Another year, another traditional list of my top ten, or more like top thirty albums of the year. That list probably doesn't interest anyone, or most people anyway, but I like keeping up with the tradition and refuse to give up trying to influence people to give in and start listening to some obscure bands that I manage to dig up from the depths of Spotify. Well, obscure is a thing of perspective, and I am actually quite sure I have at least five people among my friends and acquaintances that are familiar with most of these bands. If you are not.. well, you should be.
I'm not going to do an album-by-album review, just a quick rundown. Two albums in the Hungarian language in the top ten, maybe I should start learning that shit after all... NOT!!! As the years go on, it seems that I delve deeper and deeper into the obscure post-metal, post-black, atmospheric black, doom whatever.. maybe I'm just finally going insane, it was about time. Anyway, surprise out of nowhere, an album that blew me away, Iotunn - Access All Worlds. Is it progressive? Is it melodic death metal? Is it whatever? Who gives a fuck. It was a very schizophrenic year for me, just like this 'review', at least when it comes to music, a lot of albums that I liked, but very few that had that catchy vibe, that I can't really describe but that I sometimes have. My point here is that I could probably take this list and honourable mentions, and write a program that randomizes the places of albums in the list every time you hit refresh, and whatever result it would yield I would say 'Yeah, that seems about right'. Down the list, I have to mention how happy I am with Thy Catafalque finally deciding to go live and do live shows, now I only pray that this pandemic doesn't fuck up another concert plan. Ephemerald is in a way, as generic Finnish melodic death metal as you can get, obvious influence by Insomnium and the likes, but I really dig it. They are not original or inventive, there is no 'one-hit wonder' catchy song that stands out.. and yet it is a fucking awesome album. Yoth Iria is a project of former Rotting Christ members, and it sounds exactly like that, so if you are into Rotting Christ, you know what to do. Beast in Black, it's the same album again, but it's an awesome album again, so... I think I don't need to comment on Swallow the Sun, yeah, the previous album was better, but this one is still awesome. Epica, well I'm a huge fanboy of Epica, make of that what you will, but if you ask me they don't have a bad or even average album. The same can be said of Be'lakor. Dalriada was kinda unexpected, I really like listening to folk metal in languages I don't really understand. I know about this Hungarian band for .. fifteen years I think, I almost went to Senta to watch them live more than a decade ago, yet this is their best album up to date. Well at least according to your ultimate metal encyclopedia, me. Duskmourn is another of that melodic death, folk, atmospheric black, whatever bands that spawn left and right. Narrowly missing out are Therion, Evergrey, and Soen, really, really good albums. I could put any or all of them in the top ten, but I guess I like going with the obscure underdogs or whatever. Stormkeep is another black metal masterpiece that came out of nowhere. Remember how I mentioned that there is a bunch of atmospheric black / folk metal bands spawning left and right. Yes, Cân Bardd is another one. For more honourable mentions, I would like to point out Romanian Sur Austru, as well as Dordeduh... duh. (OK I'll see myself out.) and another Hungarian band, Vvilderness, but this time at least you can understand what they are singing since lyrics are in the English language. I could, and probably should add at least another dozen of bands to this list, like Darkwoods My Bethrothed, Mare Cognitum, Hypocrisy, Leprous but this is too much even as it is, so feel free to give me recommendations, but just bear in mind that the fact that I did not put it into my picks doesn't mean I dislike the album.
P.S. In case anyone knows how to format album names with those strange characters so they link up properly, do let me know.