Revolver's 20 Best Albums of 2017

The Pittsburgh band\'s follow-up to 2014\'s I AM KING, FOREVER.

Physical Copies Available for Purchase here: neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/amenra _______________________________________________________ Contrasts have always been deep, and at the very heart of Amenra's music, ever since they started uttering their Prayers and holding their Masses, eighteen years ago already. Tormented darkness has always coexisted alongside luminous beauty, thunderous impacts instantly followed by frail, delicate subtleties. Songs that seem to engulf everyone in the world at once suddenly feel like they are being whispered to you inside the isolation of your solitary womb. The time that we have waited for a new Mass, this Mass VI that is now finally materialized and ready consume and be consumed, seems itself to also be a double-edged sword – on one hand, and although Nowena | 9.10, Mass V's closer, seems as final as anything we've ever heard, like something that should be playing when the world itself comes to an end, we are parched all the same for new Amenra songs to enter our life and remain there as the others from the past have done, and continue to do during the band's impassioned live performances. One the other hand, the wounds inflicted by Mass V still have not turned to scars, they still itch and they have been made wider by the ways the band has found to interpret their material in different ways in the last few years, from acoustic performances and recordings to several collaborations with like-minded artists, there hasn't been any kind of absence or withdrawal. In any case, ready or not, Mass VI is here, and more than any other album in Amenra's past, it highlights those contrasts in a deeply affecting way. The eerie quietness of the first couple of minutes of Children Of The Eye announces the coming storm, and the nine explosive, cathartic minutes of this opening song hold in themselves all the strikingly disparate emotions that we have come to expect from Amenra. Colossal riffs shake the very foundations of our being while singer Colin H. Van Eeckhout shrieks so agonizingly that we can almost picture him on stage, clawing at himself, back turned to us, underneath that one spotlight, feelings laid bare for all to see but at the same time locked in himself, profoundly alone. "I cast no shadow, light is too profound", he spits out. When it's almost too much to bear, there is a crack of light, the sonic rage subsides briefly, the guitars are not on fire for a few seconds, and Colin sings to us as in a lullaby, as he has done lately with his own solo project, CHVE, "one tear at a time", as he whispers softly. The delivery is entirely different, but the intensity is the same, the song continues its uninterrupted path until everything catches fire once more. Nothing but the sparse, spoken seconds of Edelkroone could have followed this, a few seconds of respite before the band starts to carve yet another gash in our heart with Plus Pres De Toi. Three opening songs, three different moods, three languages – English, Flemish and French –, but the impact is the same, tremendous. And all of this is just the beginning. Mass VI is an emotional rollercoaster until its very last second, until Diaken is abruptly ended at its very climax, as the last breath of an expiring life. While every band member is seemingly being stretched to their physical limits throughout, Mass VI comes across as a true unified effort from Amenra, arguably more than ever before. The dedication of Colin, Mathieu, Lennart, Levy and Bjorn to their art has seen their traditional lineup roles blurred throughout the entire process. No one was confined to one task or one instrument. According to the band, bassist Levy wrote and played a lot of guitars, guitarist Lennart and vocalist Colin also played bass, among many other examples of boundless creativity at work. With everyone pitching in wherever inspiration and circumstance took them, the music took on extra dimensions and became so much more than the sum of each part. The guitarwork is able to express unimaginable weight, both physical and spiritual, as well as weaving melodies of the utmost delicacy, and the rhythm section can either rumble like a consuming thunderstorm or retreat to the shadows with the same flowing spontaneity as the atmosphere dictates. As always with Amenra, everything comes directly from the souls of the musicians involved, they are capable of establishing connections with their listeners more profoundly than almost any other band, because they are direct heart to heart connections. Thus, this pain, this sorrow, and also these fleeting moments of joy, they come from those hearts. They are all too real. "It took us a couple of years as always to find the right mindset to write an new album. Works of music whose creation was fuelled by pure necessity," Colin explains. "We needed to write, at this point. Finding inspiration in depression, sorrow and despair. Levy found himself in a dark place for some time, where he shut himself off from everyone to write new music. It was the first Mass album he helped writing, and his being is felt throughout the entire album. Lebon, our drummer, celebrated the birth of his newborn son. We were all saddened by his mother's and Mathieu's father's cancers. And for me, personally, my firstborn son had to have a tumor removed from his head. It seriously shook my ground. Fate strikes and strokes. Where there is Love there is Pain." No love without pain. No life without death. No light without darkness. That is the conflict at the heart of Mass VI, at the heart of each and every one of us, at the heart of what it means to be human, to live and to love and to lose, and few other pieces of music will wrench that ambivalence out of us and present it in such an acutely overwhelming fashion. It's hard to think of a better person to capture this sonic enormity than Billy Anderson. The legendary American producer was already the chosen one for Mass V, and between Neurosis' Through Silver In Blood, Sleep's Dopesmoker, Eyehategod's Dopesick, Cathedral's Endtyme or Brutal Truth's Sounds Of The Animal Kingdom, among many, many others, he's been a decisive element in the building of many a true classic. Mass VI was recorded in the Belgian Ardennes, a region of thick forests in the south-east of the country, where the band was snowed in for a week, and reportedly ate the same soup for eight days straight. There was surely something in that soup… -José Carlos Santos

On their second album as Grave Pleasures, the band formerly known as Beastmilk have revived the infectious post-punk songwriting that made the latter’s *Climax* one of the most compelling records of 2013. Taking their favored nuclear-fallout-as-love-song formula to gloriously catchy heights with “Doomsday Rainbows,” “Be My Hiroshima,” and the highly danceable “Falling for an Atom Bomb,” the Finnish five-piece employ stentorian vocals, thundering bass grooves, and post-apocalyptic beats to detonate a mushroom cloud of modern romance rock.

Legendary death metal band OBITUARY return with their self-titled, 10th studio album, further cementing their legacy as one of the most important metal bands of all time! Picking up where 2014's critically acclaimed Inked In Blood left off, OBITUARY show no signs of slowing down as they continue to reign as Kings of their genre. Recorded at their home studio in Tampa, FL, Obituary is a 10 track tour-de-force of bone-pulverising death metal that is as heavy, uncompromising and infectious as anything they've released in their historic, nearly 30-year career!

Maryland/Pennsylvania experimental death-noise band FULL OF HELL have embarked on quite the journey leading up to the impending release of their latest full-length album “Trumpeting Ecstasy”, an album which will see the band deliver their most punishing, virulent, and dynamic album to date. The embryonic beginnings of Full of Hell displayed their palette at it’s most primitive, d-beat and blast ridden hardcore punk with spats of noise and caustic rhythm, and within a few short years, they have bloomed into a true force to be reckoned with within the punk and metal communities. Since the release of their Profound Lore Records debut album “Full Of Hell & Merzbow” late 2014, their third full-length album, the band began to truly come into their own, combining elements of grindcore, death/black metal, punk and hardcore with a smattering of sonically laden power electronics and industrial pounding. It would also signal the band being at their most active and prolific ever since their inception in 2009. The band would tour endlessly non-stop in different parts of the world in places as far off as Japan, Australia (twice), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea etc.), along with several tour runs in Europe and many tour jaunts within the US, along with playing countless festivals and exclusive shows. The band would also add to their repertoire and discography as well during said timeframe releasing a direct collaboration album with The Body and several EPs, one of them being their most-recent split 7”EP with Nails (which debuts #2 on the Billboard Top 100 Singles Chart). With “Trumpeting Ecstasy”, FULL OF HELL build upon their progression since the Merzbow collaboration and the releases succeeding it. This time the band decided to go into God City Studios with Kurt Ballou at the production helm to help achieve the intended vision of “Trumpeting Ecstasy”. The result being the best and strongest sounding FULL OF HELL album along with it being their most towering release to date. Sky tearing and sonically cataclysmic, the aural deluge that is “Trumpeting Ecstasy” also features guest appearances by Aaron Turner (Sumac/Old Man Gloom/Mamiffer/Isis), Nate Newton (Converge/Old Man Gloom), Andrew Nolan (Column Of Heaven/The Endless Blockade), and Canadian singer/songwriter Nicole Dollanganger. Expect FULL OF HELL to tour relentlessly in support of “Trumpeting Ecstasy” as well.

On their first album in 14 years with returning vocalist/bassist Steve Tucker, Floridian extremity experts Morbid Angel rediscover death metal after 2011’s industrial-influenced *Illud Divinum Insanus*. Led by guitarist and founder Trey Azagthoth, the revamped band careens through an intense hellscape of rapid-fire riffs, whiplash-inducing arrangements, and swarming blast beats on “D.E.A.D,” “Garden of Disdain,” and “From the Hand of Kings,” while tracks like “Paradigms Warped,” “The Pillars Crumbling,” and “Declaring New Law” decelerate the relentless pace with grinding, mid-tempo grooves.

Dead Cross’ freaky evisceration of hardcore, thrash, and noise rock is meant to burst eardrums and leave listeners in a daze. “The Future Has Been Cancelled” is a sonic tantrum, featuring Mike Patton’s coughs and gasps over bee-swarm riffs and drummer Dave Lombardo’s warp-speed beats; “Obedience School” blasts avant-garde intensity while also dropping operatic howls and fight chants into the melee. There’s even a version of Bauhaus’ goth classic “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” which is contorted into hammering alt-metal.

In stores AUGUST 4TH! Dead Cross emerged out of a series of impractical schemes, fallen-through plans, and last-minute musical experimentation. Shows were scheduled before a single song was written, fans were formed before even one show was played. The chaos of its creation seems apt; after all, the band is comprised entirely of artists who have thrived playing tightly-coiled turmoil—intelligent dissonance disguised as disorder. Consisting of Dave Lombardo, Justin Pearson, Michael Crain, and Mike Patton, the impressive, expansive, and eclectic list of prior bands collectively played in would be enough to ensure the unyielding ferocity of the music... but a resume isn’t necessary, here. Dead Cross stands on its own, speaks volumes with its multilayered evil-genius vocals, manic guitar riffs, and brutal rhythms.

Necrot’s second album is a blissful nightmare come true for death metal diehards who prefer the raw and pummeling over the precise and technical. The band’s slow, low-end assault veers between shuddering songs that threaten to devolve into muddy formlessness (“Layers of Darkness”) and deliriously dense blast-beat workouts splattered with guttural vocals (“Shadows and Light”). As with their debut, buzzsaw riffs and moshpit beats abound, threading through “The Blade” and cementing their sweaty, chaotic edge.

Recorded by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege Art by Marald Van Haasteren Released by Tankcrimes