Briggs' Music Blog: Favorite Metal Albums

Godflesh: Streetcleaner (1989) Industrial Metal

Voivod: Nothingface (1989) Progressive Metal

Earth: Earth 2 Special Low Frequency Version (1993) Drone Metal

Burzum: Hvis Lyset Tar Oss (1994) Atmospheric Black Metal

Cenotaph: Riding Our Black Oceans (1994) Death Metal

Sepultura: Roots (1996) Groove Metal

Sleep: Jerusalem (1998) Stoner Metal

Orthrelm: OV (2001) Avant-Garde Metal

Today Is The Day: Sadness Will Prevail (2002) Noisecore

Kayo Dot: Choirs of the Eye (2003) Avant-Garde Metal

Khanate: Things Viral (2003) Drone Metal

Meshuggah: I (2004) Djent AKA Math Metal

Alcest: Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde (2007) Shoegaze Metal

Mitochondrion: Archaeaeon (2008) Technical Death Metal

Gnaw Their Tongues: Rend Each Other Like Wild Beasts, Till Earth Shall Reek With Midnight Massacre (2009) Black Ambient

Harvestman: In A Dark Tongue (2009) Folk Metal

"metal" genre classification debatable but I'm including it for now

Deathspell Omega: Paracletus (2010) Post Black Metal

Peste Noir: L'Ordure a l'etat Pur (2011) Folk Metal

Liturgy: Aesthethica (2011) Avant-Garde Metal

Aluk Todolo: Occult Rock (2012) Progressive Metal

Altar of Plagues: Teethed Glory and Injury (2013) Black Metal

Deafheaven: Sunbather (2013) Blackgaze

There are a lot of haters, but I am not one of them. Some complain that this record is too pompous, that there is too much of the sublime and not enough of the usual filth and brutality of a metal record. But why are we all of a sudden searching for more of "the usual" in records. This album certainly acknowledges its influences (French Black Metal ala Alcest) and embraces its self imposed tensions (they gave it a pink cover for crying out loud). All I am saying is in spite of every contradiction implicit in this record, there is a calculated (and I think well executed) deviation from the norm. The second track "Irresistible" for example, is not metal at all, but post-rock. But there is not attempt to dress up the track with more metal trappings. The song is what it is, beautiful post-rock sandwiched in between two tracks that are kind of metal, kind of post-rock, kind of shoegaze, and kind of pretentious sounding if one has listened to much metal. The shortness of the second track though, makes it more like a wink than a real attempt at mixing the two genres completely. As if to say: "We know we sound more post-rock than metal, we know the genres have opposing ideologies, we are okay with that." So call it what you want, but what it is is good post-rock with death-metalish vocals and it sounds great to me.

Murmur: Murmur (2014) Progressive Metal