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AVANT-GARDE METAL 2007 Your Top 10 Albums / Retrospection Story online since: 22.12.2007 / 23:41:35 ......................................................................................................................................................... YOUR TOP 10 AVANT-GARDE METAL ALBUMS 2007 The year 2007 is almost completed. So we asked you, our honourable readers, to tell us what impressed you most this year. An overwhelming amount of answers came in. So thanks a lot to everybody who has sent us a list with your five favourite avant-garde metal albums of 2007! Each mentioning of an album has been given one point. These points were summed up to your overall ranking. And here are the final results: 01. DøDHEIMSGARD - Supervillain Outcast 02. ABIGOR - Fractal Possession 03. ULVER - Shadows Of The Sun 04. MAYHEM - Ordo Ad Chao 05. BERGRAVEN – Dödsvisioner 06. SIGH - Hangman's Hymn 07. SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM - In Glorious Times 08. MANES - How The World Came To An End 09. DEATHSPELL OMEGA - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternvm 10. UNEXPECT - In A Flesh Aquarium On the top of the list there’s no surprise. ABIGOR and DøDHEIMSGARD are leading head-to-head with a big distance to the rest of the field. For a long time it seemed that Abigor would win the race. But in the very end Dodheimsgard overtook them and landed on the peak. Astonishment arose about the third place. Ex avant-garde metal grand signors ULVER manage the legerdemain of reaching this high position although their masterpiece "Shadows of the Sun” doesn’t contain any metal elements at all. That’s really avant-garde! And the second surprise is UNEXPECT on position 10…because this album already has been released in August 2006. So it really seems to impress you a lot. We also would like to congratulate BERGRAVEN for shooting up to position 5 with their debut album "Dödsvisioner”. This promises much for the future. Chrystof ________________ RETROSPECTION 2007 For summaries and conclusions there’s no better time than the cold month of December. It is also the half-birthday of the Avantgarde-Metal website. This panoramic survey's aim is to bring in mind again the albums and events of the passing year. Maybe we feel the absence of a homogenous line, when judging and defining this year's musical products. After all we had newcomers and veteran bands from other 'scenes' that came into second being with the element of surprise. We also had veteran bands of the so-called underground that conquered us once again. In some way, the yield is eclectic. Of course, maybe it's too hasty to crown this musical-inspired gathering as a 'sub-genre' or 'scene', as confirmed in the ongoing debate on our website’s forum. Where the substance of the new albums is coming from, lies in the eyes of the beholder / definer / musicologist. It is quite impossible to find an agreement about what avant-garde metal is. We are in an environment which leans on definitions of all sorts. A consensus about albums is impossible. Yet, we can point to some key albums that were most important for our website’s participants. In spite of that, many of this year's albums (and the ones that I've lend my ears to, in a personal perspective) can be characterized by innovativeness and also by the lack of it. Valor is the rooftop of the musical acts – and it is the heart and mind of this website. On the subject of people's choices, we can track down several names which reappear over and over again. The quite-new and much anticipated grandmaster ULVER’s "Shadows of the Sun", together with another anticipated album of their maniac neighbors DÖDHEIMSGARD - "Supervillain Outcast". Unlike the metallic sharpness of DHG, Ulver represent a group of bands that are "metal-have-beens", but still manage to win over the "scene". Bands like ELEND and their absolute masterpiece "A World in their Screams" or THEE MALDOROR COLLECTIVE with "Pilot" reflect the very unique blend of innovativeness and valor that I was talking about. What about bands like SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM and "In Glorious Times" or MANES' "How the World Came to an End", with lighter metallic edges, but oh-so-very innovative minds? Art-metal jive continues with HELLA's "There's no 666 in outer space". In this 'scene', all is all. And indeed, we had much of it this time around: from the blackish depths rose two ancient, yet shaped anew giants – MAYHEM and ABIGOR. The first, tackling avant-garde borders some years ago, came back with a creation so deep and profound. It is avant-garde by itself. However, a very interesting album belongs to Abigor – a resurrection with new skin. "Fractal Possession" stroke many of the followers in amazement, breaking all known and unknown borders that were indeed a blast from the past. Moreover, the mysterious French duo DEATHSPELL OMEGA reached hazy and harsh dimensions with the new epos, "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternvm". Other bands with black roots are SIGH that delivers us the great "Hangman's Hymn" and BLUT AUS NORD with their "Odinist". From nearby borders of more traditional-craved metal genres, creations like BERGRAVEN's "Döds-visioner" and Swedish SHINING's "Halmstad" shook a little bit the acceptable avant-garde metal definitions. They are crafted with deep and bare emotions, sometimes more than the average metal-listener can tolerate. One can also find a fair amount of debut albums and other continuance releases, hailing from new and less-fresh bands. Starting with "The Green Walls" of BLACK ALBATROSS, Luxembourg's LE GRAND GUIGNOL with "The Great Maddening", the "Pelopia” EP from operatic Finns ABERRANT VASCULAR and the MCD "Nova Persei" from the French black-dreamers SMOHALLA. In a sad manner, this year two unique bands come to their ends – French wackos CARNIVAL IN COAL and Hungary's GIRE (who released their debut earlier this year). It'll definitely be interesting to meet those band's refugees in other musical frames. Meanwhile, we still have audible memories. On account of all this, I reckon that 2007 was a hell of a year. Oh, and if I missed anyone, I deeply apologize – keeping all in mind isn't so easy. Jobst |
