Baroness Nabs the #1 album of the year from Decibal Magazine

I have an update on my Band of the Week, Baroness.  Well Decibel Magazine did their top 40 albums of the year, and although I will toot the Baroness horn I cannot agree with their decision for making them NUMBER 1 OF THE YEAR?   Decibel magazine is very.... stylized though (read: trendy extreme metal only), and although I appreciate having an intelligent metal mag out there, it was very obvious for them to go with crowd pleasers Baroness.  Here is the full list of 40 albums: 

40. Funebrarum - The Sleep Of Morbid Dreams
39. Millions - Gather Scatter
38. Municipal Waste - Massive Aggressor  [Way too far down the list...]
37. Javelina - Beasts Among Sheep
36. Suffocation - Blood Oath
35. Goes Cube - Another Day Has Passed
34. Culted - Below The Thunders Of The Upper Deep
33. Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough
32. Brutal Truth - Evolution Through Revolution [I really tried to get into this band, but honestly.... they are awful live.  They were good the first time I saw live, then horrible the next 4 times.  SO, I decided to listen to the album.... also horrible.  I think Helen Keller produced and mixed it.     .....sorry Danny Lilker, I still love him]
31. The Red Chord - Fed Through The Teeth Machine
30. Keelhaul - Keelhaul's Triumphannt Return To Obscurity
29. Katatonia - Night Is The New Day
28. Gaza - He Is Never Coming Back
27. Goatwhore - Carving Out The Eyes Of God
26. City Of Ships - Look What God Did To Us
25. Burnt By The Sun - Heart Of Darkness
24. The Gates Of Slumber - Hymns Of Blood And Thunder
23. Funeral Mist - Maranatha [I thought this would make their top 10!]
22. Mournful Congregation - The June Frost
21. Altar Of Plauges - White Tomb
20. Asphyx - Death...The Brutal Way
19. The Atlas Moth - A Glorified Piece Of Blue Sky
18. Paradise Lost - Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us
17. Mastodon - Crack The Skye [Obligatory]
16. YOB - The Great Cessation
15. Nile - Those Whom The Gods Detest
14. Magrudergrind - Magrudergrind
13. Obscura - Cosmogenesis
12. Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse
11. Immortal - All Shall Fall [They lost a lot of the rawness and thrash/black metal mix sound that I love on this one.  A good record, but not top 11 of the year]
10. Isis - Wavering Radiant
09. Marduk - Wormwood [This was a big step up for Marduk.  This album is selling like shit, but at least it's getting some credit]
08. Tombs - Winter Hours
07. Slayer - World Painted Blood [It's still cool to like Slayer!!!  Nice!!  Now I am gonna whip out my denim vest]
06. Kylesa - Static Tensions
05. Cobalt - Gin
04. Napalm Death - Time Waits No Slave
03. Coalesce - Ox
02. Converge - Axe To Fall
01. Baroness -The Blue Record

My thoughts- Kylsea is WAY too high up.  Krallice consistently get their ass licked by Decibel and released a legitimately good album this year, so I have no idea why they are so far down. Also, the lack of SUNN O))) in Decibel Magazine EVER is starting to look like some petty grudge.  Sunn had one of the best extreme metal albums of the year EASILY, and I will be damned if they were as much as mentioned once in print ALL YEAR. 

Band of the Week - Baroness!

I was coming up with my list of the Best Albums of 2009 and Baroness' Blue Record kept coming up.  Although it's way overdue at this point- for a sludgey-doom-noise-whatever-it-is metal band these guys have sold excellently this past year- I decided to make them the last Band of the Week in 2009.  They were the surprise winner for 2009 in my book.  It's not like they were just discovered recently but they really made a huge splash in the metal scene AND more importantly were able to crossover into the mainstream/indie rock scene that is so fucking cool nowadays.  Here's the whole album in full below.  Extremely atmospheric!

Baroness destroys Marduk when it comes to album sales

Saw the 69 Eyes last night- I should have a review and some photos posted in the next few days. 

Anyway, today is Nick Oliveri's birthday.... that dude from Queens Of The Stone Age and Mondo Generator.  Also the numbers are in for Baroness and Marduk's album sales so far.  Baroness sold 4,700 copies in it's first week, which landed them at 117.  Marduk sold a thrilling 650. Ouch!

Tuesday's Metal Releases

Baroness - Blue Record (Relapse)

Bowling For Soup - Sorry For Partyin' (Jive)
The Destro - Harmony Of Dischord (Metal Blade)

Destruction - The Curse Of The AntiChrist (AFM Records)
Dismember - Under Blood Red Skies LIVE DVD (Regain)

Edgend - A New Identity (Nightmare)
Future's End - Memoir Of A Broken Man (Nightmare)
Grave Robber - Inner Sanctum (Retroactive)
House Of Lords - Cartesian Dream (Frontier)

King Diamond - Graveyard Re-Release (Metal Blade)
King Diamond - The Spider's Lullaby Re-Release (Metal Blade)
Leaves Eyes - Njord (Napalm)
Lye By Mistake - Fea Jur (Blackmarket Activities)
Lynch Mob - Smoke And Mirrors (Frontiers)
Marduk - Wormwood (Regain)
Narnia - Course Of A Generation (Nightmare)
Otep - Live Confrontation LIVE DVD (Koch)

Skeletonwitch - Breathing The Fire (Prosthetic)
Skyfire - Esoteric (Pivotal)
Theatre Of Tragedy - Forever Is The World (AFM)
Those Who Lie Beneath - An Awakening (Rise)
Ultimatum - Lex Metalis (Retroactive)

Yngwie Malmsteen - Live In Korea LIVE DVD (Rising Force)

THOUGHTS:  Not a shabby week for metal!  There are no superstar chart toppers here, but a bunch of legitimately good bands.   Going down the list, I have to start with Baroness.  One of the most interesting and best metal bands out today.  It's really amazing that I am not a bigger fan of them than I am.  They are sludge metal if ya gotta pick a genre, but Dillinger and Mastodon fans will like 'em.   Up next - The Destro.  When I first heard them I went apeshit over what I heard and named them my Band Of The Week.  The Destro in a nutshell: young classic-thrash revival sounding band that doesn't suck.

Marduk's Wormwood hardly feels new by now- there has been a lot of hype around this album.  In general, I like the album....a lot.  It does sound a bit like Funeral Mist.

Skeletonwitch are badass, but nothing new.  Doing the thrash/death metal hybrid thing.  Nothing brilliant, but fun nonetheless.  I'd check it out if you like that sound.

It's great to see a new Lynch Mob album out.  I didnt expect that to happen, although it does make sense seeing as Lynch hasn't been with Dokken since 1997.  Damn.  The album sounds good, relativetely outdated but good.  Tommy Aldridge on drums sounds great with Lynch's guitar.

Nothing else too special to mention, but any releases by King Diamond are a must-by for newbie metal fans.  House of Lords if just interesting to see release new music.  Remember them?  They used to be that band Guiffria, fronted by Greg Guiffria.  Well, Guiffria morphed into House Of Lords when James Christian took over as frontman.  The band is still very average.  Interesting sidenote- they were on Gene Simmons record label.

New Baroness....

This band, Baroness is fucking cool and they have a new album out soon called Blue Record due out sometime in October. They released the track names, which to me is completely uninteresting, but something pretty cool they also released is the album art. It was done by the bands very own guitar/vox dude, John Dyer Baizley. Nicely done!