Nekrasov: Perishable Things (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Five EPs for 2010
#3 of 5



Year: 2010
Genre: Blackest of Metals
Label: Self Released
TRT: 14:33

Apocalypse. Armageddon. Nuclear Holocaust.

Basically what Merzbow would sound like if he made a black metal record, viscerally offensive to the senses.

01 C.Z.V.M
02 WOMB
03 DARK AT THE END OF LIGHT
04 O FOOL!

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Necrite: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Metal" Picks for 2010
#10 of 10



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal Drone
Label: Flenser Records
TRT: 70:10

Thus passes the glory of the world. That's how the Latin translates. It has Templar Masonic origins, and has quite a few occultic and Lovecraftian implications.

This album is about the complete annihilation of everyone. The first three tracks are meant to rub the face of humankind in the "filth" of it's own existence, while the rest of the album transitions, as the band puts it, "from painting a picture of human disease, to a vision of cleansing. It is a worship of Armageddon and the end of life in which everything is reset to a pure blackness."

pretty nihilistic stuff, but this message and ethos are perfectly complimentary to the utter black abyss that the music found here evokes. Nasty, ugly, filthy, and as heavy as the subject matter demands, this is an album to listen to with all the hatred in your heart exposed and gloating.

01	A Mass for the Harvest of Death
02	Bereft of Hope
03	Bathing Open Wounds With Shards of Glass
04	Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
05	Worship the Sunn((O))

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Odem Arcarum: Outrageous Reverie Above The Erosion Of Barren Earth (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Metal" Picks for 2010
#9 of 10



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: Osmose Productions
TRT: 65:12

LOOK AT THAT FUCKING COVER ART.

That and the tag "atmospheric.black.metal" immediately i was interested in hearing this. Goodness gravy this is a disturbing album, and they achieve that not with silly gimmicks or cheap tricks. They do this by creating one of the most sinister atmospheres of any album I've ever heard. Eerie and unsettling, you're transported to a dying world of terrible things, and abandoned there with no hope of survival. But if that doesn't make you want to listen...

LOOK AT THAT FUCKING COVER ART.

01 Gate
02 Oceans
03 Worlds Of Barren Land
04 Loss
05 Hell & Revelation
06 The Body & Perpetual Imagination
07 A Darker Kind of Dreaming

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Saviour Machine: II (5/5)

Year: 1996
Label: Massacre Records
Genre: Apocalyptic Gothic Metal
TRT: 76:20

This band has been around for nearly twenty years, and released an immense amount of music over the course of those two decades, with each of their five release (save their first) clocking in at well over an hour.

And even more remarkable, each of their albums are almost exclusively about the end of the world. Somehow, they are able to maintain the quality of their content, and for the most part managing to avoid rehashing the same old themes in the same old ways.

II was their second release, and out classes all the others in my mind, as it's far more philosophical and subtle than their subsequent releases (all of which revolve heavily around the biblical books of Revelation and Daniel), and because of this, it comes off as the most passionate and genuine of the lot.

This also might be one of the most epic albums I've ever heard, containing one of the most epic songs ever written (The Stand). The instrumentation is nearly flawless, especially the drumming, and the flow from song to song is seamless most of the time, with beautifully executed transitions, especially the one, two three punch of Enter the Idol/The Hunger Circle/Child in Silence. I'm not one for a song-by-song analysis, so I'll refrain from going into any more detail, except to mention the only taint on the entire album, which is the grating and superfluous Ascension of Heroes, which I always skip over.

If you like gorgeous and moving music coupled with soaring passionate vocals and dark themes, you have no excuse for passing this over.

01 Savior Machine I
02 The Gates
03 Enter the Idol
04 The Hunger Circle
05 Child in Silence
06 Ascension of Heroes
07 Paradox
08 The Stand
09 American Babylon
10 Ceremony
11 Overture
12 Love Never Dies
13 Savior Machine II

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