Burlap to Cashmere2007 was a year of a lot of surprisingly bad albums, but while there was a lot of disappointment, there were also a lot of pleasant surprises, not to mention the albums that actually lived up to their expectations. And though I'd love to list all of the pretty good albums this year, for the sake of keeping this under a few pages I won't.
10: Faun's Totem
Though Totem is a bit more low-key than their previous work - no parallels to Renaissance's bouncy "
Rhiannon" - it slowly but surely grew on me over the year as serenely beautiful harp-driven neoceltic folk music. The vocals and instrumentation, while not significantly different from previous work, were nonetheless still superb. The electronic and rock elements we heard in the postlude to "Rosmarin" aren't developed much further (I'd argue it's a good thing; Schelmish's forays from Corvus Corax-esque medieval to In Extremo-esque medieval metal haven't worked out so well for them), but the same sort of subdued grind moves it's way surprisingly tastefully into the chorus of "Zeit nach dem Sturm". I don't want Faun to turn into a metal band, but honestly, I wouldn't mind hearing more songs like that one in the future.
9: Steven Delopoulos's Straightjacket
After being delayed more than half a year, Steven's sequel to the terrific Me Died Blue doesn't disappoint: his folk guitar picking on his solo project is just as impressive as his flamenco-tinged Burlap to Cashmere of old. The picked guitar is still the centerpiece of the album, but he's added a gospel choir to a lot of the songs. It's kind of rough at points - its entrance is rather abrupt in "As If Love Was A Sword", and it doesn't really jive with "Ruin of the Beast", but it's nonetheless an interesting addition. There's also more experimentation on this album than on the last. "Halt" doesn't follow any conventions of normal songrwiting, but it's an interesting crescendo to punctuate the album. "Open Your Eyes" was another pleasant surprise on the album - a piano driven song completely absent of Steven's signature guitar, but one of the most compelling on the album nonetheless.
8: David Crowder Band's Remedy
Though sadly absent of the banjo that appeared on A Collision (and even more on B Collision), the electronica is featured even more prominently. That's what makes the album so catchy: from hard beat-driven songs like "Can You Feel It?" to the the more subdued beeps of "The Glory of It All", their fusion of infectious pop rock with electronica and scratches, even without the bluegrass influence, is unique and well-executed enough to keep one coming back to it for a long time.
7: Caspian's The Four Trees
Whereas a lot of post-rock in the vein of Explosions in the Sky is pretty formulaic and unvaried, Caspian creates beautiful and ethereal melodies without confining itself to a particular sound. Instead of an album of six ten minute songs, Caspian punctuates its long (though not obscenely so) songs with short and powerful interludes. Instead of a constant happy dopamine rush, Caspian ventures into eerie and sometimes even angry sections, even using (gasp) heavy distortion on their electric guitars. Hardly ever boring and fairly unique in execution, The Four Trees is an album almost deserving of the hype surrounding the genre. Almost.
6: Within Temptation's The Heart of Everything
I wrote a full review of The Heart Of Everything when it came out, but I will add that I've found myself listening to it even more than The Silent Force. The EPs since then have added a number of great songs to their repertoire of the Heart Of Everything era, my favorite being "The Last Time" from the All I Need EP. It's symphonic metal at its most epic yet tasteful (as opposed to Nightwish, epic but ridiculous).
5: Tenhi's Folk Aesthetic
Each member of Tenhi is also a visual artist, which could explain the brilliant cover art, easily the best of the year. It's conceptually and visually simple, but it communicates volumes. Dark, minimalistic, yet ultimately beautiful, it describes perfectly their music. Folk Aesthetic is a three disc set, with early and unreleased work. It contains both the guitar-volin-flute trifecta that defined the majority of their prior work, but there's also a lot of the piano-and-drums of Airut : Aamujen - sometimes in the same song. The vocals are deep, subdued, and a perfect complement to the melancholic and subdued atmosphere of the album. Tenhi can take a while to grow on you, but there are plenty of songs like "Kausienranta" that are instantly appreciable.
4: Omnia's Alive!
Taking the opposite approach from Tenhi, the album cover is ornately and densely decorated in a pencilled book style, with beautiful artwork in the same style throughout its album leaf. With lyrical inspiration from the likes of Poe and Shakespeare, this album moves Omnia from the Pagan era to later Western history (though I've wondered about the inclusion of Palästinelied on the Pagan Folk album). Unlike their previous work, Alive! is largely in English except for the bit of what sounds like Gaelic in the title track (correct me if I'm wrong), and features by far the most hurdy-gurdy that Omnia has ever used. But the tin whistle/harp combination isn't gone - SatyrSex is upbeat, catchy, and pretty amusing for an instrumental song, and several others appear on the album. The three-part harmony that defined Omnia in the past is unfortunately only heard on the title track, but their interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven more than makes up for any shortcomings. Clocking in at 9:07, it's probably the least boring song of that length that I've ever heard. It's wonderfully emotive, and builds brilliantly through the many verses, bringing to mind some of the poetic interpretations of Loreena McKennitt.
3: Alcest's Souvenirs d'un autre Monde
I gave Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde a listen on a whim after randomly coming across it on a music review website tagged as "Post-Black Metal". Usually I'm pretty disappointed with music I come across on Google, but this was everything the label brought to mind and more. Neige, the multi-instrumentalist behind it and several other bands, turned it from a raw black metal band and everything that entails into a fusion of the black metal style with the shoegazer/post-rock aesthetic, with ethereal euphoric melodies sprinkled with a high, smooth, and indistinct voice built using heavy electric guitars and double bass pedal drums. He says in interviews he's never listened to shoegazer type music - that may or may not be true, but it's a brilliantly innovative album nonetheless.
2: Subway to Sally's Bastard
The characteristically Subway deep chugging of the electric guitar never appears and the melodies are occasionally a little awkward, but the vocal harmonies hide it well and give the songs a rich feel, and there's more folk instrumentation than has appeared on their last few albums. The opening song "Meine Seele brennt" is a perfect opening song: every bit epic and grandiose, without any hint of the ridiculous that usually accompanies bands that like to describe themselves that way. Not that Subway has ever ventured into the ridiculous. From fun folk songs like "Tanz auf dem Vulkan" to the eerie polyphony of "Canticum Satanae", Bastard is the culmination of just about everything that makes Subway To Sally great.
1: ASP's Requiembryo
I was skeptical of 2-disc studio albums after Tanzwut's unrefined Schattenreiter last year, but boy did this one deliver. Combining three of my favorite musical styles - Church liturgy and gregorianesque harmony, folk and world instruments, and metal - I'd name this easily the best album of the decade so far (I'd go back further, but the more I do the more tempers I'll inflame). The album - especially the second disc's requiem - is thematically ingenious and musically superb, touching on neoclassical ("Erinnerung eines Fremden"), medieval (part 2 of "Offährte"), ebm ("Kyrie (Eleison 2: Mercy)"), punk ("Finger weg! Finger"), neocelt ("Hymnus: Heaven"), gregorian ("Introitus Interruptus"), folk metal ("Duett (Das Minnelied der Incubi)"), drum and bass ("De Profundis"), and black metal ("Exsequien: Hell"). I don't know where this album came from - his past albums have ranged from mediocre to terrible - but wherever it did, I'm hoping there's going to be more along these lines.
10: Faun's Totem
Though Totem is a bit more low-key than their previous work - no parallels to Renaissance's bouncy "
Rhiannon" - it slowly but surely grew on me over the year as serenely beautiful harp-driven neoceltic folk music. The vocals and instrumentation, while not significantly different from previous work, were nonetheless still superb. The electronic and rock elements we heard in the postlude to "Rosmarin" aren't developed much further (I'd argue it's a good thing; Schelmish's forays from Corvus Corax-esque medieval to In Extremo-esque medieval metal haven't worked out so well for them), but the same sort of subdued grind moves it's way surprisingly tastefully into the chorus of "Zeit nach dem Sturm". I don't want Faun to turn into a metal band, but honestly, I wouldn't mind hearing more songs like that one in the future.9: Steven Delopoulos's Straightjacket
After being delayed more than half a year, Steven's sequel to the terrific Me Died Blue doesn't disappoint: his folk guitar picking on his solo project is just as impressive as his flamenco-tinged Burlap to Cashmere of old. The picked guitar is still the centerpiece of the album, but he's added a gospel choir to a lot of the songs. It's kind of rough at points - its entrance is rather abrupt in "As If Love Was A Sword", and it doesn't really jive with "Ruin of the Beast", but it's nonetheless an interesting addition. There's also more experimentation on this album than on the last. "Halt" doesn't follow any conventions of normal songrwiting, but it's an interesting crescendo to punctuate the album. "Open Your Eyes" was another pleasant surprise on the album - a piano driven song completely absent of Steven's signature guitar, but one of the most compelling on the album nonetheless.
8: David Crowder Band's Remedy
Though sadly absent of the banjo that appeared on A Collision (and even more on B Collision), the electronica is featured even more prominently. That's what makes the album so catchy: from hard beat-driven songs like "
Can You Feel It?" to the the more subdued beeps of "The Glory of It All", their fusion of infectious pop rock with electronica and scratches, even without the bluegrass influence, is unique and well-executed enough to keep one coming back to it for a long time.7: Caspian's The Four Trees
Whereas a lot of post-rock in the vein of Explosions in the Sky is pretty formulaic and unvaried, Caspian creates beautiful and ethereal melodies without confining itself to a particular sound. Instead of an album of six ten minute songs, Caspian punctuates its long (though not obscenely so) songs with short and powerful interludes. Instead of a constant happy dopamine rush, Caspian ventures into eerie and sometimes even angry sections, even using (gasp) heavy distortion on their electric guitars. Hardly ever boring and fairly unique in execution, The Four Trees is an album almost deserving of the hype surrounding the genre. Almost.
6: Within Temptation's The Heart of Everything
I wrote a full review of The Heart Of Everything when it came out, but I will add that I've found myself listening to it even more than The Silent Force. The EPs since then have added a number of great songs to their repertoire of the Heart Of Everything era, my favorite being "The Last Time" from the All I Need EP. It's symphonic metal at its most epic yet tasteful (as opposed to Nightwish, epic but ridiculous).
5: Tenhi's Folk Aesthetic
Each member of Tenhi is also a visual artist, which could explain the brilliant cover art, easily the best of the year. It's conceptually and visually simple, but it communicates volumes. Dark, minimalistic, yet ultimately beautiful, it describes perfectly their music. Folk Aesthetic is a three disc set, with early and unreleased work. It contains both the guitar-volin-flute trifecta that defined the majority of their prior work, but there's also a lot of the piano-and-drums of Airut : Aamujen - sometimes in the same song. The vocals are deep, subdued, and a perfect complement to the melancholic and subdued atmosphere of the album. Tenhi can take a while to grow on you, but there are plenty of songs like "Kausienranta" that are instantly appreciable.
4: Omnia's Alive!
Taking the opposite approach from Tenhi, the album cover is ornately and densely decorated in a pencilled book style, with beautiful artwork in the same style throughout its album leaf. With lyrical inspiration from the likes of Poe and Shakespeare, this album moves Omnia from the Pagan era to later Western history (though I've wondered about the inclusion of Palästinelied on the Pagan Folk album). Unlike their previous work, Alive! is largely in English except for the bit of what sounds like Gaelic in the title track (correct me if I'm wrong), and features by far the most hurdy-gurdy that Omnia has ever used. But the tin whistle/harp combination isn't gone - SatyrSex is upbeat, catchy, and pretty amusing for an instrumental song, and several others appear on the album. The three-part harmony that defined Omnia in the past is unfortunately only heard on the title track, but their interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven more than makes up for any shortcomings. Clocking in at 9:07, it's probably the least boring song of that length that I've ever heard. It's wonderfully emotive, and builds brilliantly through the many verses, bringing to mind some of the poetic interpretations of Loreena McKennitt.
3: Alcest's Souvenirs d'un autre Monde
I gave Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde a listen on a whim after randomly coming across it on a music review website tagged as "Post-Black Metal". Usually I'm pretty disappointed with music I come across on Google, but this was everything the label brought to mind and more. Neige, the multi-instrumentalist behind it and several other bands, turned it from a raw black metal band and everything that entails into a fusion of the black metal style with the shoegazer/post-rock aesthetic, with ethereal euphoric melodies sprinkled with a high, smooth, and indistinct voice built using heavy electric guitars and double bass pedal drums. He says in interviews he's never listened to shoegazer type music - that may or may not be true, but it's a brilliantly innovative album nonetheless.
2: Subway to Sally's Bastard
The characteristically Subway deep chugging of the electric guitar never appears and the melodies are occasionally a little awkward, but the vocal harmonies hide it well and give the songs a rich feel, and there's more folk instrumentation than has appeared on their last few albums. The opening song "
Meine Seele brennt" is a perfect opening song: every bit epic and grandiose, without any hint of the ridiculous that usually accompanies bands that like to describe themselves that way. Not that Subway has ever ventured into the ridiculous. From fun folk songs like "Tanz auf dem Vulkan" to the eerie polyphony of "Canticum Satanae", Bastard is the culmination of just about everything that makes Subway To Sally great.1: ASP's Requiembryo
I was skeptical of 2-disc studio albums after Tanzwut's unrefined Schattenreiter last year, but boy did this one deliver. Combining three of my favorite musical styles - Church liturgy and gregorianesque harmony, folk and world instruments, and metal - I'd name this easily the best album of the decade so far (I'd go back further, but the more I do the more tempers I'll inflame). The album - especially the second disc's requiem - is thematically ingenious and musically superb, touching on neoclassical ("Erinnerung eines Fremden"), medieval (part 2 of "Offährte"), ebm ("Kyrie (Eleison 2: Mercy)"), punk ("Finger weg! Finger"), neocelt ("Hymnus: Heaven"), gregorian ("Introitus Interruptus"), folk metal ("Duett (Das Minnelied der Incubi)"), drum and bass ("De Profundis"), and black metal ("Exsequien: Hell"). I don't know where this album came from - his past albums have ranged from mediocre to terrible - but wherever it did, I'm hoping there's going to be more along these lines.
