The not quite the end of the year AOTY list!

I have a problem with AOTY lists.  Most blogs, forums, FB pages, Twitter accounts and media in general start them far too early.  It seems as soon as November hits the internet is awash with people telling us how good things have been for the last ten and a bit months - seemingly with no regard for the two remaining months that can still herald some absolute finds!

Despite my protestations on this subject matter it does seem that if I am to be a responsible blog owner then this is the appropriate time of year to put together the list of titles that have left me feeling kind of warm inside over the past year.  There's ten of them, not twenty or fifteen.  No matter how good a year it's been no AOTY list should include more than ten releases it's what the basis of a "top" list is all about to me.

10. Serpentine Path "Emanations"
Album number two from theses death/doom deliverers was a clear progression on their s/t debut and one that benefited well from an additional six stringer.

9. Impetuous Ritual "Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence"

If there was an end of year award for most lengthy album title then Impetuous Ritual would walk that category. There was very little not to like with the records shredding sonics and time-shifting vocal delivery. Squally death metal at it's best.

8. Cynic "Kindly Bent To Free Us"

Progressive melody galore on this uplifting and mesmerising release.  Enough structure to build a city shopping mall with.

7. Electric Wizard "Time To Die"

Full of nightmarish vocals and menacing riffs to make even Satan himself sit up and ask them to turn it down a bit, "Time To Die" was a welcome return to form after the lackluster "Black Masses".

6. Aevangelist "Writhes In Murk"

Dripping with atmosphere and using it in some tangible direction unlike their previous outing. ES fell in love with Aevangelist again - jazz trumpets and all!

5. Swallowed "Lunarterial"

Imagine Culte Des Ghoules decide to go off on a death/doom edge on their next record and your roughly in the right ball park for the sound of "Lunarterial".  Scathing vocals and marauding guitars run riot here.

4. Overkill "White Devil Armory"

So full of energy and life you could be forgiven it was a debut album from a bunch of teenage headbangers trying to revive the Bay Area.  It's actually the veterans of the scene handing a blueprint on what real thrash sounds like down to all the pretenders out there.  Fucking A!

3. Machine Head "Bloodstone & Diamonds"

Another release full of energy and (rekindled?) fire.  Rob Flynn's metal maniacs returned with a cracking follow up to "Locust" which has rarely been off the ES record player this past month.

2. Blut Aus Nord "Memoria Vetusta III - Saturnian Poetry"

2014 will go down as the year that BAN found a real drummer and managed to yet again release an aural assault on the world of music.  Breathtaking.

1. Spectral Lore "III"

A work of absolute beauty and complexity unrivaled by anything else released in the past year, "III" was the high point of the year for ES.  Sitting in a chair mouth agape at the stunning mindscapes each track unfurled on my puny brain as Spectral Lore played the music of the gods is an experience rarely to be repeated I suspect.