there. It's getting a lot of lessons right now. Yeah. All right, Will.

Excuse me while I would this out number 11 slow Maddox Canyon all the way from Belfast Northern Ireland if you've ever heard Conan and I worship Conan Conan actually molded their sound off of slow Maddox so just a do me that's kind of hard to describe

Slomatics. Check them out. Fair enough. I don't know if I can based on that description. Yeah. That is not a Markisan level description. All right. Markisan, have you ever heard Conan? Yes. All right. It's a lot like Conan, but actually possibly better. Because Conan molded their sound off Slomatics. So basically what you said before. Yes. Okay. I have not expanded by it. Still no reason to listen to him.

The skin doesn't make it any clearer. You just muddied the water some more. Let me reiterate exactly what I said before. Hey, Matt, can you just tell Marcasson to listen to slow-matics, please? It's like when you're talking to someone who doesn't speak English and you just try to say it slower. Slow-matics. These guys are like doom metal. And let me flail my arms to accentuate my bathroom.

English.

My number, whatever this is.

11.

11.

This one goes to 11.

I don't think I'm the only one who thought it was a good record, but I might be the only one who has it on his list.

I thought it was a pretty creative, good time.

I mentioned before that it's kind of like this person's attempt to start walking in a direction like Isan, which is to go what's inside his heart and do weird shit.

Slipknot?

But also,

they keep it real?

Gahls Veerd,

Gaster,

Ghosts Invited.

I like this record.

It's pretty solid.

Did I pronounce it right?

Gahls Veerd.

You know what's weird?

We got that as a promo

and somehow my iPod

does not sync up anymore.

And so the last album

that comes up

at the very,

very top of my list

is Ghosts Veerd.

So I see it every day.

It's good. It's good. It's a good record. I've put it on a bunch of times. I've listened to it on my swim pod. And every time something comes on, I don't skip through it. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is fucking cool. What is this? And then I'm like, oh, yeah, it's that. Underwateraudio.com. Avoid more prohibited. Satan. Satan. That makes us... Join us. Join us. Yeah, the Satan guy. My number 11 is not on anybody else's list. I guarantee it. Guaranteed. Guaranteed.

something. Yeah. I got 10 minutes ago. How much do you want to bet? Prepare the crickets. Yes. If it's Throssenblot, just because you want to say Throssenblot. Throssenblot, Great Brunswick Forest. Again. Now, this is Bloody Hammers, the Summoning. Oh, yeah. You said that. So when I asked around to everybody about what's the one everyone's missing and you said Bloody Hammers,

I was fucking blown away shocked. Because that's awesome. No, I just never thought you would listen to that. It's awesome. I love Anders. He does bloody hammers. That's his metal project. He also does a synth wave thing called Terror Tron. Okay, you lost me a synth wave. And he has like a self like Anders manga, his name. He also has another project. That's also like synth stuff. That's really cool. Okay, you lost me a synth stuff. Yeah, okay.

I like that album. It's not on my list, but it's definitely in my honorable mentions. Great album. I listened to it again today while I was picking up the pizza today. It was fucking awesome. I love this album. Good for you, George. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Before we do number 10, can we get some more beer? Yes. Yeah. All right. Cool. Because now it's really getting real. Shit's getting real.

All right, before we get into number 10, what are we drinking? I just had some DayQuil. Liquid or capsule? Jay is the drunkest on the podcast. Well, by the way, I do want to at least tell you that I didn't mean to, but I accidentally bought the generic DayQuil. It's from CVS, and it's called Daytime. Anyway, who else is drinking something good? What you got, Markisan? I have.

A Hellboy Beer. Oh, nice. Shut up. Yeah, holy shit. I fucking love Hellboy. It's my favorite comic. From Gigantic Brewing Company. Oh, nice. Is that new Hellboy or old Hellboy? This is new. This is the Liz Sherman, who's a character in Hellboy. She has fire powers. Fire. It's a chocolate Malay stout. Really? It says, destined to light a fire in you. Experience the decadently sweet caramel and chocolate.

It slowly transitions to the heat of a myriad of peppers. And you can definitely taste the peppers. I love Hellboy. Hey, did anybody see the Hellboy reboot? Not yet. It's okay. It's okay? It's a stranger things go. I was going to say, yeah. Hey, Marcus, did you say there's mole in that beer? Yes. That will go over very well in our house. John, it's chocolate mole stout.

She doesn't normally drink stouts. She would kick me in the head for that stout. She loves mole. I got it. I guess I sent you the link for that Metallica whiskey. That beer place, that's where I got it from. They have kinds of cool shit. I've heard of Gigantic Brewery or whatever. They're in Chicago, right? Me too. No, they're not in Chicago. They're in Portland. How did you know that? You don't have headphones on. Because I said Gigantic.

Because when you say gigantic, Will always responds. Yeah, it's just like gigantic, what? Is somebody talking to me? Matt, what are you drinking? I've got a Castle Danger cream ale. Castle Danger is the brewing. They're kind of up. I'm originally from Duluth, so if you go up the shore of Lake Superior, you'll get to two harbors. That's where Castle Danger is. And you're kind of dangerous drinking out of a can, right? That's kind of cool. Right? Try not to cut my tongue. What?

I better watch my E's and Q's. You don't want to cut your tongue and we'll be able to control people with your hypnosis. See, now Will brought us like a super beer. Yeah, this is good stuff. George, you should do that for this beer. All right, Will, what is this? Why is it not making noise? Wait one second. Oh, yeah.

You're gonna have to go a little further than that, Will. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. It's not that big. I don't pack things. I got darkness in the fridge. I still have the last six years. Darkness, I saved a bottle each of the last six years. Winning at a vertical. You should vertical before you move. That's a celebration. I have to drink all of these beers before I move. I don't want to shit beers. Damn. Hey, Marcus. That's why I'm saying maybe I'll visit Matt and then I'll bring people on. There you go.

Hey, Marcus, you've got a reason to do an awesome vertical. It's your pre-move. Seriously. Oh, yeah. Okay. Hello, darkness, my old friend. Or if you have a set of balls, you go, darkness, a presenting mate. Sorry, I just said, Matt, you have no balls. What about Lego Batman? Darkness. I love this stuff. That's so amazing. It's amazing.

I've not seen Lego Batman. Come on. I've tried to watch it with my kids. My kids weirdly are not that interested even though they love Legos and Batman. Yeah. We actually build Legos at home and Will comes over and makes fun of me for it and then he realizes Jen builds them. I love it. We have a shit ton of Legos here. They're really cool. My entire front porch is Legos. I hated the Lego movie. I couldn't watch like. Oh that's a brilliant movie. Everything is awesome. Yeah.

Too chaotic, but I did like that. Everything is cool when you're on the Metalist podcast. Shall we do our number 10s? Number 10s. We are halfway. Oh, shit, it's getting serious. More than halfway. Halfway and a half. Can we make a pact to all remain friends after this? Yeah, I think so. Because we're in it to win it. Unless Jay's going to pull all that. Yeah, Jay may fuck shit up. I'm done. I'm done. Everything now is respectable.

That's fine. Street legal. Before July, though, right, Jay? 2016. Well, actually, all before July, but I also, full disclosure, there's no Lord dying on my list, and if you want to hear why I don't like it, I'll tell you, but I'll save that until somebody puts it really high. Hey, Jay, we don't care. We don't care what Jay says. We don't care, Jay. Jay's not really on the podcast. He just never stopped coming. That's true. I never really said, would you join the podcast? He just showed up.

It's like a lost dog. George, do you have a drum roll or a series of Matt making pee sounds so that we can get this properly kickoff? This number 10. I like dicks. There we go. All right, perfect. Number 10. Here we go. Number 10. Yellow eyes. Rare field ceiling. Yellow eyes has been. Oh, my God. Matt just like popped a boner and you're like.

I really like Yellow Eyes, the two of us. My favorite blackmail band for a while, because of their creative and complex songs, I really enjoyed this album, clearly, because it's my number 10. It comes a little bit lower on my list because I feel like it's more dissonant than it is melodic, and usually you get like a 50-50 split with Yellow Eyes, and I prefer the more melodic side of them, so I think it went down a little bit, but still, Yellow Eyes puts out amazing

I think just when you're looking at when I'm looking at bands and they say Brooklyn the first thing I think of I'm pretty sure Yellow Eyes is from Brooklyn right I don't know yeah exactly that's what I think about hipsters I'm like like I just the first thing I think of is guess who hipsters I guess who yeah the guess who have you not heard this band they suck they're from Brooklyn Deaf Heaven okay yes Deaf Heaven that is what

That is my problem. I like the music on Yellow Eyes. I'm not shitting on your pick. But the vocals and a lot of it is very Death Heaven to me and I can't stand that. But to me it's just a mental block. Yellow Eyes plays pretty pure black metal with a lot of flourishes, a lot of experimentation. The music is very good. I will not deny that. The vocals are very Death Heaven. Conlet has been thrown.

I've not said anything about the music. I just said Brooklyn. I like the music. I do. And there's a mental block with me. Matt, this is nothing like Deaf Heaven at all. Except the vocals. I do not get Deaf Heaven. So here's the deal. In full disclosure, we're at number 10. 10 up. I have a band that sounds more like Deaf Heaven than I would equate Yellow Eyes to. Uh-oh. I do not feel Deaf Heaven at all. As your number 10? The vocals are the exact same screechy style. Is it Minoc? Minoc is not. Also Minoc.

Don't make me get my deviated septum into this. Because I will. I've won that part. Hey, hashtag me too. All right. So let's get bitchy mats number 10. My number 10. If it's not Scottish, it's crap. Oh, yes. Sayor, forgotten pats. Nice. Sorry, I'm trying to get comfortable. Hemorrhoids suck, huh? I can't get my leg up.

Yeah, no, this is probably the third, is this our fourth album? Third album? Fourth album. His? Yes, his fourth album. Yeah, fourth. I probably heard the last three. I don't know that this is my favorite of all the albums that I've heard, but I totally dig it. Yeah, I agree. Definitely looking forward to seeing them live. Sorry, George just stuck food in his face and made a funny face in the process. Funny faces, welcome.

Now you're sleepy. Matt commands you. John. You knew this time was coming. Uh-oh. Rammstein part two. Bloody hammers. There's way more metal on this than people will say. I don't care. No, man. You got cat.

I can put a clutch on my list. Oh, no. Oh, no. I came prepared for this. Trust me. First off, Jay opened the door already with his vampire album. My love opened the door. So, Pete Townsend. Anyone who has the balls to put cats on their album is metal. I don't care what you say. Bring it because I got a list of shit that we put on all our lists the past five years that are not metal.

I'm a disciple. Hi. My number 10 is Devin Townsend Empath. Wow. Wow. Go ahead. Argue with me because I brought ammunition. I ain't arguing shit. I was surprised how low it is. No, because it's not, I do agree with Markisan this. It's not fully metal. It's got a lot of metal parts.

That's not metal. That's fucking metal. Is that the 10 seconds of metal on the album? No. There's actually a lot more than that. That's the only metal part, and it doesn't even sound real. No. Oh, please. If you're saying that, then you have no idea who Strapping and Lad is, and you should just go play in the sandbox with your other little friends. I love it when John gets defensive.

I have no issue with the pick. Because I can bring up, we've picked Miracore, Clutch, Pelander, Opeth, Glenn Hughes. Oh my god, he literally has a list here. Eson and Morgable. I have not picked any of those. You know, half of those are yours, right? Only two of those are mine, fuckers. My number 22 is Rick Astley. I got your back on this. Yeah, so fucking bro. The title is

The title is Any Complaints, Mercure, both albums, Clutch, Psychic Warfare, Palander, Folk Rock, Opeth. Wait, Opeth is yours. No, it was not. I actually did not put that on my list in 2016. Who the fuck put Glenn Hughes on an album? Jay. Oh, I came prepared. You did. I came prepared to back you. And I said this when I got shit for this X number a while ago, I said, I'm coming with the party.

If I had not said Rammstein at this point, you probably would have had to use that. This isn't even a metal podcast. For anyone who doesn't know, I bring the party because it's fun to do the party with you guys. That's the reason. I mean, I knew John would have that in his way. I went back and listened to this and there's way more metal. Yeah, there's tons of avant-garde proggy stuff. There's a lot of strange stuff on there, but it is so good. Yes.

However, it's not metal enough to be higher, says you. All right. Fair enough. In other words, you wanted to sneak in your top 10. Oh, no. It's pretty high, though. It's pretty high. Hey, I got no problems. It's 10. Hey, you know what, Jay? Maybe I'll make it number one for the year end. No, I feel you. No, no, but I mean, you did the right thing. You were like, I'm going to fucking stand by this thing by getting into the top 10 where shit gets important. What he did is he used ammunition that we've all said to shut us all down.

Hey, no, I included myself because some of these albums are mine. I was one of the biggest. Again, Morgable. Morgable. And I had Ysson. I was one of the biggest Ysson supporters. Well, we all had Ysson. Most of us. I would never put Ysson on my list because it sucks. Fuck you. I love you. Play in the other sandbox next to Markisan Slambox. You are long. I don't need a sandbox because I'm going to be in Hawaii. All right, you can go to the beach next to Markisan Slambox.

Okay, Will, what's your number 10? My number 10. You know what? Can I just say I definitely respect the musicianship, the creativity of Devin Townsend. I just wouldn't put it on a metal list, but I knew John would have it on here. I have no issues with it. He obviously loves it, and Devin Townsend has roots in metal. I get it.

Sorry.

That's obviously for people who've never heard strapping in a lot before. I'm sorry, Mark. Will, what's your number 10? My number 10 is the Undisputed Heavy Metal Band, by the way. Yeah, debatable. Debatable. Rick Astley. Toto, Africa. Here comes the rain down in Africa. Overkill, The Wings of War.

Wow, what a great album by legendary longtime heavy metal artists. Who have been consistent their whole career. I equate Overkill. There's two bands that I equate that have stayed relatively consistent. And I put that word relatively because of the middle. They got a couple of clunkers. They got a couple of clunkers. Yeah. So like Slayer and Overkill to me have pretty much stayed true.

Testament,

weirdly enough,

went sort of like softer earlier and then got super heavy during the nineties,

which is like antithetical to everything else that was going on in the music scene.

James Murphy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fucking James Murphy.

Although the,

like,

and I say that in a good way.

Oh yeah.

I love that.

The formation of damnation was awesome though.

I like that.

And then,

then they got,

then they smoothed out and then they started talking about pot and casinos and ripping off Ted Nugent lyrics.

And like the last album was like, what? But no, Overkill has just stayed true to what they are. There's like this, you know, they're heavy metal. They're this speed metal. Jersey represent. Yep. There's a crossover. And weirdly enough, and I'm a Philly guy, like I'm a diehard Philly guy. And they're from Jersey. And they have a song on there called, uh, Garden State. Welcome to the Garden State. Where they kill Philadelphia in that. But it's one of my favorite songs.

on the album because it's catchy as fuck. And I will say, what, 2010, I can't remember the album. They got a little proggy with their sound. Their songs got a little longer. Oh, God. What was the name of the album? I can't think of it. Was that Ironbound? No, no, no. It's like that period, though. But there's some cool stuff there. To me, my favorite album by them is Years of Decay because they had the absolute, and Years of Decay to me, they had like elimination

and I hate. I hate. Those songs that were just brutal thrash songs. Fuck you. But then they had on the album they had The Years of Decay and Spiders, which are these doomy, epic. That album to me is the perfect Overkill album. But I love Overkill. Oh. Well, we know this is going to be on. And I don't care what you say, fuck you. We don't care what you say. That was the best part of the show when I saw them both times.

What I was animated about like, fuck all you. And everyone's just like, yeah, fuck you. Blitz is an icon. Yeah, it is. Part of what I was going to say when I had them on my list was that sometimes evolving means doing nothing different. You don't need to change. There's a lot of people who evolve for the worse. And there's I will take devolution and evolving any day over evolution. It really depends

of the band. Like Lord Dying, we talked about. An evolution of the band. And that was for the good, I think. Hey, Will, that album was Ironbound, I was referring to. Yes. Okay, yeah. They got a little prog. But it was a great album, though. No, it is. Yeah, it really was. I think they've only had like one or two sort of like, and not clunkers, just like not as, yeah, like not as great. Maybe it was. It was in that 90s era. Off the rails a little bit and back on, yeah. Yeah. The Black Album. No, not that bad. No, no.

I hear black don't set me off

what

everything post

you know I like them

everything post

Ironbound is great everything post

I mean a lot of stuff I mean their whole careers

they're not unlike testament

they kind of hit this weird stride in the 2000s

again all of a sudden and they just started

cranking them out

my number 10

maybe it's been said once or twice

I like it I like it I'm glad to have these guys back pelican nighttime stories nice it really is good I mean it's it's it is probably agreed with everybody else who said it's probably like the heaviest thing they've done at least in a while I used to listen to these guys back when I was like really like into ISIS around oceanic time and stuff like that in fact they might even been on epic hack or one of those labels or his label that dudes the guy from ISIS had a label Hydra Head Hydra Head that was his label yeah that and Southern Lord I think wasn't it the two labels Southern Lord

Yeah. And anyway, and this is a super solid showing by them. It's been a little while since we've gotten something from them. So here they are. It's nice to have them back. I hope they do a reasonable size tour this year because I'd like to see them this year. They're touring now. I just saw them actually. And this is the first mention of Pelican. So cool. And then this is the first one I thought somebody else had mentioned it. Yeah. Well, you did well. Yeah. Because remember, he only listened to half the album and it still made his list. That's impressive.

I'm pretty sure I listen the whole thing, but I've concentrated. You remember half the album. I remember concentrating on half of it. Would he put it higher? Yeah. Now we'll find out when you listen the whole album, I'd be your number one. That could be. Actually, probably not. I need vocals. I need good vocals. Because shitty vocals will destroy an album for me faster than anything else. That's true. Like George's old music. What? What do you mean by that? Do you realize how funny that sounds being a fan of all the music you listen to? Shitty vocals.

And half of those bands, you don't know what they're saying. I don't care what they're saying. I just want to hear the vocals have to be good. What do you mean? Sorry. You had a couple albums or a couple songs that you recorded that you shared with us. Oh, my stuff. Well, no, my stuff's shitty. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's a given. Okay, so I just want to make sure. I'm not talking about your taste in music. You're talking about what I do. Your actual really personal taste in music. Yeah, no, that's shit. Like you make yourself. Yeah, that's shit. Yeah.

We agree.

We do.

The music's not bad.

The lyrics, lyrical content, I could punch you in the face for.

All right.

Yeah.

Or gowljack your eyes and skull fuck you.

Whatever you prefer.

Hey, I'll take what I can get.

What's your number nine, George?

You mean my number ten?

Sorry.

My number ten is Spirit Adrift Divided by Darkness.

Nice.

Solid, solid album.

It's a surprise for me as well as anybody else. But there it is. Why do you like it, George? It just, like I said before, I've always wanted to like them and they've just never clicked until this album. And all I can say is it clicked. I was like, yes, this is finally what I've been looking for from them. Catch them live, dude. You're going to love this song. Yeah, I'm the thing. I feel if I catch them live, I'll get it finally. Songs from that album.

The Butler's going to

That's crazy. Really? Yeah. It's nuts. It was very small. That's nuts. But very intimate. You could hear every single note. Was that the capacity of the place or is that just how many people showed up? No, you could fit more people in there, but it was not a lot of people at the show. Oh my God, is there beer in that thing? Matt's like drinking from a big jug. Yeah, there's... When I first got it, it was filled with beer. Now it's water? Now it's mead. Wow. I wish. I wish. Hmm. How does H2? Oh. Matt's just like drinking from a 65

I still got to paint a bathroom when we're done.

So I'm really glad that, you know, you found the rhythm with the spirit of drift there, George, because I think they're really good.

Yes. Can I ask you a question, Matt? Was paint a bathroom a euphemism?

No, it's like literal. Like my wife edges and I do the roller.

So I got to move shit to storage.

Yeah. Right on.

All right.

I got to sleep in a car and drive.

Number nine for me is

Hellevorn, Amamata. This is my

January album of the month.

And an interview coming soon.

What's that?

And an interview coming soon.

Oh yeah, I'm starting to do print interviews too.

So George is going to be posting that pretty soon.

Sweet. Probably before you hear this.

Cool. Very cool.

Yes.

So Amamata is the name of a funeral chant performed exclusively by the Are Are women in the Solomon Islands, which is very, very far away from here. And the record captures that concept pretty well. It's melodic, it's graceful, it's gothic doom. It employs various vocal styles, various instrumentation. A few of the songs are based on real life tragic tales from Mediterranean history, and I like that part about it quite a bit.

And the interview that I did with the singer talks a little bit more about that, though. So, yeah, we're going to do some cool print interviews on Metalhead's podcast. Because, you know, we only do about a podcast once a month. And I was like, you know what, maybe I'll fill in the spaces in between with some print interviews with some of these bands, especially bands that are foreign that might not speak English, that don't feel as comfortable coming on the podcast. So, Hellivorn, because I picked them for my January album,

the month I did an interview in. So it's ready to go. We're just waiting for a good space to put it up. Yep. Because we had some other things going on. Didn't want to crowd the schedule. Yeah, I really like the span quite a bit. I don't think it'll be on a lot of lists. It's going to fly under the radar. I dig these guys. I dig these guys. Gals. Oh. Guys. People. People. Humans. These are humans. For sure.

I don't know the funeral chants the name of the album is based on funeral chants from women in the Solomon Islands and they have a chant that they recorded from them on the album all the band members are men on it but yeah but they're from Spain and so they agree

That's my fuck up. Thank you. That was that band. What was the band? Ocean of Grief. Ocean of Grief, yes. Sorry. I couldn't resist. I lived in Spain for two years. I lived in Spain for two years. Yo, Kevin, Espanol. I didn't know that, George. Yeah, yeah. There was this guy in power. His name was Franco. Ever heard of General?

Whatever, blah, blah, blah, Franco. I'm assuming you were a young boy. I was a young lad. Okay. But I lived in Spain with machine guns when he was in power. What kind of machine gun did you have? I didn't have it. The guys at the grocery store had it. Were they nice? They were not nice. Why did you take that from them? Because I was like four. Oh, you're a pussy. Yeah, I know. At four, I should be kicking ass. Are you a reader? Have you met my children? They'll fucking take a machine gun. They will, especially your fucking black belt daughter. Jesus.

Christ. She'll fucking kill me. Wait, wait, wait. You lived in Madrid. I lived in Madrid when Franco was in power. He died while I was there. So are you a Real Madrid fan or Atletico Madrid fan? I fucking killed his ass. Yeah, four years old. Yeah. Swift kicking the nuts with an old guy, man. Fucking knock him down. You fall down, hit your head, you're out. You're done. No, like 74 to 76, I think. Approximately, I lived in Madrid, yeah. All right, who's next? Were your parents there? Yeah, my dad was working. No, he was there by himself. I was like, hey,

Fuck you guys, I'm moving to Spain. I need to take a break. I gotta go on a vacation for a couple years. I'm going to Spain. Jeez. Tito Franco. Yeah. All right. I don't know where we are. Number nine. This is me. Nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine. This will be the bitchiest number nine we have. Niner, niner, niner. No introduction needed. Pelican and nighttime stories. That's right. That's three. Some say Pelican. Versus Pelicant. Exactly.

I Pellicant. Bird, bird. Bird is the word. Nice. John. My number nine, nobody's listened to, and probably nobody listens to podcasts I've heard of, but that's cool. It's a band from Chile. They're a tech death band. Oh, keep it coming. Band's name is Target. You know, I have that in my wish list. And the album is called Deepwater Flames.

Oh, Tarjet. Yep. But they're from Chile. But yes, it's French. It's Tarjet. Oh, that's probably on Matt's list. I listened to some samples and I was like, yeah, this is not bad. I'm not a super Tech Death fan, but there's a lot of melody and progressive parts to it. They're a solid band. I like it. If you enjoy that kind of- In Spanish, it would be Tarjet. You don't pronounce the G, you pronounce it like an H. Sure. I know. I mean, he's Spanish. He should know.

Yeah.

He still says La Jolla.

He said La Jolla.

I came back from Spain speaking fluent Spanish.

Where did you hear this band?

Where did you?

I don't know, Mark, because I missed them when it came out, I think in January.

But I spent a lot of time on Rate Your Music, and I look at other people's lists.

He's a voyeur.

Yeah.

Hey, what's on your metal list?

Oh, my God.

He likes to watch.

Check it out.

I have not heard of this one.

It's one of those deals I probably was searching on some review site or on Rate Your Music and saw it and I gave it a spin and I enjoyed it. And while I go on and on about Hannes Grossman and his stuff, I like this one actually better than his album. George, turn me on. Yeah. Oh, actually, the truth, Marcus, is I was sleeping one night and I had a dream and George came to me and said, you will listen to Target from Chile. And I woke up, I was like, I got a hanker for some

You listen to Target from Chile. George, turn me on. George, turn me on. So, if you guys like Tech Death with a definite Prog feel, give Target or Target, however you want to call it, Deep Water Flames. Yes. All right. Willem. Deep Water Flames is probably like a reference to the Circle of Fire. Was it Circle of Fire? What was it called? Ring of Fire.

The circle of life. Not Lion King, fuckface. I fell into a burning ring of fire. No. Are none of you geologists? No. Yeah, I know Shaman. Jay knows what I'm talking about because he lives in the ring of fire. Anyway, my number nine, Soul Mass. The weakness of virtue all the way from Florida. Florida. Soul crushing death metal.

And is produced by horrendous his own Damien Herring in his studio in Arlington here in Virginia. That's right. That's the guy who lives in Virginia. Yes. He's the one. He's the one member of horrendous is here. Yeah. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,

Will spoke very eloquently about it, so I need not say more. Legion of the Damned, Slaves of the Shadow Realm. Really wanted to work this one into my top ten because I've listened to it a bunch. It's one of those good ones when you're driving and you're like, I don't know what else to put in. It's just like an easy go-to. I can't remember all the new shit I downloaded. I'm like, I'll just listen to this again. But Jay, you're the one who turned me on to this one. But it's literally something that's so familiar because it reminds me of your childhood. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's definitely a nostalgic feel to this. And I like it when that gets nailed properly without it being just plain thievery. And then on top of that, you get the plus of modern production. And because go compare this to Endless Pain or Pleasure to Kill or something like that. And the production on those is, I wouldn't call it atrocious, but it ain't great. This is like an Andy Sneap production.

There's a difference of it sounds like

or it reminds me of.

And sounds like is the more thievery

and reminds me of, hey,

they took something. It's more modern.

It's better produced. Here it is.

And that's what I feel of it.

They've been around for a while, too.

I was just looking at their band kit.

They've got a bunch of records out, man.

And I just listened to a couple quick snippets

and they've been kicking ass the whole time.

So I'm going to have to go back and get some of these.

From Germany, right?

From Jermermany. Allie Mann. Deutschland. Deutschland. Hey, Deutschland. That's where for Rammstein's from. That's the name of the first song on their new album. Deutschland. All right. Jay. I feel like sauerkraut all of a sudden. Yeah. I got some beer for that. Georgie. Jorge. I thought you. Oh, you just did. Your number nine was.

All right. My number nine, I am ashamed to say because it was so low on Jay's list. And it's probably not going to be anybody else's list. Death Spell Omega, The Furnaces of Palingenesia. All right. You might be correct about that. Hey, Markisan number eight. Fuck you guys. Chris fucking likes it. Yeah, but yeah, Neutrino likes it, yeah. Neutrino. Oh, oh. Who's Chris?

Chris. Neutrino I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy. That dude loves the fart. He loves the cock. He hates cock jokes. Loves fart jokes. How drunk are we right now? I don't know. What's your number eight? Yeah, we'll find out. Let's find out. Number eight for me is Vano Ageless Fire. That dude's super drunk. All right, Matt.

No, no, no, sorry. Mark Sanga. Yeah, I love this record. It's a staggering firestorm. We talk a lot about fire this cast for some reason. Black Metal Majesty. It's my favorite black metal of the album so far this year. It beats out Yellow Eyes. I really enjoy this one. Just been spinning it a few times before cast. So pretty high. Number eight. You want to jerk us both off? Yes.

What is this motion? He's got to drive. Both at the same time. Both in your mouth or both? No. Are you skiing? What do you want to do? Downhill? Are you recording right now? Yeah. Sidebar, sorry. Definitely a cross country. Sorry to end it up. I know you guys get super annoyed with the three of us. It's okay. Marcus enjoyed this a little bit today too.

He's probably drunker than all of us. Jay, at some point, he's going to be day-told out. I'm really good at holding my alcohol, so I can still be really good. Good. We're fine. We're just being stupid. You know he's bad when all he says is, I can be good. Yeah, exactly. I can be real. I can be good. I can be good rather than, I can do things well. Listen, we're jealous of you guys. You guys get to hang out in the same room. Oh, smell farts. That's fucking fascinating.

You're gonna be more ridiculous. It has not been bad. No, this year's actually been very tame. Yeah. Look, first off, nobody's naked yet. Yet. Pants are on. Yet. And the reason why no one will be ever naked on this episode, because I guarantee I'm not gonna be excited to take my pants off. Take your goddamn pants off! Whoa! Listen, Will, you have to save the pants removal for end of year. You don't want to shoot your load before. I know.

Maybe there's not a pan-cassine. Listen. The eye surgery that takes place when the... Anyway. What? The psychological... Are you saying we are not pretty enough for you? No, it's more of the shooting the load in the eyes because it's going to go in your eyes. Okay. Wow. Okay, who's next on number eight? All right, let's go. That would be Matt. That would be Matt. Go, Matt. So many emotions right now.

He's either like waiting for a cock or he's like, I'm bored. When can these guys shut the fuck up? He looks like Ertl from Neverending Story. Here's a new rule. Jay has to fly out here for every year-end, rear-end, or mid-year because he's way too bored and gets too annoyed at our drunkenness. I think Jay should just be flying all the time. Actually, Jay's like, can I catch the A's game if these guys would just shut up at some point?

Actually, to be honest, I'm thinking the same thing. I need to cut the Phillies game. Actually, Will, one of your outfielders got banned for the rest of the season. He did. Because he beat the shit out of his girlfriend. And weirdly enough, that was my daughter's favorite player last year. At least you have our player. No, I don't need that player. For the amount of money he's paid. Bryce Harper? Anyway, back to number eight.

My Numerocht. This band to me is the perfect soundtrack to every 70s horror flick. Yellow Eyes, Rare Field Ceiling. Wow. See, now I think every 70s soundtrack should be Bloody Hammers. Or Goblin. I thought that's what he was going to say, to be honest with you. I'm going to go with Yellow Eyes. I knew you would have this one. No, not Shadim on his pick. Again, I do not hear the

I was going to call him Dreamweaver, but what is the band called? Deaf Heaven. Thank you. Sorry. There's no Deaf Heaven in this band. Except for the vocals. And the guitars and the drums in the production. I don't get it. I'll get it either. You and I are the only ones who really love Yellow Eyes, I think, Matt. Right on. I think they do. That's cool. How many flowers did they put in a drum set? Four? Again, I thought that was popcorn.

Yellow Eyes. I tried. I really did. I tried. I tried, too. I spun it, and then I went to the next album. Mm-hmm. All right. Just so you guys know how long this has been going on, my wife brought me this morning when we first started, she brought me some coffee because she's sweet, and she had gone to the coffee shop, and she brought me this egg and cheese thing that's on wheat bread, and the bread that I did not eat is stale now. That's all we've been fucking going to. We've been going for about five hours now. Hey, Jay, by the way,

Complain less when you drink. I'm not complaining. I just want you to know we're actually spoiling food at this point. That was me. Sorry. All right. My number eight real quick. Crickets Abound. Go one. Oh, dude, that's a great band name. Band from France, progressive metal, third release. Band's name is Storm Haven Liquid Imagery. I thought the name was Crickets Abound. I like that album. That would be awesome. No, that's my band.

Yes. I bought it. Yeah, it's a solid album. It's cool. Yeah. All right. Well, is it just you or is France making a really hard showing this year? So far. It's much of a more metal country than it has been. And why do we think that might be? I don't know. Gojira, probably. Maybe. Gojira. I did notice in the New Immortal Bird, they had some very good Gojira. That's become a common thing.

That whatever the fuck that is

Well, in a guitar player, you just

I mean, I know what it is, but I don't like it

What's your number eight, Will?

My number eight

Ordos, The End

Is that the first one?

Oh, yeah

No, I think someone else

What did JJ?

No, that was the first one

That's our first one?

Is it?

Oh, no, someone said it on their albums

We mentioned it

Covers

Covers

Yeah, the album covers

We haven't talked about it

I'm surprised

Surprising

Not the House of the Dead, the previous album. The previous album was very, very high up on my list. I mean, even at number eight, it's pretty high on my list. And I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed in this album when it first came out because it just... Me too. It just did not have... It did not grab me at a nutsack the way George does. At all. But I have to admit, this is one of those cases that I will eat Crow and Raven.

and a cardinal or whatever else. A fucking shitbird too. A pelican. I'll eat a pelican. But when I heard it, when I played it on vinyl in my own house multiple times, it captured me a little bit more. So it moved up. It went way up on my list just because it was released and then went way down and then kind of settled into number eight. But Ordos. So Jay, what's your number eight? Well, my number eight,

It's proof that I listen to all of you and all of the things you told me to listen to. And they don't always make it on my list. But every once in a while, somebody will say something. I'm like, OK, and I'll try them out and stuff. And every once in a while, well, a lot of times they'll hit home with me. And I think you'll be surprised, Marcus, on that about the one I'm about to mention. It was when you mentioned a while back. Again, I always check all your shit out. This one, I was like, holy fuck, this is badass. Adrift. Pure. That's a great fucking record, dude. It's so good. And it's right in my wheelhouse.

I often mention, I should just say post-metal, and that's not necessarily post-metal, but I mention Isis too much, but there was this whole series and group of bands I listened to right when they were at their creative peak, and I don't find enough guys that are doing that properly today, not that they're a very Isis-type band, but it's just fucking heavy, dude, and really good, and really just captured my attention from the get-go and keeps it all the way through.

Yeah, and I think it's the best production in any album I've listened to this year. It's really good. And what I like about it is it kind of sounds like other bands, but not. They have their own kind of style, especially in this record. So. I was a welcome. Thank you. Yeah, I'm glad you listened to it, Jay. Yeah. Oh, no, for sure. And also that statue on the front, well, statue is probably not, but it reminds me of the statue in Metropolis, the old 30s silent film. Oh, yeah, that's a good one.

Good movie. Anywho, Adrift. Pure. And it gets a little more pure after this. All my stuff is just fucking straight up, no questions. Balls out metal from here on out. Balls. Not that that is it, but I know. That's all. Balls eat. That was a surprise. I liked that, Jay. It's great. So fucking good, dude. I was surprised and pleasantly surprised. Very cool. Number eight. Eight. Swallow the sun when a shadow is forced.

into the light. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. Euphemism for taking a poop. When the poop is forced into the toilet. Wow. Wow. Number eight. I didn't. I didn't know if you'd have that on there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the album. I just. Didn't know. Made my honorable mentions. Johnny didn't know. Johnny didn't know. It's one of those albums. It came out pretty early. Yes. And it seems like people forgot. But I like that it's kind of making.

It was like my early number one. It was your January album. And then it moved down, but it's still there. Nice. That's awesome. Opening track is awesome. Yeah. Cool. All right. All right. Mark is on number seven. Getting there slowly. Number seven for me is Labyrintho Divino Afflante Espiritu. What he said. From Pelagic Records and Descenso Records. This is an instrumental album, so

George hates it automatically. There is vocals on the first track. There's a difference between not liking and not listing. I'm kidding, George. I know. There is vocals actually on the first track, which is really cool. It's the first vocals they've ever put in an album. They're great. It's very black metal vocals. But man, this thing has riffs for days. I just, you know, normally I don't have this many instrumental albums on it. This is the first of my two instruments.

I'm sure you can guess what the second one is but

I love this record and I've loved all of Labyrinthos albums I feel like they don't get enough play or enough recognition when they do get reviewed of course it's very highly rated but it's cool I like it I listen to this a lot yeah so number seven Labyrinthos Divino Aflante Espirito I can't pronounce it but I like it from Spain again there's a lot of Spanish bands on my list

C.

Matt.

My number seven

from the Ukraine.

Black Metal.

Windswept.

The onlooker.

That's the Drukka guy, right?

I think all the guys are from.

Everything that comes out of Ukraine

is the Drukka guy.

Except for.

What's the name?

I can't remember the name.

Also, because Sergey's not here, I have to defend his honor and tell you on his behalf that it's Ukraine, not the Ukraine. That's him bitching at you, not me. Sorry. God damn it, Sergey. I know. God damn it, the Sergey. We haven't heard from him lately. What's up with him? The Sergey from the Ukraine. That's good. Nobody use that. Hey, Jay, I did that once talking with a woman from

I said, excuse me, it's Ukraine. Do you say the France? And I looked at her and I said, fair point. I'm wrong. Yeah, sure enough. So, all right. But you do say like from the UK, from the US, from, you don't say the America, but you don't say the 270 or the 495 unless you're from California. No, that's Southern California. Get it straight. Excuse me. Get it straight.

Shut up. We don't say the Pacific Coast Highway. We say Highway 1. Hey, 90210. Can you guys tamp it down a little bit? Keep the main down a tad, Skid Row. All right. Let's just skip on past my number seven. Where are we here? No idea. My number seven. It's been mentioned a couple times, and like everybody else, I found this album to be more preferable in there.

Previous Two Albums. All the way from the desert out in Phoenix, Arizona. Spirit Adrift, Divided by Darkness. Nice! I don't know if they're from Phoenix. I think they're from Phoenix. They could be from... Well, Jay, honestly, they could be from Spain via Greece. So, you never know. But I just like the more straight-ahead approach. They're not a derivative of 80s metal, but they are a straight-ahead metal.

It's some touches of doom. Yep. My number seven. So this is literally where my number one through seven are all interchangeable. And I'm not kidding. Wait, even your number one? My number seven right now, what I'm about to say was my number one for a while. My number six was my number one. Like every single one of them from seven through one right now that is in my list. So no clear number one.

for you. That's crazy. Did you not listen to anything I said earlier in the podcast? I know I didn't. No, I mean, you shouldn't. You only listen to what we say. We don't care what everybody else says. Yes. Right. We're always thinking of the next thing we're going to say. Right. Matt controls me. I know. You will listen. But in any case, your number seven is. Number seven. Rotting Christ, the Heretics. Whoa. That's three. Very nice.

This was my number one for a long time. And I have to say, so I'm not the, I'm not a long time Rod in Christ fan. I don't own, I don't think any of their other albums. So to me, this was sort of like, I think we got the promo and I just listened to it. I'm like, holy shit, I really like this. Yeah. And I have no idea if this band used to be like the deepest, darkest mayhem, whatever immortal black metal band. I don't know if they sound like this.

their entire career. But I know Angry Metal Guy fucking hated this album. So you're like, I'm checking it out. So I don't know if that was like a badge of honor sometimes or like, ooh, should I think about this again? But I love this album. And this could easily creep up at the year end on my list. I should listen to it some more. I love this album. I don't care what they've done before. I don't care what they do in the future. This album right here and this

in 2019 is awesome.

You're turning me on.

That's a fucking great record.

Bless your heart.

That was a surprise.

George, turn me on.

George, turn me on.

You're turning me on.

That was John saying that, by the way.

I know, but you're turning me on.

So my number seven is, I love Will because Will says good things.

And sometimes Will says things like Overkill, The Wings of War, for instance.

And that's my number seven.

It really is a fine record and I

will really encapsulate the whole notion of what's cool about this band and

how they've been so consistent for all these years. I also think they've just become

these kind of journeymen. This happens like journeymen musicians. They are like a fucking

there's so much like exactness in their thrash. You know what I mean? Like

and they have this new drummer who's like a drum machine himself. This is his first record. I think he revitalized them a little bit. Huh?

I said, is his name Roland? No, his name is not Roland.

Yeah, and his last name is, I think, 2000. I would forget. No, but in any case, I think he kind of revitalized them on this one a little bit. They got this new kind of younger guy. He's not that young, but he's younger than them. I was watching this live Overkill thing around the time this record came out, and I was freaking out about it. Bobby says in it, this is a great show. You guys remind me of when I was in my 50s.

He's not that old, is he? He's 60? Yeah, 62 or three years old. Wow. But in any case, no more need be said. It's a very, very solid record. Awesome. Thank you for saying that, Jay. Yeah, it's going to be there. No, he's exactly 60, so I take it back. Number seven, yeah? Yarp. Yes. Something wicked marches in.

Fultimas.

Fucking hell.

Did you consider this possibly for an EP or just full?

What was it?

I didn't even look at how long it was.

Well, if it's too long, it'll hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It'll poke you poopy.

No, no.

Well, you just got to fight right through that and then it gets really good after that.

No, no.

I'm always on the giving end.

No, I love this album.

Better to give than to receive.

It's good.

Cool.

All right, Markisan number six. Number six for me is Illimitable Dolor Leading Lights. So sad, so good. Listening to this album is like bathing yourself in magic demon tears. How often have we done that? Funeral doom done almost perfectly. It's really great. Nice. I guess it's Matt.

Can I get that at Bath & Body? Do you have a 20% coupon? Yeah. Do you have Virgin's Tears by any chance? No, I'll just take Magic Tears. Yeah, mention Lead & Light and you get a discount. Lead & Light. All right, my number six from Texas, Dead to a Dying World. I knew that was going to be here somewhere. Somewhere, yeah. Over the rainbow. Over the rainbow.

When it came out, I listened, liked, and then I kind of forgot about it. And then it's kind of another one within the last month has kind of climbed its way up. I like this album, but it was, I've been a very death metal this year. And it was very. And last year. It was very. Not that. Not death metal. Yes. And, and so while I like it, it just didn't, it wasn't listed for me, but, but, but I respect that.

Hey, bitchymatt.com. Bitchymatt.com. It's a thing. Did you say bitchymatt.com or itchymatt.com? Biatchymatt.com. Oh, Japanese now. Okay, I got it. Is itchymatt.com available? Goddammit, now I have to check that. Do you want to just direct the book to one? This is getting expensive. I know. I spent $10 this episode so far. You've been buying domains. I've been trying to join the meat club.

So just keep pressing. I feel so lucky that I got it in that mead club. I didn't know it. It's like there's a wait list for it. Jesus Christ. But there's a Brimming Hoard Mead Club 2. They talk about it. If you look at their blog or something. Well, go ahead. Sorry. It said thank you for joining the club. Brimming Hoard Mead Club 2. So there's like part two? I think you nailed it. The sequel. Huh. That's weird. All right. That's fucking weird. John's number.

My number six.

Straight to that.

Post-metal Atmosphere.

Are you done?

Doom, Sludge, whatever you want to call them.

Band from Austria.

Glare of the Sun.

Thea.

I think George may have listened to this.

I did.

I listened to it too, John.

It just came out.

I bought it.

Yeah, it just came out a couple weeks ago.

It's good.

That's a really good album.

Yeah.

I haven't listened to it enough, I don't think.

for it to make my list. I usually like to listen to an album at least. Yeah, I got tricked by the highs and lows and the heavy riffs into the kind of atmospheric passages. Based on John's Bandcamp, I bought this to listen to at the beach this week. Yeah, and it worked? I liked it. Cool. Yeah, post-metal, which I don't even know that's a genre, but those type of bands, like Jay's been talking about, the ISIS-centric.

I don't know what we call them anymore, John. I don't know what we should say. So I just call them post-metal now because we have nothing else to call them. You don't want to call them Mises. But like I think Jay and I are on the same page. I kind of missed that period of the early 2000s. There were some really creative bands back then. And this is similar, a little bit like that. Yeah, I think post-metal gave way to like post-Black Planet or something like that. I mean, just as far as like trends go.

That is a shame because there was some really cool things happening. That course was abandoned. No, it wasn't entirely abandoned. It's kind of moved on. My number six, and just harking back to what I said earlier, my number seven through one can pretty much be all my number one. Just throw it in a pile and whatever you pick up first. Crips, Cadaver,

Circulation from Finland. Fuck Death Doom at its finest in 2019. And what a fucked up name for a record, by the way. Cadaver Circulation. That's fucking fucked up. It's a good album. But it's a third album. And there's a, if you like Hooded Menace, one of the guys, if you like Hooded Menace, you're probably gonna like these guys because one of the guys from Hooded Menace is in this album. And yeah, just absolutely love this Death Doom.

Masterpiece. I kind of felt like they were an in-between on the classic period of November's Doom and Hooded Menace, where they could get fast, but they could get really slow. Yeah. And combine them both at the same time. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a good album. Hmm. Yeah. I have it in vinyl, too. I love it. Hey, Markisan?

You can't see me, but I heart you.

That's coming off live.

You know, I love my death metal, you know.

All right.

Yeah, Crips is a band.

I mean, I have it at number 13, but I feel like it could rise higher at the end of the year.

Well, we'll see.

I have no idea.

Like I said, I've never done a mid-year cast before, so I don't know how it's going to go.

Noob.

Yeah.

It is harsh.

It's a harsh feeling because you're also going to ask yourself some very serious questions towards the end of the year.

What was I thinking now that all these other

hundred albums are out and you're not just struggling with 100 albums to fit on 25.

Now you have 200 albums to fit on 25.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's keep it rolling.

So my number six is, you know, again,

Mine get explained ahead of time because other people choose them and that's perfectly acceptable. This one was again explained almost perfectly by Will. This is a great record that started. Well, it started slow with me and then I was like, okay, yeah, I wasn't fucking listening close enough or something. I don't know what. And I think you said you got it on vinyl, Will. Ordos the End. Wow. Which I need to order it on vinyl. Oh, yeah, I love this record. There's something about this band that

is kind of fucking spooky. Yep. And I mean, at this point, I'm going to stop you there. Did you have the last one, House of the Dead? Oh, yeah. Fuck yeah. It was way up on my list. I mean, that so like the lines in House of the Dead off the first song where he's like, you will never see your family again. You'll never see anybody you love again. You know what I'm talking about? Can I get you something to drink? Oh, smoke. It's like it's like you will be here forever. Like it's you're right. Spooky is the best word. Yeah. And that's hard to do in today's day and age with

If you ask me, because it's been so overdone, but they use these big, bold, kind of almost like words that not Lovecraftian. I'm trying to go more old school. The guy, the Raven guy. They're like big, bold statements that are just almost like biblical in nature. And it's fucking spooky stuff. And also, by the way, the Raven, that's a, it would be a reference to the writing Christ thing too. They did a thing about the Raven on this album.

So this is a fine record. These guys are firmly in my brain as first day, first fight type guy now based on these last two releases. You get that John, John 16, because he's the first guy I ever heard about. Let's be honest, subliminally, George got me into this band. Thanks, George. I don't care if you don't listen to me. I said it. For me, I will never forget because it was George's

I was literally in Philadelphia sleeping on a futon in my brother-in-law's condo and John tweeted out my headphones only album for the evening was Ordo's House of the Dead. I'm like, oh, let me check this out. I'm like, wow, this is fucking awesome. And apparently he ripped that off from George. Apparently nobody listens to a goddamn thing I say. Well, because you say too many things. Not anymore. You know what's funny is I didn't know that at the time.

But I know it now. I limit myself. George, take us into the top five. I can get with that. Come on. My number six. Do you smell that? The rock? No. It smells like sulfur. It smells like sulfur. English. Inter-Arma. Look at that. Look at you. Not liking Inter-Arma all that much to number six. You're in a fan club now.

I'm in the fan club. I can, I'll even give you this. I remember when I chose Paradise Gallows for whatever year that was. And I was like, and I think George was like, is that that fucking blue one? He couldn't even, he was just like, yeah, I didn't get it. I will admit, I didn't get it. And this actually moved up two spots today. This was number eight. It is now number six because, because yeah, someone,

I don't know if it was on Twitter or Facebook said that InterArma is doing this like Earth Wind Earths. Earth Wind and Fire? Yeah. Earth Wind. So for English, it's all fire. Paradise Gallows, I think, was Earth and Skyburn was the sky. So people were like, oh, are you trying to do? And I think the InterArma guy was like, no, I don't know. But if you ever want, no matter what, I encourage all of you to.

to follow Inter Arma on Twitter. Because Joe, the lead singer, controls the Twitter account. And I guess it's Relapse who said, like, you know, you will have a Twitter account and you will be active on it. And so they took it to the nth degree. It's like, OK, you want us to be active on it? And so they scan, like they will search. If you don't like tag Inter Arma in it, if you just mention Inter Arma, they will find it and they will follow it.

and they will have the snarkiest fucking comments about everything. If someone says, I don't get it, these guys suck, and they'll retweet back like, yep, you're right, we do suck. They are the most entertaining band on Twitter by far. That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. And they rock. No, and they've played Atlas before. They will play Atlas again, and we saw them. They're just the nicest fucking human being. Sorry. I had a couple beers.

I try to be there for that because I want to see that again. I will not be there. That does. They're awesome. How can I watch them if you don't bleed? Um, cut yourself, send you some of my, I'll give you, I'll give you blood right now. All right. Oh boy. Yeah. Paradise Gals was one of my favorite albums. Um, I love that album, but I had a really hard time getting into sulfur English. Um, the first time I listened to it, it put me to sleep on a plane and, um, it's grown on me.

a bit, but it doesn't make my list. It's like Paradise Gallows. All right. We are in the top five now. Top five. It's getting real. I didn't say it. Mark's on. What are you drinking? Right now? I have just cracked open. Crack the Sky. What? Three Floyds from Massdown. How old is that? Very rare beer. This is from two years ago. I had that beer, but if you had that beer,

It's very rare. I've had it before, but I know a guy. Is it older than Motorhead beer? It's good. It's very bright. It's got a bright flavor to it. Let me reiterate for the fifth time. Did you get that beer when it was first released and have you been holding on to it to drink it right now? No. This I got recently. But I've had it when it was first released. There's a guy I know who had it and is holding on to it.

And I haven't seen it since then. So it could be originally released. Oh no, this is from then. This is from when it was released. It's been about a couple years now. It's not a remaster. But sometimes Three Foy's will make the same beer. Like Permanent Funeral, they will make several times. The Pig Destroyer beer. Not this one. They only made it in 2006. Or 17. I can't remember. Alright, so anyways.

Number five for me, critical defiance, misconception, speakable acts records. This is the best thrash record I've heard in a long time. There's nothing close to this thrash record in at least the last five, six years. I love it. And it was my album cover of the month or of the mid-year. So Markisan what if you can pick an old school band from

the 80s, 90s, that this reminds you of. Which one would you pick? I mean, it kind of reminds me of Slayer a lot. You know, what am I feeling for Slayer? You know, back then. It definitely has that old school vibe, that Slayer vibe from like the 80s, you know. I don't know. What do you think, Will? You like this? Yeah, no, I do. And I think if I listen to it,

What I realized about this album, I probably said on the podcast at some point, or at least privately in a grinder message to everybody. It definitely reminds me, to me, it kind of reminded me of Nuclear Assault a little bit. But what it did remind me of is that I've seen so many bands that have been touted as like, oh, these are the new

The new bands that I'm trying to fight through all this nonsense that's going on in this room right now. These are the new bands that like, oh, these there's old school like Gate Creeper or trying to think of the other bands that are like this. But like people think of these as the new thrash bands. But Critical Defiance to me was the closest thing I've ever heard to a new school thrash band that actually sounded like it.

I would have no idea if someone told me, oh, this came out in 88.

And I would never know the difference.

They nailed it correctly.

Yeah.

And I mean, it holds up like that.

That's the crazy thing.

If it was released back then, it would hold on.

I love that.

It's like a continuation of the 80s.

You know, it's so good.

I listen to it quite a bit.

And I'm not really a big trash guy, to be honest.

But there's something about this album that really speaks to me. It just rips from start to finish. Matt, you're up.

All right. My number five, The Mothgatherer, Esoteric Oppression.

Wow. Good pick.

Thank you.

I thought John might have it. I thought John would have had it already, but I assume it's going to be higher. I did not know anybody else would have it besides me and that. Very cool.

John. Continuing on the kind of post-medally portion of the podcast for me. Instrumental band that George absolutely detests and hates. He doesn't want to ever listen to them, but yet he told me to get into them. Pelican, Nighttime Stories. I did. Somewhere down the line. You may have told me like when I was living in California. I do not like them. I mean, when I mentioned them, you were like.

Oh my god.

Somebody posted on the Metalhead site. I think it was Dan Clagajar.

I don't know how he said he didn't understand our love for Pelican.

I don't dislike it at all. I've been a fan of these guys going way back.

I've seen them I don't know how many times and I'm just I like what they do I I wouldn't say it's a return to form but I think they incorporated some of their older sounds with the newer direction it works it's my favorite album since the fire in our throats well back in the thaw back in 2005 back in the thaw you know see uh the two songs like cold hope and full moon black water are just unbelievably good from

them. I'm bummed I missed them in Baltimore last week, so I'll have to catch them on the next leg. Oh, you've got to catch them, John. Oh, my God. Now, I feel like their albums are great. It's not a case of where the live version is better than the album, but they're Pelican Live. Oh, live. They're awesome. The first time I ever saw them, they opened for ISIS. I was like, this is a dream come true, this show. Oh, God. And I just saw them last weekend.

Yeah. I know TR just saw them right before you. So both of you guys said they were awesome. So I really hope I get to see him again. Yeah. All right. Well, I was just making public service announcement that, hey, Dan, from Winnipeg. I love you, buddy. But if you don't get Pelican, then just you need to fucking hang out with me. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Well, I wouldn't wish that on nobody. However. God damn.

Do it. However, my number five is

Madness and Creation.

And I'm sorry, Jay, that you're too stupid to understand these guys.

Fuck Jay, man.

Fuck him. I love him very much.

But fuck him.

God.

At least he's mentally challenged.

Jesus Christ.

Seriously, I will say this.

The problem is I can't find it anywhere.

I honestly don't get how you don't like this album. Jay, I would say this. I would say this may be. I understand that being mentally challenged myself that it may be hard to get into some bands until you see them live. Please see them live and reconsider. That's all I got to say. I will make that promise to you. If they ever. I actually know.

But on the year end, I will be pulling them down with all of my weight to keep them from number one. They will be number one. But they're the three of the nicest guys you'll ever meet in your life. They put on a phenomenal show and they actually listen to this podcast. So they will hate you. Yeah. I'd friend you. I wish I had known that before. Yeah. Well, I don't think this is a case of you got to see him live because I think that album really.

I do feel like I love the album, but I do feel as though seeing them live reinforces things. Agreed. Yeah. Maybe that. Agreed. What these guys said. Yeah. Yeah. Jay. Mine. Bring it. Is not. Okay. This has been an older band been around for a while. Kind of took a little bit of a new turn this year. And I think if you took Death Spell Omega and smashed it together somehow with a high.

fucking steam press and smashed it together with the writing christ record you would get something akin to this album which is enthroned cold black sons i think it's the only one i'm the only one that's really struck home with this year but i really fucking like this record i listen to it a lot of times i've tried to get into it um i mean the last album from them i bought was like towards the skull throne of satan or some shit like in late 90s um it's been a while it's been a while but i you know it's a good walk around

On The Block Album, I walk after supper every night, and I have listened to this a bunch of times, and I usually stay out on my walk long enough to make sure I can listen to the whole record, because I really enjoy it. How many kids do you have, Jay? Because of you, I have tried to get into this. Honestly, I've only listened to a couple songs. Tomato, tomato, yummy, just sometimes it strikes you, sometimes it doesn't, but this one got my number this year. Hard to say if it'll ride.

So high end of year, but I like, I'm very pleased with where I put it for now. Cool. It works. Number five. Number five is alive. Lord dying. Mysterium. Tremendum. Boom. Yeah. Boom. I mean, this, this, when, when I first heard this, I was like, holy shit, that's my number one. Didn't work out that way, but you know,

5. Yeah, it's a good album. I like it. I like it. All right. It's getting real. Really real. It's getting real. So real, we're only getting number 4. Yeah, so mark us on number 4. Number 4, yeah, I'm surprised by this one, but my number 4 is Gravefields Embrace the Void from Redefining Darkness Records. Full of Herculean face-shattering riffs all the way through for the first half.

of 2019, this is the album I'd put on if I needed to get fired up.

I saw a lot of people really like this album.

And so I love it.

I gave it a brief listen.

I mean, like brief.

And I was like, so I need to probably need to listen to more to have an opinion.

But which is to say, I don't have an opinion.

Anybody else has heard it, but I know of it.

It fucking rips all the way through.

Really enjoy it. Cool. Matt. Cool. My number four. We were talking earlier about Yellow Eyes and Deaf Heaven. And I mentioned there was a band on my list that felt to me more like Deaf Heaven in terms of vocals. And that would be Moinog, Dreaming in a Dead Language. I knew that was coming up, Matt. It had to be on your list because you made me put it on my list. It was coming.

Somewhere. Over the rainbow. Over the rainbow. Yeah, I dig that album. I hadn't heard of them before you mentioned it, but I've listened to it quite a bit. It doesn't make my list, but I really like it. The other band I would compare to them would be like a Ghostbath, but not quite as... Like, I feel like Ghostbath, their singing goes a little bit over the top, whereas it felt like these guys had a good ceiling where they kind of kept it under. Hmm. Hmm.

It made me think Ghost Bath, fake Asian band, actually not Asian band, made me think of Tanger Calvary, which the guy Nature G just died, which fucking blows my mind because I really like those guys. That was something I wanted to mention at the beginning. I forgot, but that fucking sucks. Absolutely. I literally just got into that band last year.

Because maybe last year or the year before, and I thought the album was good, but then I kind of went back to some of their older stuff, which I thought was mind-blowing. And then to see that he passed away out of nowhere. There hasn't been an official announcement, I don't think, but I have to assume it was suicide. Yeah. That sucks. Because that's probably the end of the end right there. Is anyone else focusing on the fact that Matt is just...

Above his crotch level and he's spreading his legs like he's like come look at it. Come look at it. But you can't. There's a big black microphone going right into my face. There's a whisper. I like how we went from something really dark and sad to nuts. It's like Matt's Reddit moment right there. That was just my way. You sexy.

George I totally feel you man I mean that's Tinker cover man I gotta raise a glass and Ray posted something about that too yes she did she knew it because they did the stuff for the video game doom you know what I love about this moment I have no idea what you guys are talking about yeah yeah guys listen to the last episode yeah yeah listen to what you fucking put out I was there I don't know I was on the doing thing

All right. My number four. It's been mentioned a couple times already. Marcus, I was surprised I hadn't mentioned it yet. Keeping with the post-metal theme. Mothgatherer, esoteric oppression. I mentioned something he was listening to, and I think he said they reminded him of the ocean. So I got a little woody, went out and looked. From Toy Story?

I knew this one would be on your list, John. I didn't expect it to be this high. Like Jay, I'm missing the kind of ISIS, Colta Luna period of the mid-early 2000s. So this was welcomed to hear. They have a Colta Luna ocean kind of vibe going. So solid album. That last ocean album. Holy fuck. And we got a new ocean album coming out soon.

Oh, I know. Actually, the last two Ocean albums have been awesome. Yep. Yep. Go Will. My number four. Toy Story 4. Sorry, say that again. Toy Story 4, did you take the kids to it yet? I did. Because I'm a good parent. I'm a good dad. Same. The first half, it was super slow. Yep. The second half was pretty good.

Fuck, that beer's good. Speaking of which, half good, half slow, my number four pick, Inner Arma. Soft for English. Yes. About time. I have to say that obviously we've heard the stories about me and the mosh pit. When they're alive, because they cut out all the filler, so they just play

their heaviest, most aggressive, crazy. I mean, they must drop down to like a C tune or something like that on the guitar. It's like it's fucking so goddamn heavy. Sabbath goes to C sharp, we'll go lower. Yeah. And so I feel as though this album had more filler than last albums. But the songs on there, like Citadel and Sulfur English,

and the avatendness, whatever you call it. I like stillness. Stillness is like a slower. It's a long song. It's on that borderline of filler to me where they're normally at. Citadel is the song where they're just like, that's what they're going to play live. They're not going to play stillness live. So when you think about the songs that they're going to play live, which is probably only three, maybe four of these songs.

that are on this new record. I almost feel like put out a four song EP and it will be my number one on my list every time, anytime, all the time. Except we don't do EPs. I know. Yeah, but their EP would be longer than half of those grindcore albums. That is true. That is true. But anyway, the songs that they do put out are so, so good. And because of the filler songs, that's why it's not my number one.

could have been my number one had they just continued with the trend and like all eight songs were just brutal non-filler absolutely killer what they can do because i know they can do it you can do it they're gonna play atlas again it's why they don't make my list they just fuck around too much just you know give me the good shit and that makes a good album to me to me as in my perspective this is purely me the good shit that they do have

is so fucking good.

Right.

I get it.

Like it outweighs to the dickery.

Yeah.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

It doesn't for me, but it does for you.

Jay, I love good dickery.

Oh, of course you do.

My number four is, I think it's been at least somewhat appreciated by pretty much everybody.

Only one person, as I think, said it.

And every year, at least for the last few years, I've had a good, solid kind of surprise thrashy release or something that I really liked. I would call them mine. Witchery is one that comes to mind. Last year, what's that one band that we all had with the waves, the crazy waves and the faces and the waves? It was a good record. That was a good record. You know what I'm talking about, though? Crown. The Crown. Oh, yeah, yeah. And every year I find one of those, or we all find one of those.

and I'm just like, oh, this is such a fucking solid record, kind of unexpected. This one comes from a band that kind of doing a lot of different stuff on this one. Will kind of called the mind Goat Horror, but I would also call the mind Tribulation, more thrashy stuff as well. Worm Witch. This was a really good record, dude. Worm Witch Heaven That Dwells Within. Very solid from start to finish. And when I've had it playing and it was on random with other things that I was listening, which I do sometimes.

And it would come up and every time I'd be like, well, what the fuck is this now? And each song is a little different from the last. This is a super solid release. I look to it to probably stay in my top 10, depending on what the second half of the year looks like. But Wyrm Witch, Heaven That Dwells Within, a very fine album. And a cool cover, by the way. I like the cover. It reminds me of this new movie by the guy who did Hereditary. Oh, right. You know the movie I'm talking about, the new one? I can't think of the name, but I know you're talking about.

I think it's like Aramosa. Yep. Anywho, that's before. Before I do my number four, can I just say I think this is going to be our longest episode ever? Oh, sure. I don't know where it is going to edit down to, but right now we're past five and a half hours. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. All right. My number four, only spoken once, probably not spoken again. Empath. Devin Townsend. Fucking Devin Townsend.

Oh my god.

Once you're in.

I'm sorry.

You can't go back.

You know, I get that it's not as metal to people.

I get it.

Even though, as we have shown, it is metal.

But wow.

Listen, if we're talking about Ron Stein, anything goes at this point.

Anything goes.

All right.

I'm not going to mansplain it anymore.

That's number four.

It's not like it's number one.

Clutch, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You'd have to be a fucking idiot to do that.

Will's never going to live that one. You know what? I will live that one proudly because some people on this podcast have been stopped. There's way less metal than clutch, by the way. Is he looking at John? You mean like the empath? I have a list, Will, of all the non-metal albums. See, I told George before we saw him at Properist that once you join the Devin team, you're never coming back. Oh, yeah. It's the truth. I love it.

You're on for the full ride. Can you play that salty? Yeah, sure. No problem. It's a little salty, but it's not bad. All right. Let's go. Okay, three. Top three. Come on. Let's blow these hoes because we're all going to get in trouble. Top three. Number three for me. Jen's mom's here, so I'm good. Now it's my turn. Pelican. Yes. Yes. Lord.

They formed in 2001. That was shortly after I moved to Chicago. So I consider them my hometown band, like a lot of people consider sports teams their hometown teams. This is their heaviest album in years with riffs that just stay with you. And as we've already mentioned many times before, they just crush live. And these songs in particular, a really good live. So I was already going to put this high on my list, but having just seen them,

Last Week. I think I moved up a couple slots because of that. But yeah, this is the first, again, like my hometown Chicago band. I totally agree with you because there's bands on my list that I see at my own brewery and they play. It's like they crush it. So my question to you is, do you know the guy? Have you met them or know them or hang out with them? I've talked to him a little bit. I haven't really hung out like, you know, let's go to the arcade.

But I've had two of them before. I've talked with them afterwards. They give me a set list. I've gotten a bunch of stuff from Pelican shows. I actually saw most of the songs from Nighttime Stories last year. They came to Chicago and performed most of them, and I got the set list. I actually knew. They just gave me the set list. I knew most of the songs before I even came out on the album. That was cool. I'd say we were friendly, but I'm not friends.

Friendly, but not friends.

And the band doesn't all reside in Chicago. They live in different areas now. They used to live just in Chicago, but now they're kind of scattered. That's why it took so long for them to record the album. One of the reasons is because they don't live in the same area. So people consider them a Chicago band, but they're not. I think maybe two members are still in Chicago. That's it. It's a great album. I was anticipating this one six years.

And then it didn't disappoint. In fact, it exceeded my expectations. I agree completely. Not to interrupt you, Marcus, but Matt is throwing gang signs or sign language to somebody who's not on the podcast. He's tender in a way. Grinder. Fingers. Somebody to his right. He's playing Wii. That's right. We do a little Mario Kart.

Give us that three. Number three, Matt. And now you're up. You're up. All right. My number three from Spain, Altarage, The Approaching War. Oh. You're all saying woo because you've never heard of it before. Exactly. No, I know it. Exactly. Matt, tell us. I forgot that that was this year. Like, honestly, this is the darkest album on my list. I'm actually a little bit scared of it. I would call them kind of black and death.

Das ist mit der Böse.

that description. Shaking. You're getting sleepy. He was having an ass chasm. Oh, John. So one of my favorite times ever with Jay is I came out there. It was just him and I. We got pizza and beers. Ass chasm. We had ass chasm, but we listened to tunes. Jay's not even there. Oh, come on.

It's at a restaurant

So it is true

Jay totally likes it in the butt

I mean

He does

Oh, oh, there he is

If he didn't

He wouldn't even say anything now

Oh, no

Alright

So one of the worst times

I ever had with Jay was

Oh, you miss so much

So Jay, I was saying

Sorry

One of my favorite times

Hanging out with you

Is I came out with Shumi

We got pizza and beers

We hung out at your place

With your cat

And we played a bunch of tunes

from some crazy band from Finland that TR likes to make fun of all the time because he says they sound like an Italian clown. TR would be wrong. He fails. My number three is a combination of Aranzi Pazuzu and Dark Buddha Rising. You're not going to get two crazier band names in that. I swear half this album sounds like a new Aranzi Pazuzu album. But anyway, Waste of Space,

Orchestra Synthiosis. Yes. Killer album. It is so good. Yeah. I mean, you have to be willing to accept that it's avant-garde-ish, that it's kind of cosmic and psychedelic, and it's not black metal, but it has a black metal attitude at times. So. Nice. Yeah. I knew that was going to be up there. I would prefer an Aronsi, a new Aronsi album, but I'll take this. Mm-hmm. So. Well, you're sure to get one. That's not good. And.

Oh, well, they were a Bronsi's last album was what? My number two? Yeah. When I came out. And I will say this when George and I saw them at Death Fest, they absolutely destroyed the place. They did. They were unreal how good they were. That converted me. Yeah. They were people. I have friends that were there that were prog rock fans that walked in and said, I don't know what I just witnessed. I have to buy everything from this band. So very, very awesome life. So, yeah. All right. Will.

My number three, and excuse me, because I'm not going to be able to pronounce any of this shit, but from Spain, Death Doom Band, Anirofagus, and Darkament, Illumination Through Putrefaction from Barcelona. Barcelona. Barcelona, yeah, that's right, because they do the lith,

the day had a lift. And that's why everyone in Argentina speaks Spanish with a lift. Anyway. Holy shit. Like this is. If it's cattle. Four songs. And who told you about this album? George. I have no. I can honestly say I have no idea. It was me. Okay. But I'm pretty sure it was Matt. But anyway. So Matt, thank you. Welcome. But anyway.

I've only checked Angry Metal Guy for like a handful of albums. And they hated. No. Absolutely fucking hated. They gave it a two, I think. That's the mistake. You should always check them. Always. Because even if it's a shitty review, tons of people find out about the album then. Yeah, that's true. That's the way I look at it. But it's just, Angry Metal Guy has some interesting, it has some critiques about it. Oh, yeah.

That like the songs going

because it's four song

album and the songs are like

like way over 15 minutes

each

but

and they will say like oh

like you think you're going to get to the end of the song

and then it just keeps going but part of me is like

I didn't mind that because I think they did

in such a good way that I don't

I think it naturally flows

and I'm like oh it doesn't flow

so anyway fuck Anger Metal Guy

that's my number three pick

suck my balls

Is it the best website or the worst website? Depending on the album. Depends on what you like. Anyway, there's a lot of albums I have on my list. Anger Man Who A Guy hates. I love that site just because it just gets everyone riled up. Can you hear it? Especially for death metal albums. Man, they always put them live. It's ridiculous. They put the last two-month record, like three or something. The newest one coming out next month? No, last one. If they don't give that a four at least. Because they're subjective.

It's one guy on that site. It's not a committee. At least Decibel. Decibel will be one guy rating the album, but then there's a committee. Decibel fucks up all the time. Right, but at least on Decibel, there's a committee who says, all right, is this justified? You're reviewing it, but is this justified? Eh. My number two album is Decibel.

I have to say that

I agree with the people on decibel I can't

follow their train of thought when they review albums

because they try to be more snarky

than next guy

exactly

Jay

number three my top three all have voices

that have returned

voices from the past

number three

candle mass

the number three

is the least returned in that he's been back for a little bit, but he's not really doing music professionally. He's just kind of doing it on and off when they work something out together with his old buddy. And I think one of the things I said about this record was, wouldn't it be nice if Iron Maiden was putting effort into records like this, which they're not as much as I like Iron Maiden.

I wouldn't like Iron Maiden to do anything at this point. Book of Souls rules!

Bam! Floppy docky dick.

That brings us to Arch Matheus, Winter Ethereal. I mean, just to hear John's voice whenever you get to hear it is amazing alone. I honestly think this is a super solid record. Everything that they've done together since John kind of came back have all rated super high with me, and this one is no different. I don't know that I like it quite as much as the other two things, but that doesn't mean I don't love it. It's fucking great. So, Arch Matheus. Good choice. Yeah. And he's 60 years old now. Damn!

Holy fuck. Whether you like his style or not is irrelevant. He's still doing that at 60. He fucking rips. Listen, I know. His voice is so intact. It's ridiculous. Good stuff. Cool. George. My number three is an epiphany of nowhere. Or a revelation of oblivion. Possessed. Wow. Fuck yeah. It's good. It's really good.

I fucking love it. I've been listening to this so much. I mean, if you follow us online at all, I was probably like, meh, when it came out. But the more I listen to it, the more I like it. And this fucking album rips. It's got deep hooks. And I say two things about it, George. One is there's a lot of hooks in it. And number two is it only seems to get heavier the further it gets into the record. It's just like each next song is faster and heavier than the last one. It is a very consistent album.

I mean it gets better but I guess that doesn't make sense that's a pleasant surprise

awesome all right number two mark is on number two Jay mentioned this one I was surprised I didn't think

anybody else would have this on their list but it is a drift pure from temple of torturous records

absolutely thunderous progressive metal album propelled by a jet full fuel fired bass sound

Vicious Black Metal vocals and just like mountainous riffs in this thing. A street painter in Madrid told me about this band several years ago, and I have not stopped loving the band. I listen to them a lot, the old records. It's been a while since they put out a record, and I was really looking forward to this. It was on my most anticipated albums list when we did that cast, and I fucking love it. And that's why I was talking about Decibel. I don't know what they gave it, maybe like a six or a seven.

or something like that. But I love Decibel Magazine. You know, I'll probably always get Decibel Magazine. But sometimes I feel like the reviews are way off of what I like. This album, I can't stop listening. That's across the board for every site. All reviews. All reviews. Yep. They're all more. Bottom line is, you like what you like. Yep. Yep. That's right. That's only fair. All right. My number two.

I'm sure it's on everybody's list from Iceland, some atmospherical black metal. The band is Kaleiker and the album is called Heart of Lead. John just let out the sigh like he was so expecting. Whenever you're going to say he was going to like and then when you see him say he's like, ugh. Was the name of the band Lakers Cheerleaders? Kaleiker. Kaleiker. Kaleiker. Cheerleaders. Yeah, just Kaleiker. I'm just going to wait until George posts like,

all our favorite albums because I can't I don't even know half the bands Matt talks about our spell yeah well check out my facebook photos where I'm wearing their swag so I'm gonna go to bitchymatt.com bitchmatt.com underwater.com awesome so what do you like about this dude tell us more tell us more how does it get that loud every time just amplify what is vibrating in your

your anus that like when the methane gas passes through the passage of your anus that it gets that loud because it has to vibrate the only way that fart is that loud is vibrating like there's an opening like in your airway like when you're snoring at night and you're sopping you can barely hear you guys like all right who knows who's next

Yes. Wow. I'll be damned. Hey, look who's checking in. Let me keep this fart train going. We've already mentioned him a few times. Lord Dying. Mysterium Tremendum. Nice. I like it. That's good. You likey. Me likey likey. I tried to get him for you guys, by the way. Yeah, I know. We're happy that you tried. You can't help asshole me now. Okay.

Number two. What I love, absolutely love about my number two, you don't have to skip any songs. Hate. Oric Gates of Veles. No children singing. No children singing from Warsaw, Poland. Holy shit. These got, I mean, they floated back and forth between number one, number two, quite a bit. And my year end, they may be in my, my rear end.

My number one. We might all be in year round. Holy shit. Like the black metal, death metal, thrash metal goodness of hate. And Tremendum was on my, I think it was on my list a couple years ago. But just their new album is fucking phenomenal. John, you were about to say something. When you said we're all going to be in Wills, I just kept thinking of hot dogs in a hallway. Yeah.

Or cave jumpers in a giant cave in the middle of nowhere. Okay. Aspilunk and I'm kind. Rockets and die. You ask me longer. Jay, take us somewhere else. Somewhere else. Well, a lot of you. So here are the various things said about this record throughout this podcast. I kind of forgot about it. It was good. I feel like it should be higher. You're all right. Should have been higher. Candlemas. Door to Doom. Wow.

Oh, whoa, number two. Wow. Go put it on. Put it on again, and you'll be like, I mean, this is your chance to be there when Mob Rules came out. It's not that good, but it's good. This is a fucking solid. You just compared this to Mob Rules. I'm so glad I put this on number 24 to drag it down, so there's no way it's going to make our top 10 list. No, it's not as good as Mob Rules, but there aren't bands out there like this right now. No, there are. They're called Crips.

Yeah, fair enough. But I mean, not with voice like this either. His voice is so good. It's so good to have him back. I think it's really fucking solid. I'll be honest with you. There's one song I think is a little bit weak. The rest of it, I think it's just fucking... I do need to give it more time. You think it's more than solid? It's your number two. Yeah, I love it, dude. It's great. It's such a good record. It's a great record. I listened to it so many times this year. There you go. My number two, I think we'll hear about this again.

Probably not. No, I think so. He's looking at John like, oh, it's Archmothaeus. It is Archmothaeus Winter Ethereal. Oh, fuck yeah. Yes, number two, Archmothaeus. Yes. Honestly, I was like, am I the only one who's going to have this? We're not done yet, Jay. You should really come out here and sit in this room. And the amount of prog power

or exuding from this room.

It overtakes you.

It makes you embarrassed like death metal.

Come on.

Do you see me get all excited?

This album is fucking amazing.

This should have been.

This was briefly my number one.

Do you see my pants coming off just because one of my albums is on George's list?

No.

Hey, that's an honor, man.

You should take your pants off.

If you're my number one, you need to take your pants off.

That's the way it works.

Except nobody is going to have my number one. Apparently not. Nope. I definitely will not. Do it, Marcus. Take us in. Are we ready for number one? We are ready. We are here. Trust me. We're ready. This is really happening. Finally here. Okay. Number one. Here we go. This is it. If you've made it this far in the cast, finally we're here. Matt has mentioned this record. I thought it might be higher on his list, but it's very high on my list.

Crowhurst. Wow. I had a feeling that might be at the very top of your list. Wow. Every once in a while, there's an album that comes along that makes me feel like I'm experiencing something cutting edge, something new. I like the previous Crowhurst albums, but this is a special record. It perfectly blends sludgy black metal with noise, with shoegaze, with electronics, ultra dynamic riff.

It's also a lean record at just over 30 minutes. We talked about this very early in the cast. That is super important. 30 minutes is like nine of this episode. There's a lesson to be learned. 10? I don't even know. It's a long time ago. There's no fill on this, fellas. It's just fantastic metal thrills all the way through. I cannot stop looking.

All right. That makes me want to go listen to that again. I mean, I like maybe I liked what I heard. I just haven't listened to it that much. So thank you. And I got to say, we didn't do honorable mentions for covers, but the Crowhurst three album is awesome. It's scary. It looks like a horror mountain transformer, like a mountain was in disguise and suddenly decided to reveal its true form to terrorize the ski community.

below. It's crazy. It's really cool looking. But yeah, I did not expect this to be my number one, but man, I cannot stop listening to this record. Nice. So good. All right, Matt. Cannot argue with any of that. George Cue the Crickets, my number one from Germany. Downfall of Gaia. I was waiting for that. Nice. That's not a cricket one, though. I've heard that one.

That's true. It's a good album. It's like the... I feel like everyone's number one is going to be crickets at this point. You know, can I just say, I love that Downfall Gaia album, except I don't like talking in albums. And you know what? I can totally understand this. You don't like Megadeth doing it, do you? Otherwise, other than that, that's a great album. But the talking brings it way down for me. Totally.

I respect that. All right. John. Well, if you didn't see this coming, you're not paying attention. It's so obvious. So obvious. I guessed this before we even started. Hooga. I mean, come on. Seriously. I'm a massive Fates Warning fan. Archmeteos Winter Ethereal. Yeah. And I will say, I don't know if it's going to be my number one.

one at the end of the year because it gets a little long in a tooth and gets a little draggy at the end but but damn it's so good it's like an all-star cast of musicians on top of that too so this was my one for a while yeah by the way john sings almost constantly through that record he's not just singing at that high level of singing he does there's not a lot of spots where john's voice is not on that record you know i mean it's like if it's 40 minutes of music

It's like it's 35 minutes of singing

Yeah

And that's the thing

If you love his voice

Like you're gonna love that

Oh yeah

I am not as into it

And I've tried to listen

Many many times

I know how much you guys love it

But uh

You know

I knew this would be

Very high on your list

It's cool

I'm gonna give it another shot

Just because it's number one

You gotta

For you John

Hey

You oughta

Voice

It's just almost

Too many vocals

I will say

From a drummer standpoint

It's like a wet dream of drummers. Not even close with the guys that are on the album. So. The music is fucking. All right. We'll do your thing. What is it? A man alone on an island. At least Robinson Crusoe had family. I do not. I'm sorry. I tried. I know. I mean, your mouth feels good and everything.

It's not the same as a hollowed out warmed up coconut. I don't even know how that's a thing. Cast away here. Move to Hawaii, you'll find out. Your best friend will be named Wilson. My number one album, which if I can go back and just reiterate that my number one through seven called

my number one. Yeah. If this is what I think it is, wow. What do you think it is? Archmothaeus, Winter Etheroth. No. Awesome pick, Will. I did enjoy, it's just not my style of music. Awesome pick. No, George. No, go. No, go. I can't say it because you may have already said it. Ramstein. Throne Hammer. Yeah, okay. No, that makes sense. Actually, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. I've listened to it.

Yeah, Usurper of the Oaken Throne came out in April. These guys are from Durham, UK. It is literally just like an epic doom metal album with some death metal vocals interspersed here and there. I highly recommend everyone checking this out. I bought it based on you. Yeah, they get a little lung in the tooth at times, but... A little? Just a tad bit. You're killing my number one.

It's long, dude. It is. I did like it. It was long. Yeah. But I just found this surprisingly, surprisingly epically awesome. Cool. That's my number one. Cool. Right on. Which could be my number 20 at that mid-year. Two more picks. This is the mid-year. Yeah. I'm really curious. You can kill that. I see one of the other ones in the mid-year.

Jay. Just like John said, if you don't know what my number one is, you haven't been paying attention. I mean, you haven't heard me say it yet. But, well, you heard me say it once today because I was talking about the cover, but it's got to be possessed. I mean, it's more than just nostalgia. The thing about it is, is that they managed to do, granted, there's only one original member. It's the most important member. But they managed to do, to pay homage to the past, to make a killer album with killer hooks, to bring it into modern production, and even,

And they even gave you a good old school metal blade style back of the album. You know what I mean? Like that's the way I grew up. I used to stare at this shit. And more than anything else, it's the music. And there are certain people who just have voices that appeal to each of us. And one of the things I've always loved about Possessed is Jeff Baccaro's voice just fucking appeals to me, man. It's like this halfway between a howl, a scream, and a fucking death

And it's just brilliant. And it's more than I could have hoped for. I would call to mind, I mentioned this to you guys, I think at some point I would call to mind that there's no way Celtic Frost should have come back and made a good record, as good a record as they did when they made Monotheus. That's just stupid that that should exist. Because that doesn't say shit doesn't happen. To me, this is just like that. One of my great loves of the past came back and blew me out of the water. And I was prepared to be disappointed. So, good stuff. Number one, it's gonna be hard to knock it off before the end of the year.

It's not only did they come back and make that record, but it's their best record. It's their best record. And I would say that about Monotheos too. And that's a rarity, man, that you can say that they came back and made their best record. And also, there's also an interesting story, you know, that he's in a wheelchair now. He was kind of randomly shot in San Francisco some years back. So he's not even playing bass on the record, but I assume that he at least plays bass to write and stuff. I could go on and on.

I won't do so except that this is a fucking great record. I'm glad this is a year. I'll remember this year for this record for sure. Nice. Yeah, I love it that much. Possessed. Georgie Boy. Here we are. Last one. The holy moment. This is the end. My only friend. The end. Yes. Well, except for out of romance. No, I already did that. That was my number two.

I can't even imagine. Does anybody know? I mean, my number one. Did Lady Gaga put out now? My number one has been mentioned once. Does anybody have a guess? Can you tell us you mentioned it? I will not. Gaga, Madonna, any other female pop singer? Rihanna. Okay, you're right.

are here. Fucking Mephorish. Shem Ha Mephorish is my number one. Wow. What's the actual name of the band? Mephorish. Mephorish. Did you listen to it? That is... Now that you're saying it is one of the records you were most vocal about. Yeah, exactly. Fuck you. I love you. It's really good. It is so good. This is like... It was on the bubble for me. This is like...

I was thinking about this earlier and I was thinking of Markisan I was like this is like the Conan the

Barbarian soundtrack if it were metal because it is so epic and it's just huge I can't even say it's just fucking awesome I love this album is this their first record by the way except they don't kill they just don't kill James Earl Jones fast enough yeah but yeah

Awesome. But I love, I do really love that record. I really want to fit it on. You know, there's just a lot of records that I was surprised because it's mid-year. So you didn't put it on? It's not on my list. It's on my honorable mentions. Well, somebody fucking, maybe. You had it. I thought somebody had it. I know how much you loved it. All right. Well, there we are. Well, let's do honorable mentions now. Mark us on. Okay, hold on. I'm going to scroll.

I will mention. Fuck. Okay. John mentioned this one. I think he's the only one. Dreadnought Emergence. Really beautifully crafted, arresting waves of doom and dark prog metal. Inter Arma. I know a lot of people have that high. I am not as high on this album. As I said, I love Paradise Gallows, but I just had a hard time getting into this one. I just think they put too much filler into the album.

But I will always see them live. Here, here. So much filler on that album. It's just, I don't understand. Why would you put that shit in the album? Stellar Master Elite. It was also mentioned. Hologram Temple. I really liked that album. It was on a bubble for a while. It just got dropped. Possessed. Revelations of Oblivion. I know how much Jay loves this record. And I wanted to get it on my list just for him. Jay's not here.

So like fuck that album

But he's not even here

You know it's a Dark Angel album

It's not a Death Metal album

Like fuck that guy

Number one seriously

Like he could suck a dick

But number three is okay right

No

No I'm sorry

I'm just

I know

I'm only fucking with

Jake because he's not there

He's not there

Exactly

I mean it's an intense

And powerful revival

I think it simultaneously

Honors

Their death threat

Past

And then it still

puts the album in the present.

So it's a great comeback album.

I just don't respond to it as much as he does.

So another album, I think John mentioned this one, Nucleus Entity.

Will may have had this on his list too, actually.

And I think I said, it's really done, well done tech metal,

but it just doesn't have the riffs for me.

Veldez, Flameless.

That was early on.

I really like this rolling riffy kind of black metal with pretty passages throughout it, but couldn't find a spot for it. So the all devouring. This is a black gaze. It's kind of like old school. This is way more deaf. George would hate this. Yeah, fuck. But I like some quite a bit. Bloody Hammer. Yeah. George loves this. The summoning.

Rock and Goth Anthems, really great for driving. Yes, I was driving to this when I went to pick up the pizza. Oh my God. You know, there's certain albums that are just great when you're in the car, and this is one of them. Fetid, I think that was also mentioned maybe by Will. Filthy, Ferocious Death Metal Crusher. Morda, Stigmata, another one that was mentioned, Dreams of Quiet Places. Excellent, avant-garde, Black Metal. A Wash in Smyrland.

Guitars, ambient synth, and just pummeling fucking drums. I really like that. Imprecation, Damnatio Ad Bestious. This is another old-school death album done really well, but it's pretty straightforward. So again, like Ossouarium, which had a few tricks, this one does not have as many, and so it dropped to my honorable mention.

Right on.

That's what we got.

All right, Matt.

Cool.

My list is fairly short.

I'll keep it brief.

I was a huge fan of the 7777 trilogy from Bleed Off Snorch.

So, Jerusalem, the Sublime, from Australia, A Million Dead Birds Laughing, and their album, To the Ether.

A local band, local to me, Ashbringer and Absolution.

Yes.

I believe some death metal from Italy, Electrocution, and their album, Psychonolatry. From England, Mastiff, and their album, Plague, and then Mastis, Deliquess. And then I have four EPs that I thought were fabulous. Thraw, Gardens of Rot, Heracle Sect, and their album, Rotting Cosmic Grief. A band called Mecca, Ending My Life to Destroy Yours. And a band called Irewolves, and their album,

or their EP, Bleeding Apart. They're local too, right? Duluth, yeah. Nice. John. All right. So I think somebody mentioned, I can't pronounce the name, a folk metal band from Switzerland, Iluvati or whatever. Iluvati. Yeah. So this is a spinoff band, Seller Darling, who I like a lot. I'm called The Spell.

you have a hurdy-gurdy in your musical lineup. I'm down. Right on. I only have two albums that have hurdy-gurdy since both of theirs. But she's got an amazing voice and she was the singer for them for a long time. Wake up, Will. I'll be fast. Atmospheric Black Metal Band from Switzerland, Forlet Sires, the album's Holy. I mentioned them for my album covers. An album I'm trying to get into like you guys.

But I do like some of it. Half of Rotten Rune. A band that I've had on my list every year they've released an album. But this year it's just not working as much. A band called Spotlights. Love and Decay. Kind of a post-metally, doom-gazy band. And yes, well, they're from Brooklyn, so maybe there's a hipster thing. I don't know. Fucking hipsters. God damn it. But it's cool, though. And an album that may still make my top 25 for the end of the year.

Swallow the Sun when a shadow is forced into the light. Into your butt. I'm actually surprised that did not make it. Yeah, me too. Yes. Really. Because I haven't listened to it enough and I just didn't feel confident enough to throw it on there. But the little bit I did spend the other day, I was like, shit, I need to give this more time again. So. All right. All right, Will. My honorable mentions very quickly. Ataraxia. Sorry, I needed my glasses.

The Death Dune Band, Critical Defiance, The Thrash Band, their album Misconception, Rotted, Death Dune Band, their album called Pestlin' Tomb, Noisem, their Thrash Blackened Band. They're playing in September. It's too short. Yeah, it's good, but it's too short. The album Cease to Exist.

Storm Witch, Heavens That Dwell Within. That was pretty cool. I just need more time with it. Thotian Horde, Local Band. I thought they were number one. No, they were in... Oh, no. As album covers. I do love the album cover. Fool of Hell, Weeping Choir, Dark Throne, Old Star, and Ad Patris. Oh, yeah. Brief Indoctrination to Human Experiment.

Those guys are cool.

Yeah.

I'll be pretty quick to the Entombed live album.

I liked a lot.

I actually kind of wanted to include it because it was so much fun,

but you know,

I didn't slag head.

I thought that second release was pretty good,

especially since that's apparently like the most casual band in the world.

Having talked to those guys,

the dark throne record.

I,

I know I did put the dark record.

I wasn't going to say that.

Um,

uh,

there's not too much else I need to mention.

You guys all said a bunch of bands that I like.

We'll keep it short and just know that the end of the year is going to be the worst shit show that we've ever seen. Totally. Because this is going to be, we've got some rough stuff coming our way. Yeah. All right. My, excuse me, my honorable mentions. This one I thought would be on John's list or at least mentioned some way. Virkalak, Mask, Dead to a Dying World, Elegy, Overkill, The Wings of War,

Wait, Will's still laughing. Hannes Grossman, Apophenia. I'm just laughing because like literally some of the shit you put on your list. Like why was that not on your list? Yeah. Because you don't like metal. No, I don't. I hate metal. This one that I thought would have been on your list, motherfucker. Call of the Void, Buried in Light. Yeah. Good call. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Don't buy it. Albes Deuce. I don't know how to fucking say that band, but Enigmatic Rides.

Full of Hell, Weeping Choir would have been on here if it was a little longer. It was short. It was a little short. And I also, George, you were also right about how there was some noise on there. If it's that short, don't put the fucking noise. Exactly. It was only like 20 some odd minutes. Take out the noise tracks. It's under 20 minutes. It's too short. Trust me, I know those guys. And like, yeah, take out the noise. Just make an album. I mean, it's cool stuff, but if you're going to put that on there, you've got to have more tracks. It is a great EP.

Yeah, okay. Dark Throne, Old Star, and one, my last one that nobody's mentioned, I just listened to it yesterday and I really dig it. Sadistic Ritual Visionaire of Death. And that's it. Cool. I just got to piss. Me. Yes. All right, we are at the end. We are well over six hours. I don't know what it'll edit it down to, but

Probably pretty close to six hours. Just cut out every hour that I say. At least cut out. It's going to be a long episode. So if you're still here and you're still with us, God bless. You're a fucking idiot is what you are. That too. So we're talking to John from Nashville. John BT. If you're still here. Yeah. Or if you fast forward it. Just fast forward to the weird shit that put John.

George puts on it at the end. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun. It's been awesome. This is definitely our longest episode. So. Well, it's. I just got a text from Chris. A.K.A. Neutrino said, where was Will with all the dick jokes when Ray was on? I did say boobs. I said boobs a couple of times. You did say boobs.

Não é um ponto.

It would be huge. Like Will. Times two. Which is massive. Have a great weekend, boys. Peace. Can't wait to talk to you guys again. Roll it. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon. All right. We are out of here. See you next time.

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