No more EOY lists for music

It’s been a while since I wrote for the blog and even longer since I made an end-of-year list but I’ve been thinking about these lists. I’ve published just one from a couple of years back and then never really published one on the blog and it has been something of a conscious decision. I would perhaps like to move towards writing more meaningful pieces on individual albums or sets of albums I’ve been listening to and have gotten to appreciate. Making EOY lists has been exhausting and I’m never entirely sure if I’ve missed out on any albums since I don’t really keep track of what I really enjoyed.

In that vein, I’d perhaps like to talk about what I’ve been listening to off-late. I’ve had a bit of a break from work and things have gotten tedious in the place I’ve been living in for the last few months. Having to put up with people I don’t really want to be around and getting endless unsolicited advice has left me frustrated. And so I’ve been listening to a lot of RABM and, in general, black metal such as Mare Cognitum and Paysage d’Hiver. Also peep the new and upcoming Bandcamp replacement, Ampwall which Chris Grigg has been developing.

Paysage d’Hiver has been especially dear to me since I discovered them last year and their newest release, Die Berge, clocking in at just an hour unlike Im Wald, my previously favourite album of theirs which was way longer, has been on repeat.

I’ve also been listening to Trhä a little along with other similar raw black metal acts such as Lamp of Murmuur and Wolven Daughter.

What I’ve really been listening to #

What really has kept me going through this weird time is at the intersection of sludge, hardcore, death metal and black metal. Here’s a sample of what kind of music I’ve been listening to over the last week, for example. I would like to highlight a few albums and artists from these, and others I listened to recently, over the course of this article.

Revulsion - Revulsion #

I’d recently made a more or less permanent switch to Bluesky from Twitter and I’ve been talking about and exchanging music with people I’ve known from Twitter and new people I’ve met. Amongst the albums that came up recently has been Revulsion’s self-titled album that was released in February 2021. I picked this up from one of Westin’s posts a few weeks back and I’ve been obsessed with the title track.

The Finnish band, signed to Transcending Obscurity Records, plays a style of death metal that is hard to put into any one sub-genre label. It has elements of the old school Florida style but they refuse to let that hold them back from blending a very strong groove with double kick beats and slightly dissonant guitars.

LLNN - Unmaker #

Tim from Bluesky talks about *-core bands a lot but when he mentioned the sludge band LLNN, which I’ve had on my list for a fairly long time, I realised I should check it out. When I did post about it, he replied asking if I could recommend any other similar sounding music. I did suggest bands such as Gaza, Oldspeak, and others that have been in regular rotation for me but it was only when Gary Davidson entered the conversation that we found some very interesting music. More about those in a bit but getting back to Unmaker, it’s a phenomenal record that blends elements of sludge with hardcore making it crushingly heavy and oppressive. I’d recommend listening to this when one is horrendously frustrated and needs something to help cope with the exasperation that comes with it. This was released in September 2021.

Coilguns - Odd Love #

I’ll be very honest that I have no clue what kind of music this is but I just loved how the whole record had a kind of groove that makes you want to just get up and dance. The tags show alternative noise, noise rock, and something to do with punk and hardcore so maybe that might make things clearer. It was another album that Tim mentioned a bunch of times and so I just ended up listening to it. This was released in November 2024.

Admiral Angry - Buster #

One of Gary’s recommendations, this is a really loud and noise-ey sludge record that blows your brains out. Throw it on if you liked LLNN’s Unmaker and Primitive Man. The album is from June 2018.

MICO - Zigurat #

I had realised that I hadn’t bought Cave Sermon’s latest so when I went to their Bandcamp page I saw that they’d recommended a few other albums. MICO’s Zigurat was one of them. What really drew me to this project was how they’d infused sludge with grindcore seamlessly and much like others that play this kind of metal (like Gaza) they’d pulled it off spectacularly. I really don’t know much about them but they’re definitely one of my best finds. The album was released in June 2022.

Luminesce - Mirrored #

There are very few people that are into technical death metal that haven’t heard of Alice Simard, a 20 year old Canadian multi-instrumentalist who has one of the most impressive discographies I’ve ever come across. Her Metal Archives page should tell you more than enough about that. She typically plays a style of technical death metal that has neoclassical elements amongst other styles but this is a melodic death metal record with some of the most curious production choices. Her death metal records usually have a very prominent bass in the mix and in the case of this album, it elevates the sound to a very nearly magical realm. This record was published on the first day of 2025.

Filesharemaiden - Veuve #

Released in June 2024, this is another phenomenal Alice Simard project that Max Svalgard from the band Sublation introduced me to earlier in 2023. The project has put out a few split LPs of which I had played Uterokinesis. Simard plays a kind of technical death metal with the same prominent bass sound in the mix. She makes a wall of sound with the guitars, drums and vocals on the one hand and that overlaid with the bass sound makes for a very interesting listening experience. It’s also interesting that Filesharemaiden has morphed from what used to be a brutal death metal project into this.

Gonemage - Entranced by the Ice Storm #

Garry Brents has only put out the best nu-metal since I first got acquainted with them in 2023, when I’d come across a post of theirs on Twitter teasing Memorrhage’s self-titled debut in a short video. His music has since carved out a regular presence in my listening habits. This EP is a teaser to a new phase of Gonemage, their black metal and chiptune project (yeah, it sounds super fucking interesting), in which they’ve moved to a more Emperor and Dødheimsgard-esque sound. I am very excited to hear the full length album that is to follow. The EP was released on the first Friday of this year.

Sallow Moth - Vial #

Sallow Moth is Garry’s death metal project and this EP from October 2024 is again a prelude to a full-length that is to follow. It’s brutal, it’s techy, and it’s got clean passages. If you enjoyed Stasis Cocoon, this is nothing like it.

Tumultuous Ruin - An Abscess on the Heart of the State #

RABM is something I got into fairly recently but this one man project has been a part of my regular listening habits since it came out back in September 2023. I’m unable to recall who really put me onto it but I have the strongest feeling that this was something Violet from Wolven Daughter mentioned last year, which then reminded me about how much I enjoyed this.

Fathomless - Fathomless #

I found this amongst some of the announcements for new albums on Ampwall that their Bluesky profile posts occasionally and I just wound up listening to it. They play a kind of progressive or technical black metal that is actually not grating. The record came out in September 2024.

Apocalyptic Leaders - Exists in Chaos #

Violet from Wolven Daughter was talking about this album on Bluesky, and about something in the water in Greece that makes some of the best black metal in the world. I ended up playing it soon after. A kind of black metal that is aggressive and deathy. It even feels like death metal at some points. The album was released in June 2024

Well, that’s all I’ve got for what I’ve been listening to off-late. I hope I end up making it a habit to write up pieces like this!