Kroda: Schwarzpfad (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Albums from 2011

#10 of 10

Year: 2011

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Label: Purity Through Fire

TRT: 50:40

There's something very primal about Kroda. Hailing from The Ukraine, they incorporate a lot of the rich folk history of their country into their works, both through the instruments used and the lore reiterated. There's an undeniable beauty to their work, in both the cacophony and the quiet. This is a very memorable release with plenty of replay value.

01 Schwarzpfad I (First Snow)

02 Schwarzpfad II (Universal Provenances)

03 Schwarzpfad III (Forefather of Hangmen)

04 Schwarzpfad IV (Heil Ragnarok!)

05 Schwarzpfad V (Cold Aurora)

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Blut aus Nord: 777 - The Desanctification

Joshua's Top 10 Albums of 2011

#8 of 10

Year: 2011

Genre: Experimental Black Metal

Label: Debemur Morti

TRT: 43:47

These longtime black metal jauggernauts are relentless. After a career almost old enough to vote, they're still not ready to give up the ghost. Instead they're turning up the intensity but releasing a three part series of albums for their ninth, tenth and eleventh full length offerings. This is the second in the series (with the third part due out in early 2012), and it is monstrously depraved. They've pulled a page from MoRT, and really upped the industrial sound of the drums, giving them a pummeling machinelike pulse, which enhances the eerie guitar atmospheres and schizophrenic vocals. They've given us yet another journey to hell, and I don't think we're coming back from this one.

01 Epitome VII

02 Epitome VIII

03 Epitome IX

04 Epitome X

05 Epitome XI

06 Epitome XII

07 Epitome XIII

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Rwake: Rest (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Albums of 2011

#6 of 10

Year: 2011

Genre: Atmospheric Sludge Metal

Label: Relapse

TRT: 52:48

It's nice to see a band mature their sound without losing sight of who they are, and these southern sludge lords are not fucking around. While not as primal or violent as 2007's Voices of Omen, it's hardly deserving of such a sleepy title. Rwake focus more on the atmospheric side of their sound this time around, but there's still plenty of aggression to be found, and plenty of vicious grooves to be had.

01 Souls of the Sky

02 It Was Beautiful But Now It's Sour

03 An Invisible Thread

04 The Culling

05 Ti progetto

06 Was Only a Dream

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Gem Club: Breakers (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Albums of 2011

#5 of 10

Year: 2011

Genre: Piano-driven Atmospheric Melancholy

Label: Hardly Art

TRT: 37:49

Christopher Barnes channels the essence of melancholy and brings to mind "slowcore" pioneers Slowdive, while Barnes' haunting vocals are reminiscent of the Norwegian band The White Birch. Using his voice and his piano (with occasional help from cellist Kristen Drymala), Barnes creates immense atmospheres that are at once arresting and engrossing. His lyrics captivate your imagination, and whether hopeful or tragic, they come across with a sense of urgency and honesty that is sorely lacking in music these days.

01 Twins

02 Breakers

03 Lands

04 Red Arrow (John)

05 I Heard the Party

06 Black Ships

07 Tanager

08 252

09 In Wavelengths

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Wolves in the Throne Room: Celestial Lineage (5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Albums for 2011

#3 of 10

Year: 2011

Genre: Atmoblamet

Label: Southern Lord

TRT: 48:51

Wolves in the Throne Room will always hold a special place in my blackened heart, because they are the band that unlocked black metal for me, and it has since become one of my most-listened to and favorite genres. After the release of the straight-forward and mostly mediocre Black Cascade, I feared they had lost their touch. Yet again, I'm happy to be wrong in such situations.

Celestial Lineage gets back to the incredibly well constructed atmospheres of their first two albums, and some how, some way, makes them more vast and full-sounding than ever. In addition, there are some absolutely magnificent riffs to be found here. While that's always been the case, they're much more prominent on this album. Specifically (and you know I don't like singling out tracks), Astral Blood is one of the most black plague infectious tracks I've ever heard. I spent several weeks humming guitar parts (much to the chagrin of my wife). And when I got it on vinyl...let's just say Side C has gotten many many times the play the rest of the album has. I think I must have picked up the needle and started it over maybe 12 times in a row that first day. I would highly recommend picking up the LP if that's something you're in to.

01 Thuja Magus Imperium

02 Permanent Changes In Conciousness

03 Subterrenean Initiation

04 Rainbow Illness

05 Woodland Cathedral

06 Astral Blood

07 Prayer of Transformation

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Blue Sky Black Death: Noir (5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Albums of 2011

#2 of 10

Year: 2011

Genre: Atmospheric Instrumental Trip-hop

Label: Fake Four

TRT: 62:41

While they started their career solidly in the realm of instrumental hip hop, over the past couple albums they've been moving more and more in the direction of washed out electronics and trip hop. They've also become more interesting as they mature their sound. Noir is like a warm day on the tail end of summer. Everything seems calm and laid back, but you just have a feeling that a storm is brewing on the horizon, and you can't shake your sense of unease. Like a hallway where there's enough light to keep moving, but not enough to see what's at the far end. Blue Sky Black Death prowls in those shadows, waiting.

01 Our Hearts Of Ruin

02 Sleeping Children Are Still Flying

03 And Stars, ringed

04 To The Ends Of The Earth

05 Farewell To The Former World

06 Falling Short

07 Gold In Gold Out

08 Where Do We Go

09 In The Quiet Absence Of God

10 Where The Sun Beats

11 Starry

12 Fire For Light

13 Swords From Driftwood

14 Sky With Hand

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Arms and Sleepers: The Organ Hearts (5/5)

Joshua's Top 10 Albums of 2011

#1 of 10 (Album of the Year)

Year: 2011

Genre: Ambient Electronic Soundscapes

Label: Expect Candy

TRT: 41:01

This duo from New England showed up on my radar sometime shortly after their second full length Matador was released in 2009. I liked it and checked out their first album, and liked it as well, but it wasn't until late in 2010 that I really started to get into their sound. That's what they do. They create lush and layed soundscapes that appear simple on the surface, but become more intricate as you start to pay attention to and pick up on the subleties. When I saw them in April of 2010, The Organ Hearts was slated for release about a month later. After they opened their set with the first three tracks from the new album, the anticipation became palpable, and I bought it the day it was released.

This is their best release to date. Everything I love about their previous releases is here, but magnified. At first blush this seems to be the most minimalistic and ambient material they've created, but as you become more familiar with the music, more and more things begin to pop out at you. Over time, listening to this album becomes like watching a time-lapse video of a mountain meadow as it transforms from winter to spring, and the flowers bloom from the frozen ground.

01 Kepesh

02 Tusk

03 I Sing the Body Electric

04 The Afternoon Child

05 A Smile in Sofia

06 Antwerp

07 Serie Noire

08 Reprise

09 Yesterday's Child

10 Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

11 Atelier

12 Airport Blues

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Mal Etre: Torment (4.5/5)

Year: 2010

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Label: Kunsthauch

TRT: 49:39

Production quality in black metal is an extremely touchy thing. There's a fine line between "great atmosphere" and "this sounds like fucking shit". This one man band from Switzerland finds the perfect balance. Washed out and hazy, dark and ominous, beautiful and memorable. Sad, gloomy, tortured, depressive...I could go on and on. Just imagine The Cure playing black metal in a mountain forest covered in fog.

01 Vie Impure
02 Forest
03 My Funeral
04 Unblessed Beings
05 Sad Day
06 Son Ame Saigne
07 October Falls

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Nadja & OvO: The Life and Death of a Wasp (4/5)

Year: 2010

Genre: Noir Doomjazz

Label: Adaigo 830

TRT: 34:16

Nadja has made some excellent music, and some extremely boring music, so I always approach a new release with a healthy level of skepticism. By about a minute into this one however, I completely forgot to be skeptical. This is completely different from anything else Aidan Baker or OvO has ever done. Yes, it's still gloomy, yes at times it's got some doomy drone, but the atmosphere here is very noir and has a feel more like Bohren & der Club of Gore than Jesu. This is also a strange album due to it's subject matter, with creepy Jarboe-esque vocalizations meant to be the wasp that is doomed to a liquid grave. It's weird as hell. And I love it.

01 Movement 1: A Wasp Flying Around the Sugar Jar

02 Movement 2: Trapped in the Jar

03 Movement 3: Put Some Sugar in My Cup, Please

04 Movement 4: Drowned in Coffee

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Bohren & der Club of Gore: Dolores (4.5/5)

Year: 2008

Genre: Slowburn Doom Jazz Noir

Label: Ipecac

TRT: 58:23

This band kept popping up on my radar, and after one particularly avid fan beseeched me to bump them up in my queue, I obliged.

This is the definition of "mood" music. Dark, slow paced, schmaltzy and ominous, Bohren & der Club of Gore took jazz and made it what they wanted it to be, not what it was "supposed" to be. It really blows my mind how much I enjoy this, as jazz has never really been very agreeable to my sensibilities. The best thing is, apparently their early catalog is even better than this one.

I highly recommend putting this on while you read a good book, it sets an absolutely spectacular atmosphere.

01 Staub

02 Karin

03 Schwarze Biene (Black Maja)

04 Unkerich

05 Still am Tresen

06 Welk

07 Von Schnäbeln

08 Orgelblut

09 Faul

10 Welten

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The Seven Fields of Aphelion: Periphery (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Not Metal" Picks for 2010
#7 of 10



Year: 2010
Genre: Ambient Piano Dreams
Label: Graveface
TRT: 38:08

Another member of Black Moth Super Rainbow (in addition to Tobacco and Power Pill Fist) that has decided to dabble into the solo arena, thank goodness. Whilst Tobacco captures the dirty chip hop side of BMSR, and PPF exemplifies the noiser chaos side of BSMR, The Seven Fields of Aphelion channels the ambient and atmospheric side. Ethereal, surreal, soothing and thoughtful, we're treated to a softer, more contemplative and drifting sound...like floating away on a dandelion puff in a secluded mountain meadow, on the cusp of summer and autumn.

01 Slow Subtraction
02 Grown
03 Pale Prophecy
04 Wildflower Wood
05 Cloud Forest (The Little Owl)
06 Mountain Mary
07 Saturation : Arrhythmia
08 Fever Sleep
09 Lake Feet
10 Sunburst Chemicals
11 Michigan Icarus
12 Starlight Aquatic

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Mains de Givre: Esther Marie (4.5/5)

Joshua's Top Ten "Not Metal" Picks for 2010
#6 of 10



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Classical Drone
Label: Textura
TRT: 46:29

Mains de Givre (Frost Hands) is a a partnership between experimentalist/guitarist Eric Quach and classically trained violinist Emilie Livernois-Desroches. What they've managed to do here is created a wonderfully dense soundscape of whirling, swirling, and often enveloping washes of slowly evolving loops and variations originating from strings, more often violin than guitar, but melded together expertly. The result is at once menacing and ominous, while somehow hinting at light on the cusp of breaking through the brooding storm clouds.

Not too shabby for a couple of Canadians.

01 Un Chœur Dâmes En Détresse
02 Le Cercle Des Moeurs
03 Cauchemar Noir Et Rouge
04 Larmes Sanglantes

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Mouth of the Architect: The Violence Beneath (5/5)

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



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Sludge Metal
Label: Translation Loss
TRT: 31:07

I consider MotA to be one of my favorite post metal bands, and The Ties That Blind is an absolutely magnificent album. However, I thought that their last full length effort, Quietly (while still good), was a marked step down from their first two offerings, which dampened my expectation of their future output.

Confidence: Restored. The Violence Beneath starts off with the title track and goes straight for the jugular, almost as if to say "how dare you doubt us". These three original tracks are chocked full of pummeling riffs and grooves, but as on their first two albums they balance the aggression with tasteful ambiance and atmosphere, which at times add more weight to the mix than the heavier sections.

The post metal poster boys show a more emotional side of their muse with their closer. Opting for an interesting cover of Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, converting the 80's pop anthem into a noisy yet restrained swirl of feedback laden doom.

01 The Violence Beneath
02 Buried Hope
03 Restore
04 In Your Eyes

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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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Year of No Light: Ausserwelt (4.5/5)

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



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Sludge Metal
Label: Conspiracy
TRT: 48:02

Having enjoyed their 2006 debut Nord, I was interested in the direction their sophomore release would take. Turns out they decided to completely drop the post hardcore element from their sound, and completely do away with vocals. Instead, they opt to take a turn towards the atmospheric sludge sound contemporaries Mouth of the Architect, A Storm of Light and others have been championing for the past few years. It just so happens that I love that sound, and Ausserwelt is an excellent representation of it. Moody and brooding, they carry you across an ever-evolving soundscape of swirling doom that eventually drifts away on a sea of despair.

1. Perséphone (Enna)
2. Perséphone (Coré)
3. Hiérophante
4. Abbesse

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Sol / Blóðtrú: Old Europa Death Chants (4.5/5)

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



Year: 2010
Genre: Atmospheric Funeral Folk Doom
Label: Paradigms
TRT: 77:34

"Old Europa Death Chants". With a title like that, my attention was immediately piqued, and rightly so. This collaboration of two Danish bands who's body of work falls in the realm of "doom", you sort of think you might have an idea of what they might do together. But that idea is like a rough pencil sketch of the Sistine Chapel. This is a very unique beast.

The pacing is a little strange, and at 77 minutes, a full listen is a commitment, but by the end, you'll feel it was time well spent, and look forward to the next time you take the journey. It's mammoth, serpentine, and oceanic.

01 Alone
02 Crippled by Emotions We Die in Solitude
03 The Dusk of Man: The Dawn of the Beasts
04 Where Did We Fall
05 A Golden Horse
06 Death Chants for Old Europa

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An Autumn for Crippled Children: Lost (5/5)

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



Year: 2010
Genre: Depressive Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: A Sad Sadness Song
TRT: 50:20

Proportionally, this album is about as good as it's name is silly.

01 To Set Sails to the Ends of the Earth
02 Tragedy Bleeds All Over the Lost
03 A Dire Faith
04 In Moonlight Blood is Black
05 Ghost Light
06 An Autumn for Crippled Children
07 I Beg Thee Not to Spare me
08 Gaping Void of Silence
09 Never Shall Be Again

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The Caretaker: The Persistent Repetition of Phrases (4.5/5)

Year: 2008
Genre: Ambient Meanderings through Atmospheric Soundscapes
Label: Install
TRT: 43:43

Imagine you land a job as the groundskeeper for an extremely exclusive and high-society resort located in a very remote region up in the mountains, that closes down for the winter season due to the snow drifts thhat inevitable cut off transportation to and from.

Imagine you're a writer, and this is the perfect opportunity for you and your wife and young child to get away for a little R & R while you work on your next book.

Imagine, also, that the hotel is haunted, and the longer you stay, the more overcome by spirits you become.

Next imagine you walk into a ballroom that should be completely vaccant and devoid of life, but instead it is bustling with people and a dinner party is underway. You walk to the bar and order a drink from the bartender, and sit and chat for a while, as you sink further and further into madness.

The Caretaker began his career in pursuit of emulating this famous scenario from the Stephen King classic, as well as deriving his name from it. And although this is not the record he wrote for that (check out Scenes From the Haunted Ballroom), it evokes that same eerie, classical vibe. You're almost certain you've heard the songs before, but you're not sure if you were dreaming, and you have a niggling suspicion that it wasn't a pleasant dream if you were. Which is actually exactly what this album focuses on, memory loss and things just on the edge of what the mind retains.

This album has an absolutely gorgeous atmosphere to it. Nostalgic and melancholic, walking the knife's edge between cozy warmth, and dark despair.

01	Lacunar Amnesia
02	Persistent Repetition of Phrases
03	Rosy Retrospection
04	Long Term (Remote)
05	Poor Enunciation
06	Past Life Regression
07	False Memory Syndrome
08	Von Restorff Effect
09	Unmasking Alzhiemer's

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The Cure: Carnage Visors (4/5)

Year: 1981
Genre: Atmospheric Post-Punk
Label: Elektra
TRT: 27:45

Until recently, very few people had heard this piece, or even knew it existed. It was written as the soundtrack to an animated short film Simon Gallup’s brother Ric directed. This short was used in lieu of a support band for the Picture Tour in 1981, and could only be found on the B side of the Faith cassette tape release.

I stumbled across it a number of years ago in a friends collection. I asked him about it and he gave me the back-story, and needless to say I was intrigued. Fortunately for me, I had the capability to do a tape rip and burn to CD (ah, the good ol’ days). At the time I didn’t dig it too much (but then, at the time I didn’t dig Pornography either, and now it’s one of my all time favorite albums). It was too minimal and too repetitive.

Fast forward a few years, and I again stumbled across the song, this time as an MP3 in my music library. Curious to see if it was as boring as I remembered, I put it on while reading. This time through though, it really clicked. I realized there is a lot more going on under the surface of this piece than is readily apparent. While it is indeed minimal and repetitive, there are a plethora of subtleties and hypnotic textures present that seem to just pull you in and hold you under. This is quite the sinister little composition. Bleak, dark, stark and I can only imagine that the film meant to accompany it was equally unnerving (something to do with toys and inanimate objects), though I still have not been able to track it down to see for myself.

Alas, my humble tape rip is no longer a rarity, as Carnage Visors was re-released on the recent Faith remastered deluxe package, and easily available to the masses. And while I’m sure the sonic integrity is much improved, I’d rather listen to my own dubious rip, “quality” be damned. There are some things that are better when left in obscurity, if for no other reason than to preserve their mystique. The forgotten and unknown often possess peculiar sway when discovered. That’s the way this was for me. I hope that’s the way it is for you as well.

01 Carnage Visors

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