The Year That Was In Metal: 2014 Part 1

D.M: I guess I'll launch the first volley.  2014 for me started swiftly, and by June I was complaining to people that I already had fifteen contenders for album of the year, and what the hell was I going to do to separate them all?  Just as suddenly as the year started, we hit the doldrums, and the summer was sparsely populated by major releases that were worthwhile.  Chris, you and I talked a few times about what could have happened that a year with such promise completely fell apart.  Still, we soldiered on through the summer and by fall, it seemed like a silver lining was emerging.  September was kind to us, and the momentum has been rollercoaster-y since then, but by and large I think 2014 ends on a high note with a lot of promise.

What I found to be generally true was that we listened to a preponderance of records that made us say 'meh, this is alright,' which isn't a ringing endorsement, but it wasn't so long ago we felt like we were in the deep mines, trying to unearth a livable pile of worthwhile gems from a heaping hill of unmitigated crap.  Ambivalence rarely makes for good journalism (if we dare call ourselves that,) but it does mean that the music is getting better, or at least more interesting.  There's something to be said for that in the grand scheme - fans looks back at 1976 or 1983 or 1991 and remember them as being great, but there's no way that every album that dropped was gold in those years.  Taking that last one as an example, sure we had Nirvana and Alice in Chains and Metallica and Soundgarden....and the Butthole Surfers.  So no year will be perfect, it's impossible.

Anyway, let me stop rambling.  In the end, I ended up with some twenty serious contenders for the top ten, and seven albums that I feel particularly strongly about.  My top ten this year (to be revealed later,) is probably my favorite top ten since 2011, and the field of ten or twelve albums that didn't make the cut are also pretty good and could rotate in on the right day, not to mention compete for top spots in previous years.  So I'm pretty happy with 2014 as a musical year.

Go!

CHRIS: Running with the theme you established at the end of your opening, I agree with you about the strength of this year.  This year was, for me, the strongest year for music since I started cataloging all of my listening.  So in roughly the last decade, this was by far the best overall Top Ten.  And you are also right that we encountered a plethora of releases that were not spectacular enough to warrant year-end attention, but still quality enough to be enjoyable.  In fact, there were only a small handful of albums I listened to that I would actively say were lousy.

All of this comes as 2014 also marked the year that I listened to the greatest amount of new music (due to personal circumstances), which revealed two trends of 2014:

1) Melody finally ruled.

I have often criticized much of the music we cover here for being devoid of the fun aspects of music, for not having melodies, which are the things that make music so enjoyable.  I have never believed that just because a band is playing metal gives them an excuse for not writing memorable music.  It's a lame cop-out, and it's one that didn't get used nearly as much this year as in most.  There were a group of fantastic pop albums that drew my attention, more so than usual, but even the heavier end of the spectrum had a lot to offer in this respect.  There were fantastic pop-laced rock albums like the one from H.E.A.T., there were theatrically melodic albums like Incura's debut, and melodic metal had strong showings from Edguy and an utterly fantastic Allan/Lande album.  All in all, the defining characteristic of the music I listened to this year was the strength of hook and melody.  That is the key feature for me, and artists this year delivered in spades.

2) The big names struck out.

This year also featured some released from big names that came with big hype, and were either disappointing or absolutely horrible.  The first that comes to mind is Behemoth's "The Satanist", and album that completely mystified me.  I read some of the rapturous reviews, but they all seemed like a different language than what I heard.  I found the record to be a miserable mess.  Likewise, In Flames released the worst album of their career.  Despite the popular opinion of them, I was quite fond of their previous album, but this time out they completely lost track of what they're good at.  The record was a disaster.  Slipknot's return from grief and loss was also underwhelming, lacking both the visceral power of their early years, or the melodic side Stone Sour had infected the band with.  Machine Head's album was the most torturous seventy minutes of the year for me, an album I was struggling to get all the way through.  It embodies most of what is wrong with 'mainstream' metal these days.  At The Gates returned, and they made a record that was mature and confident... and lacking any of the spark a legendary band is supposed to have.  And finally, AC/DC has soldiered on through difficult times, but released an album that I can't say much good about.  It takes every cliché about the band, and runs them into the ground.  In fact, the only big name that lived up to the hype this year is the biggest name of them all; Taylor Swift.  She did something none of the metal titans could, she made a good album with all the pressure in the world on her.

What was most surprising to me, now that I'm looking back, is just how much one man was able to shape my perceptions of the whole year.  Neal Morse did something no one else has before, being a part of three of my favorite records of the year.  Between his work in Transatlantic, his solo album, and his work in Flying Colors, Neal has contributed more to this year than any musician ever has.  In a way, it makes me think about what it must have been like to be a fan of musicians in the 60s and 70s, when albums would come out every year, and sometimes twice a year.  Being prolific, while retaining quality, is a rare trait.  The fact that Neal was able to play such a prominent role in three albums in a calendar year is remarkable, and the fact that they have all climbed as high as they have in my esteem is dumbfounding.  To make a mixed sports analogy, Neal Morse won the Triple Crown... in a contract year.

What themes did you see running through this year?  And to raise a point I have been thinking about, does the amount of music you listen to in a year effect the number of releases you love?

D.M:  I'm certainly not going to argue with you that melody ruled this year.  Even off-kilter, weirdo melody that may have been experimental in a hundred different directions seemed to find a soft place to land amid the pile upon pile of noise based metal.  We'll get back to that thought in a minute, I need to call attention to something quick before I forget: forgive me for airing the laundry, but you told me earlier in the year that you were extremely concerned the new Edguy was going to be awful based solely on its track listing.  But I'm a charitable man, so I'll give you a chance to retract your statement in this forum (because I agree with you that their album was pretty solid.)  

Anyway, melody.  What strikes me most in thinking about that as a reflection of the year is that for the first time in a long time, it didn't seem to matter what you were or where you were, if you were writing good songs, people were interested in promoting you.  We first saw this trend with Graveyard and Nuclear Blast a few years ago, but now the consensus seems to have spread - it's almost like the prevailing marketing goal has been to get the best music to the people in this new digital marketplace, rather than try to continue promoting a sound that may have independently saturated the market.  That's why we see an artist like Nim Vind, who essentially belongs to six different genres and therefore to none, backed by a heavyweight luminary like Johnny Z.  Nim Vind isn't just punk or metal or rock, I mean shit, the man has piano in his songs, which circles back to the original point of our conversation; the idea is to find songwriters who aren't just stamped out of the same mold.

Let me add quickly, you and I both have problems with the mold-stamping we saw this year, particularly as it relates to the ongoing thrash 'revival.'  But let's keep talking positive stuff for now and we'll hit that back later.

The other trend that struck me was a sort of blindside, but chronologically it makes sense.  Electronic metal, either in the form of pure electronic music or industrial, made huge waves on the scene this year.  Generation-ally, this was only too logical, since it's been twenty years since the halcyon days of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and so forth.  That said, even in the face of staggering electronic production in most forms of popular music, I don't know that I could have predicted the sudden surge in electronic rock and metal.  That's probably an oversight on my part.

With all that though, the variety within that electronic framework is a force to be reckoned with in its own right.  Sure, Powerman 5000 release what essentially amounts to an electronic rock record recalling the heady days of David Bowie and T Rex with more attitude, but there's much more to it than that.  Emigrate (editor's note: my review of this coming,) brought us back to the full bore beginnings of industrial and dark wave.  Justin Symbol gave us dance industrial (which makes me hope in a backward sense that techno-goths find their way to the US.  Ever seen those jokers on youtube?  Hilarious,) and a few other odds and ends probed the darker depths of electronic's potential, like if Chris Reifert suddenly decided to go full-keyboard.  And let's not forget, and I both spent some serious time with Kontrust's "Explositive," and I don't think either of us totally knows what to make of it.  That album, to my sensibilities anyway, represents a whole new thing that I won't even be brave enough to attempt to name.  But it's like if KMFDM and Rob Zombie and Die Antwoord had a kid, which is descriptor enough.  I've probably heard that full record a dozen times now, and I still can't decide if it's brilliant or irreparably flawed.  Which is fitting, because up until about '95, Trent Reznor, father of modern industrial, would have proclaimed those the same thing.

As for the big names, I don't totally agree that all the big names struck out.  Some of them certainly did, but I didn't hate the At The Gates record, and while not his signature band, Max Cavalera hit a single with Cavalera Conspiracy, and Killer Be Killed about knocked it out of the park.  I also was a big fan of the Lacuna Coil record, which was nice to see from them on the heels of the underwhelming "Dark Adrenaline."  And you know what?  Much to everyone's surprise, Adrenaline Mob actually scored a pretty damn good record.  Depending on your definition of big name, Reverend Horton Heat had a good record and Gaz Jennings and Jake E Lee both had pretty good years, so maybe the trend was that former big names and side projects set the pace, which gets into a whole different discussion.  Are the signature bands of these artists fading away?  Jennings had no choice, Cathedral hung up its gloves, but there were a disproportionate number of side projects popping this year that were pretty good.

So to what do we owe this melodic writing revolution?  Personally, I think my focusing on that has something to do with me personally, but I'll explain after your answers.

CHRIS: Thank you for the opportunity, but I'm not going to take back anything I said previously.  I was afraid, based on the titles that were released before I heard the Edguy album.  Several of them were ridiculous, and still are, to be frank.  For as much as I love Edguy, Tobias Sammet does have a propensity for undercutting his own success by giving people ammunition to attack him with.  Edguy has played up the tongue-in-cheek aspects of their sound for quite a while now, to the point where many people don't take the band seriously.  There have been times when that was true (like the song "Trinidad"), but it's a shame this time, because this album was serious, and seriously good.  But there's only so much you respect you can get for a song called "Do Me Like A Caveman", no matter how straight-faced the lyrics, and no matter how awesome the song is (and this one is KILLER).

I would like to think that the increased number of good songwriting bands being snapped up and promoted by the labels is purely based on a market crying out for quality music, I think there are also more monetary underpinnings.  What I have noticed, in every hot genre, is that the original bands that start the craze will continue to sell records for as long as they keep going, while everyone else who follows has maybe two records in them until the public stops caring in large enough numbers to support them.  So rather than waste their money promoting bands that have a three year shelf-life, the labels are trying to find those bands that are going to start something, which means they will last longer.  Either way, the end result is that we are getting access to more quality music than before, which is a good thing, no matter the cause of the shift.

Electronic metal makes sense, and not just for the reason you mention.  Look at the pop charts (which if we're honest, metal fans still do), and there is nary an instrument to be found.  Electronic music is what is dominating the charts, to the point where even Taylor Swift is mostly electronic now, so it is only logical that metal would try to capitalize on what is selling.  If a metal band wants to ever break through at all into the mainstream, their best bet is to mirror the sound that the people obviously want to hear.  Myself, I detest this trend, because I feel that electronic music works against the very nature of what metal is supposed to sound like, but also because those electronic bands that started things off are not exactly the role models we want to be learning from.

To my mind, Jake E Lee is nowhere close to being a big name, nor is Adrenaline Mob.  I was thinking more along the lines of bands that could headline festivals, not bands that have one person in them you might have heard of at one point (that's also a problem with so-called super-groups, most of which are made up of people who are by no means super).  Side-projects are certainly all the rage, and it seems as though everyone in metal is currently in at least two bands.  It's a topic Eddie Trunk has been talking about recently, and I actually agree with him that it becomes problematic, because there is too much music being made by too many people that all sounds the same, because it is.  There is a fine line that needs to be walked, and I'm concerned we will soon find ourselves on the wrong side.

As for melodic writing, I can think of several reasons why it has made a resurgence.  1) Music is cyclical, and it was time for it to come back. 2) It's a reaction to the overwhelming negativity and cynicism that has taken hold of society, and a way of fighting back. 3) Metal has become so dark and heavy that the most out-of-the-box thing that can be done is to incorporate true melody again.

Of course, it's possible that I'm reading way too much into this, and the answer is as simple as me doing a better job of tuning out the material that doesn't fit the bill.  I would like to think that more people have come around to my way of thinking, that anger and aggression can only sustain you for so long, before you want something more satisfying.  I speak only for myself, but I was never consumed by the feelings that most metal is based on, so melody has always been the one thing I've focused most on.  Every great revolution in music has been packaged in the form of great songs, and it's almost impossible to have those without melody.  Maybe some of these musicians are finally starting to understand that.

In any event, this trend meant that this year featured far less disappointment than most.  What was the most disappointing record of the year for you?  And the most surprising?

D.M: I'm not sure we can have it both ways as far as electronic metal goes.  You mentioned that it goes against the very idea of what metal should sound like, but you and I both spend a dizzying amount of time talking about how the evolution of metal has stalled, or worse yet, gone in the completely wrong direction and further down the rabbit hole toward undistinguished noise.  Can we therefore fairly sit in judgment of electronic metal, which at least endeavors to move us down a different, even if perhaps retrospective, path?  If that's not a valid direction, and the road we're on isn't a valid direction, then what *should* metal sound like?  We have to be careful not to overly pigeonhole ourselves into too narrow a definition of a perpetually defiant genre, or we run the risk of becoming just the same as the elitist, 'party-of-no' metal windbags who we've sworn to defend against!  (And yes, I recognize that carried on ad infinitum, the snake starts to feed on its own tail; to defy convention and not be metal becomes the most metal thing of all, and all of a sudden listening to Tony Bennett might well be metal. (Double parenthesis: all due respect to Tony Bennett.))

That's the second time you've mentioned Taylor Swift's record.  Bring it on, take thirty seconds and get all the Taylor Swift thoughts out of your head and on paper!

See, I think you hit on the point I was going to make when you mentioned being able to better tune out the music you don't want to hear.  The point for me is two-fold.  First, as much as I hate to admit and never, ever wanted to be this guy, I have become the stereotypical label exec we've always heard about - the man who gives you thirty seconds to impress him with your music and then casts you aside if not worthy.  We get inundated with so many damn promos that it's hard not to start taking that course of action - particularly when so many acts have forsaken variety.  When you really look at it, one of the most frustrating aspects of what we go through as reviewers is that metal musicians have decided that it's full speed ahead in whatever style they've chosen, and creativity lies by the wayside.  I've read enough science fiction in my day to know that it's a common plague of fictional alien species, that every alien race (except the Drazi, 'Babylon 5' shout-out!) have one language, one religion and one dress code per planet.  So why, in the face of greater melody, this evolutionary pause?

Second, maybe I'm revealing my inner grumpy old man here, but I think I've settled myself on two things - first, ignoring music that features a bodily function in the title (Sexcrement, Vomit Fist, Piss Vortex, et al,) and second, embracing more music that simply resonates with me on the basest level.  Don't get me wrong, I really liked MaYaN's "Antagonise" this year, it's a great record, but it's also very challenging and dense.  While that's perfectly fine for what it is, it's not exactly a 'hey, I just need to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things' album.  So, most of my top ten is populated by albums that are the most fun to listen to, which seems common sense but isn't so easy when you're in the eye of the hurricane of music.

As for disappointments and surprises, the biggest disappointment for me was a band nobody probably noticed, which was Megaton Leviathan.  If you name your band after the payload of a nuclear weapon and the O.G. serpent of Hell, you need to be the biggest, meanest, nastiest, loudest band on the planet.  Instead, what they gave us for a record was about forty minutes of ambient, atonal moaning, and even that wasn't particularly loud.  So, names are important, but it's also important to live up to them.  I was also a little let down by the follow up from Admiral Sir Cloudesely Shovell.  Their previous effort was my album of the year, and this one had some nice moments but failed to latch on.

As for surprises, I was surprised by Emmure's record this year, not because I expected it to be great and it wasn't, but because I expected it to be music and it wasn't.  If I can be frank (no pun intended,) I'm surprised that album was let the door in the shape it was in.  There aren't so much songs on it as chopped up, accompanied versions of the Two Minutes Hate...and a love letter to a Japanese porn star.  So that was a thing.  

In more pleasant news, I was surprised how much I liked Pro-Pain's new record, and as already mentioned, I was impressed with Adrenaline Mob.  There were some others, too; The Melvins got their act together and made a great record, so did Lacuna Coil.  I was also really impressed with Arch Enemy's "War Eternal," given all the changes in that band though the year.

Still, surprises implies expectation, and I think the story of the year was the number of new artists or artists breaking through who impressed for the first time.  So run 'em down, who got hold of your ear that you didn't expect?

CHRIS: I fully admit that I venture a bit too far into the realm of being an elitist when I get on a roll.  You're not wrong about the danger of trying to define what metal is or isn't, and what it should or shouldn't evolve into.  I suppose where I'm coming from is a philosophical point more than an actual musical one.  Granted, I don't like electronic-influenced music 95% of the time, but there is much about metal I dislike, and that doesn't preclude me from admitting it is what it says it is.  When it comes to electronics in metal, it goes against one of the principles that fueled metal's growth amongst the fans.  Metal's explosion was in the 80s, and was in large part a reaction to the pop music of the day, which just so happened to be predominantly electronic.  So it's with a bit of confusion that I look at metal bringing into the mix the elements that were at one time the very thing metal was railing against.  That's why, despite the fact that I won't actually go so far as to say those types of bands aren't metal, they will always be looked at a bit warily by me.  Something about it just doesn't feel right, even if there is no good reason why it shouldn't be.

I bring Taylor Swift up because she's the biggest artist in the world at this point, and probably the only mainstream pop star I know anything about.  Her name was the easy one to point to.  But if you wish, I'll give you a few words on her album "1989".  Electro-synth pop is not my thing at all (with the exception of Gunther and the Sunshine Girls), but Taylor Swift made a record that even someone like me can appreciate.  It is slicker than hell, a calculated ploy for sales, and yet a massive success.  It won't hit my top ten list, or come close, but it's clearly the best pop album that would have appeared on the Billboard chart this year.

You call that mindset a stereotype, but I consider it a skill.  Being able to accurately gauge a band based on five minutes of listening is a trait that is essential to maintaining a deep love for music.  Knowing how to avoid the garbage saves time that can then go into the good stuff.  I would be horribly depressed if I actually listened to the majority of the music we get sent before I realized it wasn't for me.  Of course there are the genres that are easy to dismiss because of track records, but even among the sounds I like, I am always ready to turn a record off as soon as I sense its mediocrity.  I don't feel bad about it either, because expecting anything else is unrealistic.

What is missing from so many bands today, and what makes the slog through the promo pile so trying, is that variety seems to be a thing of the past.  There is a lack of trust right now that an audience will follow a band, even within the same album, if they try something other than their template.  Not only is it insulting to us as listeners, but it's a form of self-sabotage.  If you write nothing but heavy tracks, they will all be competing with each other, making them all seem lackluster compared to the one or two gems.  But if you try different things, it gives each style less competition, and allows them to stand out long enough to be understood and embraced.  Looking at the music I've enjoyed this year, most of the records show a degree of versatility like this.  An hour of the same thing gets boring, no matter how good it is.

I think part of your quandary is due to the nature of criticism.  Critics are supposed to be intellectual, and a bit cynical, so the idea of music being 'fun' doesn't feel like a good enough description.  We need to find deeper reasons to like something, when sometimes there isn't anything else to it.

My biggest disappointment of the year is In Flames.  While most everyone had already written them off and expected their album to be utter trash, I really enjoyed their previous album, and had moderate hopes for this one.  "Siren Charms" was absolutely awful, and one of the worst albums I heard all year.  They dialed down the metal, turned up the pop, and somehow made an album that wasn't catchy at all.  My biggest surprise was actually Weezer.  They had previously won my worst album of the year award twice, in consecutive years no less, so I was shocked that they put out an album that was so solid.  It's not one of their best, and the whole idea of the album being an apology for their years of sucking is undercut and ruined by Rivers Cuomo not being able to sound sincere if his life depended on it, but there are some great songs on the record.  I was ready to hate it, and I can't.

As for bands that I wasn't expecting to be so invested in this year, first and foremost is Blues Pills.  After hearing their EP last year, all the pre-release hype suggested they went in completely the opposite direction of what I recommended, and yet the end result was a fantastic album I never expected.  In the last few weeks, I discovered a band called Night Mistress, who made an immediate impact on me.  Their album was exactly the kind of metal album I had been waiting all year for.  There was also a great debut from Incura that got many, many spins, and a real answer to her critics made by Anette Olzon (formerly of Nightwish).  I'll have more to say about most of those when my list is revealed.

Who were the newcomers who caught your ear?  And this leads into a question I have been thinking about recently; for all the talk about how much music can mean to us, do life-changing albums come around once we've passed our adolescence, or is everything we listen to destined to play second-fiddle?

Come back tomorrow when we continue our discussion about music, its emotions and what we want to see in 2015!