What category would you say Decline Of The I would fall under?

So it's out.

There's even a colorful button now

I'm back, baby, and ready to spam.
But first, can you please add the thread in the description of the event like you usually do?
The Biggest Letdown in '22 will be you removing Drama of the Year category, was very curious if Schaffer would win

ALRIGHT
Converge & Chelsea Wolfe in Alt. Metal seems weird, but I'll allow it.
Midnight Odyssey & Wolvennest in Ambient/Drone/Noise? While the first one does have some elements of Ambient, and the latter of Drone, I find it really stretching to put them in those categories. Admit it, guys, you just wanted a full 10 albums in there and didn't know what to put I remember the same thing with Wolvennest 2 years ago and Temple is even less drone-y than that.
Honestly, even though that album is very good, not putting Diablo Swing Orchestra in avant-garde is something I approve of. They don't deserve it for this butchered production and either inability to admit their mistake or, even worse, genuine thinking it sounds good. This will def. go to My Biggest Letdown this year. (...but what is Dola doing there?? It's Post-Metal, plain and simple)
Silver Lake is tagged on RYM as prog rock but tbh I agree with you guys on this one - it's got real Amorphis vibes all over it (well, obviously, due to whose project is this). Terrific album btw.
Surprised to see Cult of Luna in there, as it's an EP (which I know you know), but then again, I bet it's longer than any of the Grindcore albums. It's just a naming and they could easily pass it off as LP.

So, for now I see only 3 mismatches and they are not really that far off. Also no "essential" albums missing. Oh, come on, give me something to work with

As always, thanks for doing this. Looking forward to listening, even though it -as it does every year- brings chaos to my musical backlog.
Here's to better 2022, everyone.

Drama of the Year is there being no Drama of the Year award.

Should The Crown Royal Destroyer go into thrash, or melodeath?

Where would The Slow Death and Mesarthim's releases go? Doom or extreme doom for TSD? Meloblack, electronic or blackgaze for Mes?

Written by Neachy on 01.02.2022 at 01:55

What category would you say Decline Of The I would fall under?

Post

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

The Biggest Letdown in '22 will be you removing Drama of the Year category, was very curious if Schaffer would win

Nothing else would have stood a chance anyway.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Converge & Chelsea Wolfe in Alt. Metal seems weird, but I'll allow it.

Thank you for your immense kindness.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Midnight Odyssey & Wolvennest in Ambient/Drone/Noise? While the first one does have some elements of Ambient, and the latter of Drone, I find it really stretching to put them in those categories. Admit it, guys, you just wanted a full 10 albums in there and didn't know what to put I remember the same thing with Wolvennest 2 years ago and Temple is even less drone-y than that.

We had plenty of runnerups to fill ten spots even if we removed the two. I agree that both of those are probably the least ambient-y of the bunch, and each of them would've fared well in other categories.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Honestly, even though that album is very good, not putting Diablo Swing Orchestra in avant-garde is something I approve of. They don't deserve it for this butchered production and either inability to admit their mistake or, even worse, genuine thinking it sounds good. This will def. go to My Biggest Letdown this year. (...but what is Dola doing there?? It's Post-Metal, plain and simple)

You'll notice that pretty much every album nominated in avantgarde could've easily been nominated in other categories, and a lot of other albums we nominated anywhere else could've also been nominated in avant. Agree that Diablo Swing Orchestra really missed the mark with that one.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Surprised to see Cult of Luna in there, as it's an EP (which I know you know), but then again, I bet it's longer than any of the Grindcore albums. It's just a naming and they could easily pass it off as LP.

Not the first time we nominate EPs. Not the only EP we nominated. Even ones that aren't nearly 40 minutes in runtime.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Oh, come on, give me something to work with

I would, but it's against official policy.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

As always, thanks for doing this. Looking forward to listening, even though it -as it does every year- brings chaos to my musical backlog.
Here's to better 2022, everyone.

Cheers!

Written by M C Vice on 01.02.2022 at 03:56

Where would The Slow Death and Mesarthim's releases go? Doom or extreme doom for TSD? Meloblack, electronic or blackgaze for Mes?

Here you go

Written by theFIST on 01.02.2022 at 03:46

Should The Crown Royal Destroyer go into thrash, or melodeath?

I think probably melodeath

Written by Neachy on 01.02.2022 at 01:55

What category would you say Decline Of The I would fall under?

An album I'm also sad didn't make it, they were under consideration for post-

Written by musclassia on 01.02.2022 at 08:32


An album I'm also sad didn't make it,

Ditto. But that category is incredibly strong this year.

Anyway, this is my favourite time of the year, when I don't have to wonder what I'm going to listen to next since all the picking is already done for me. Great job again guys!

Happy to see quite a few albums I'll have to listen to.
I have vote for the obvious choices, I do have some questions, but I will ask them a bit later, not on the first day of the awards.

Having had a few months to stew over the different categories, these are my voting inclinations coming into the awards:

Alternative: I'm always surprised by how many big names end up in this category this year, and 2021 is no exception. In a different year, I could see myself going for Wheel or Converge, but I just can't look past the fantastic new Trivium album.

Ambient: I like Resinator's dungeon synth stoner drone, and Wolvennest put out another great record (as NastyHero mentioned, not obviously in this category, but also without an obvious home anywhere else). However, I've really been won over by that Nishaiar record, particularly when it becomes less blackgaze and more ritual ambient near the end.

Avant-garde: It's hard to look past a repeat win for Thy Catafalque, since Vadak is even better than Naiv IMO.

Black: Considering how stacked this category was the last 2 years, I can't say there's much that draws me in this year, nor anything obvious that missed the cut. I'll have to revisit them all to make an opinion, but one of the more disappointing categories this year.

Death: In contrast, this category is stacked. For me, it'll come down to Noctambulist vs. Dormant Ordeal.

Djent: A very ideal line-up for my tastes, I'm happy to see Cyderian Son, Karmanjakah, Monosphere and Telomere all get nominated, but I will likely end up voting for Heliocentric.

Doom: As usual for this category, nothing much really takes my interest, I'll have to revisit them all to get a clearer idea.

Ex doom: I prefer these to the doom nominees, but again no clear idea just yet.

Ex prog: A very strong line-up, but Between The Buried And Me put out my AOTY, so my vote has to go for Colors II.

Folk: There was a lot less hype around the new Havukruunu this year, so I wonder how last year's surprise winner will do, but for me, I'm going for Cân Bardd.

Gothic: Between Paradist Lost/Draconian last year and STS/Tribulation/Moonspell/Unto Others this year, gothic's doing better than I expected. For me, it's Moonspell's new record that takes it.

Grindcore: Since I'm not a grindcore fan, I'm going for Fawn Limbs, which is grindcore with some SubRosa thrown in as well.

Hard Rock: That Fierce Deity album is a really cool hard rock/heavy metal (+ some power and stoner) hybrid.

Hardcore: It feels weird going for a 3-song EP, but I'm a big fan of all 3 tracks on the Lorna Shore record.

Heavy/melodic: As an Amorphis stan, no surprises that I'm going for Silver Lake.

Industrial: As usual, one of the categories least in line with my tastes, I'll probably go for either the grim trudge of Beneath The Sod or Isor's industrial black.

Melodeath: What an insane category this year - 5 bands (ATG, Carcass, Be'lakor, In Mourning, Omnium Gatherum) that could probably sweep a less competitive year; imagine if Insomnium's EP had made it too. The smaller bands are also fantastic too - Aephanemer and Inferi tempt me, but I'm most swayed for now by Bloody Cumshot, pending a revisit of the category.

Meloblack: The big names all got their albums out the previous year, this is a bit quieter than usual, but that Ethereal Shroud album deserved all the hype.

Metalgaze: Probably either Earthshine's mental lo-fi blackgaze/doom effort or So Hideous's super-inspired effort.

Post-Metal: Sad that Decline Of The I missed out, but this again is still a stacked category. Apart from Moanaa and Der Weg Einer Freiheit, I could see myself ultimately voting for any of these.

Power: I will need to revisit all these again, but I suspect I will be joining many people in voting for Helloween.

Prog: I want to give some love to Claemus and Teramaze, but Dvne is definitely my favourite nominee in the category.

Sludge: Not sure how Vulgaris managed to get in ahead of Mastiff and Lysjakt, but I appreciate the vote of confidence from the rest of the MSA team. I've avoided rating my band's stuff on the site before now, but I have to vote for it now it's nominated, even if I do want to give LLNN, Soothsayer, Lion's Daughter and Urne some loving.

Stoner: A dead heat between Spaceslug and Terminus for me, since Vokonis missed the cut.

Symphonic: A tricky one, I think we've managed to get some good albums to get us to 10 nominees - I can see myself going for Ghosts Of Atlantis or Zornheym in the end.

Thrash: Without Sylosis, this is always a hard category for me to get too inspired by, but the Cryptosis and Paranorm records are impressive.

Clandestine Cuts: Sad that only 1 of my write-ups ended up winning, but even if they all had, I would still be going for the amazing record from Melancholia - can't wait for them to put out a full-length.

Debut: Some good nominees here, but since Psychonaut weren't eligible last year, I feel more inclined to give Hippotraktor my vote.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

I'm back, baby, and ready to spam.

Welcome, welcome

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Midnight Odyssey & Wolvennest in Ambient/Drone/Noise? While the first one does have some elements of Ambient, and the latter of Drone, I find it really stretching to put them in those categories. Admit it, guys, you just wanted a full 10 albums in there and didn't know what to put I remember the same thing with Wolvennest 2 years ago and Temple is even less drone-y than that.

These two were a major headfuck on where to nominate. We had many more albums that we considered there though, like this or this or this or this, so it's not like we ran out of ideas. But I am with you on Wolvennest. And I think we considered Midnight Odyssey for at least two other categories.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

Also no "essential" albums missing. Oh, come on, give me something to work with

I think the most obvious omissions would be Cradle Of Filth, Obscura, Cannibal Corpse, Dream Theater, Hypocrisy, Powerwolf, and Clouds. Not necessarily my personal picks, but I would assume people expecting to see them nominated. Kauan's album is an important omission but it was deemed not metal enough, otherwise it would have been nominated in post-metal.

Written by NastyHero on 01.02.2022 at 03:32

As always, thanks for doing this. Looking forward to listening, even though it -as it does every year- brings chaos to my musical backlog.
Here's to better 2022, everyone.

Cheers, it's always a pleasure to see you here every year.

Written by nikarg on 01.02.2022 at 10:20

I think the most obvious omissions would be Cradle Of Filth, Obscura, Cannibal Corpse, Dream Theater, Hypocrisy, Powerwolf, and Clouds. Not necessarily my personal picks, but I would assume people expecting to see them nominated. Kauan's album is an important omission but it was deemed not metal enough, otherwise it would have been nominated in post-
Cheers, it's always a pleasure to see you here every year.

I was thinking whether to mention Powerwolf, which was quite nice, but I'm not a fan of power metal in any way. And well, they did record the same album a few times in a row.
Haven't heard the rest yet (except for Kauan and your reason for skipping is fair), although I can see very good reception for Obscura and Clouds... but can't speak for myself.

For me, Obscura is the obvious omission, I think that one just slipped through the cracks, but I certainly was expecting it to make it. For the other bigger names nik mentioned, I can see people disagreeing with their exclusion, but I don't think any were good enough to be nominated ahead of what did end up making it into each category

Written by musclassia on 01.02.2022 at 09:42

Having had a few months to stew over the different categories, these are my voting inclinations coming into the awards:

...

It was interesting to read, but I would suggest you add a line break after each cateory, this monolith was a bit hard to read

I don't really like Obscura more than anything we've nominated in that category. Extreme prog was a pretty stacked category this year, a lot of albums I liked even more than it, who could've been contenders in lesser years.

Yeah obscura is a weird omission, espacially since Hannes Grossmann is there and I don't think it was nearly as good as the Osbcura record.

I'll join the "thank you" team, great job as always! February has become my favourite month of the year, and I'm already discovering great music through the selections.

I'll try to listen to all albums for each category I cast a vote in as always, though I never seem to succeed at that..

Written by Liafev on 01.02.2022 at 12:20


I'll try to listen to all albums for each category I cast a vote in as always, though I never seem to succeed at that..

Kudos to that!

I try to listen to every nominee every year as well, but usually end up voting in about half the categories because there's so many of them and time runs out pretty fast.

Written by M C Vice on 01.02.2022 at 03:42
Drama of the Year is there being no Drama of the Year award.

Most of what one would call "drama" this time was actually abuse in some form or another. Nothing to hold a "who is best" vote on. The decision was basically whether we want to make fun of the trauma of rape and domestic abuse survivors and pit their suffering against a violent insurrection attempt that just so happened to have a known musician as part of the mob, or simply not do that and try to make the awards a positive thing for everyone, both directly involved and part of the nominees.

I feel we made the right decision there. The category sure was fun back in the day but I shudder to think what kind of community we'd be if we encouraged people to laugh at the matters at hand this year.

We don't want to pretend these things don't happen though. Possible formats for what used to be this category are already drafted among staff and hopefully we'll find one that allows us to make fun of Schaffer's idiocy while still being respectful to other musicians' victims.

Well, I listen only to the nominees of the categories I'm interested in. Ain't gonna listen to no trash metal

Written by Karlabos on 01.02.2022 at 13:06

Well, I listen only to the nominees of the categories I'm interested in.

obviously
I'm gonna do that, too.

I got some obvious favourites like Between The Buried And Me (AOTY) White Void (most listened to), Mastodon, Cult Of Luna, Archspire, Iron Maiden and Swallow The Sun so those votes were easy.

Then you have some categories that always are like a hornets nest. It's almost impossible to chose an album in melodeath / extreme power / gothenburg Metal but I'm leaning towards Be'lakor. Got the same problem with symphonic but there it's between Zornheym and Ghosts Of Atlantis. Symphonic black is also a tough one since atmospheric black goes into that category as well which makes it harder to choose.

Since I'm not a big fan of regular black metal I usually don't vote in that category but last year had one release that probably would've been one of my most listened to if it hadn't been released in mid-December. Swiss Conjuring's debut Universus is an album that no one interested in black should miss out on. Highly recommended.

By coincidence another Swiss band called Wazzara released this year's best gaze record in the form of Cycles. Don't miss that one either.

When it comes to snubbed nominations, the first one that comes to mind is Spiritbox's Eternal Blue in djent / math or hardcore / metalcore / deathcore. Another one that comes to mind is Altesia's Embryo in progressive that would've gotten my vote if Mastodon hadn't been in that category also.
Frummyrkrið's Dauðans Myrkri should've been nominated in black because it's an excellent album that deserves way more attention.
Also a bit surprised that Dream Theater's A View From The Top Of The World wasn't nominated but I understand why it was left out since people had quite mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed it though.
Want to point out that I'm not judging the staff since I understand the impossible and time consuming task to pick out just 10 albums in each category. So clearly a lot of good albums will be left out.

Happy to see Perennial Return in the Clandestine Cut Of The Year since I recommended it to nikarg and it's my one and only contribution to the awards. So yeah, I'll take the sole credit for that one

To musclassia, congrats on the nomination

Lastly I just have to give my utmost respect and admiration to the staff for all the effort put into the MS Awards year after year and for making Metal Storm the awesome site and community that it is. Keep up the good work. Cheers!

So funny and a bit strange how my favorite genre categories are the most difficult to vote in.

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.02.2022 at 13:14

So funny and a bit strange how my favorite genre categories are the most difficult to vote in.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

Written by RaduP on 01.02.2022 at 14:33

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.02.2022 at 13:14

So funny and a bit strange how my favorite genre categories are the most difficult to vote in.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

yes, probably.

Written by Nejde on 01.02.2022 at 13:11


Also a bit surprised that Dream Theater's A View From The Top Of The World wasn't nominated but I understand why it was left out since people had quite mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed it though.
Want to point out that I'm not judging the staff since I understand the impossible and time consuming task to pick out just 10 albums in each category. So clearly a lot of good albums will be left out.

True, I even forgot for a moment DT released an album last year. But that only says the album was rather unmemorable.

I'm surprised Iron Maiden made the heavy metal list. Unexpected for me.

Instead of labeling and mismatching, I'd go on record once again this year to take each pint for everyone who worked day in day out to bring another fabulous Metal Storm Awards edition.

Look forward listening to the nominees I missed.