Selecting a list for the most qualitative musical projects of the decade is not an ideal undertaking for me. I am anything but eclectic, and often am extremely discriminating when it comes to the microscopic musical choices and various executions that go into making an album. For the past six years, I have had a steady diet of mostly death metal, hardcore variations, and (relatively recently) more bare bones jazz and fusion. Connecting the dots are an appreciation for the loathed terms “Intelligent Dance Music” and “Post Rock”, but far be it for me to invent new terminology for those recognized genres, since no one else seems to have as an answer to their own complaints. To put it bluntly, aggressive music and its extremities is my home base, and while I value my awareness of other musical dimensions, the riverbeds of my own preferred genres require so much navigation that I barely have time to do any other forum justice. That is your exclaimer: tl:dr – I am a tyrannical “metal” snob who likes to get puffy eyes to “Travel Is Dangeous”. I am unsure if my reviews on Hearwax reflect this – I have become a bit kinder as each review goes by, but I know that I seem to have the highest low-score average. I expect a lot from my music. I expect a lot because the albums listed below exhibit the aesthetical and emotional pinnacles (any kind of) music is capable of. They prove these ideas are possible to execute, perform, and share. Each album listed ranges from mind boggling technique and ability, resonant emotions, challenging and intellectual concepts, soaring imagination, rhythmic and primal responses, and yes: beauty. Not only do the albums exhibit these traits, but do so the best (of course). Explaining each would be gross hyperbole, so I will be as specific as possible. Here we go.
1. Mare – Mare (2004)
2:11 into “Palaces” begins with clean notes dripping from heaven, pattering on top of churning funeral chords… Begging afterwards is “we need you, now, now, now, now, now, now, now.” No 40 seconds has ever been more touching.
2. Mogwai – Mr. Beast (2006)
The duration of “Folk Death 95” is classic Mogwai; it starts with their anchoring melody, introduces a treble based line of notes to play off of it, and then progresses towards the end with other sonic chemical reactions. Like instrumental scientists, each new instrument that enters the mix is just another poprock thrown into the cola; a wholly unflattering analogy for a band that can produce stunning crescendos that are legitimately more ‘metal’ than any fist-pumping thrasher.
3. Converge – You Fail Me (2004)
Everyone should and will have a Converge entry on their lists; this decade was dominated by the Newton/Bannon/Ballou/Koller line up, and any four of their released albums these past ten years could take this spot. Most will choose Jane Doe for its unrelentingly epic nature… I am choosing the band’s special favourite; You Fail Me. While not as sympathetic as Jane Doe, You Fail Me is the purest distillation of Converge, and will likely be seen as their signature piece another ten years down the line. “Heartless” is viciously unstable, and yet draws its power from tight songwriting.
4. Martyr – Feeding The Abscess (2006)
While many entries populating this list detail emotion, mood, and deeper content, Feeding The Abcess takes form to its extremities. The technical execution of this album is simply a marvel, from the tabulature to its final incarnation on the frets and skins. Every position in the band gives the most impressive recorded performance in their respective fields, exhibiting technique that is an eon more advanced than any other hotshots that creep into my memory… Sorry Muhammed. “Nameless Faceless Neverborn” is dizzyingly faithful to this praise, and yet remembers to get Dismember on us and use that complexity to instigate some mosh.
5. Cursed- III (2008)
An obsidian album that is as much Toronto hardcore as it is a black metal release - ok, not really… But Cursed achieve things on Architects Of Troubled Sleep that echo the finest work of the black metal elite; that uncompromising gloom that sobers with such stark monochrome. This texture only adds more froth to Cursed’s rabid maw, but drag in a hardcore vernacular that involves socially conscious ideas – well, you have the best punk album of the decade. Hammering this home is the haymaker of a line from “Magic Fingers” – “Kill the priests, kill the sheppards, save the sheep.”
6. Ion Dissonance – Solace (2005)
Arguably the most brutal disc ever created. This is unhinged death metal that does not rely on gurgling slams to strive for brutality; its core- leaning breakdowns are not dance numbers, but punctuation for the lifeless surface of the Moon. Like all great provocative art, this is an experience that mutates your perception, and invites you into an earned schizophrenic episode with moments like “Lecturing Raskolnikov”.
7. Envy – Insomniac Doze (2006)
“Shield Of Selflessness” begins with a chord and crash that acts as breath before jumping into a freezing river. My lists often avoid the distinction between challenging and accessible music. The former is not ‘enjoyable’ per se, but it is powerful. And when the immensity of an album like Insomniac Doze is finally registered, one cannot help feel like they travelled the length of the river, coming out stronger for it.
8. Jaga Jazzist – What We Must (2005)
What We Must is the musical equivalent of this year’s Avatar; a sensory wonderland, full of infinitely appealing sounds, melodic tricks, and compositions – Sure, it’s ‘jazz’ in an aesthetical sense, but only uses those tenets as an excuse to max out their expressive inklings. No album this decade has touched on the imagination that “Stardust Hotel” is positively exploding with.
9. Moneen – The Red Tree (2006)
What probably should be the anthem of our lives in “The Day No One Needed To Know” falls second to opening song “Don’t Tell Locke What He Can’t Do”; the intro number walks the tightrope between melodrama and a newfound inner strength. Moneen know better than any other band how to tackle the big feelings without theatricality, and The Red Tree is their masterpiece.
10. Ephel Duath – Pain Necessary To Know (2005)
Avant garde in every sense, Davide Tiso’s voyage into the darkest and most perplexing of musical impulses miraculously avoids… an irrelevance that tends to go along with technical music of this variety. The tones, rhythms, and chord shapes change at the whim of the composer, and yet the listener is entranced over the entire duration; “Vector Third Movement” has a coda that haunts and fascinates, a microcosm of the appeal of this masterwork as a whole… It is an immensely touching experience, and magnificently conceived. If any album on this list is indicative of the shape of the next decade’s underground music, it is Pain Necessary To Know.
Finally, as a concession to other entries that were vying for a spot in the top ten… It is rough on me, as the following are required listening (all of which hovering over a 9.5 on the review scale). Depriving them of spots on an official top ten feels gauche, but the albums that made the list exhibited virtues that went beyond quality, instead going on to transform mind states and lives… Nevertheless, in a bit of a cheat, I will include an additional ten for you all to check out.
11. Augury – Fragmentary Evidence (2009)
12. Orgone – The Goliath (2007)
13. Negura Bunget – Om (2006)
14. Anata – The Conductor’s Departure (2006)
15. Circle Takes The Square – As The Roots Undo (2003)
16. Sufjan Stevens –Illinois (2005)
17. Spawn Of Possession – Noctambulant (2006)
18. Hope Of The States – The Lost Riots (2004)
19. Misery Signals – Of Malice And The Magnum Heart (2004)
20. SiKth – Death Of A Dead Day (2006)
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