2017 Music
By anders pearson 01 Jan 2018
For the third year in a row, here is my roundup of music released in 2017 that I enjoyed.
One of the reasons that I’ve been making these lists is to counteract a sentiment that I encounter a lot, especially with people my age or older. I often hear people say something to the effect of “The music nowadays just isn’t as good as [insert time period when they were in their teens and twenties]”. Sometimes this also comes with arguments about how the internet/filesharing/etc. have killed creativity because artists can’t make money anymore so all that’s left is the corporate friendly mainstream stuff. I’m not going to get into the argument about filesharing and whether musicians are better or worse off than in the past (hot take: musicians have always been screwed over by the music industry, the details of exactly how are the only thing that technology is changing). But I think the general feeling that music now isn’t like the “good old days” is bullshit and the result of mental laziness and stagnation. We naturally fall into habits of just listening to the music that we know we like instead of going out looking for new stuff and exploring with an open mind. My tastes run towards weird dark heavy metal, so that’s what you’ll see here, but I guarantee that for whatever other genres you are into, if you put the effort into looking just a little off the beaten path, you could find just as much great new music coming out every year. I certainly love many of the albums and bands of my youth, but I also feel like the sixteen year old me would be really into any one of these as well.
- Adzalaan - VT-XVI || Adzalaan
- A Flourishing Scourge - As Beauty Fades Away
- Dödsrit - AA130. Dödsrit - Dödsrit LP
- All Hell - The Grave Alchemist
- Altarage - Endinghent
- AMENRA - MASS VI
- Anal Trump - That Makes Me Smart!
- Asira - Efference
- Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
- Belus - Apophenia
- Benthik Zone - Cyclum Vitam D’Aqua Pollutio
- Black Anvil - As Was
- Boris - Dear
- Brutus - Burst
- Cannibal Corpse - Red Before Black
- Cavernlight - As We Cup Our Hands and Drink From the Stream of Our Ache
- Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - Decay and Other Hopes Against Progress
- Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun
- Cities of Mars - Celestial Mistress EP
- Cleric - Retrocausal
- Code - Lost Signal
- Coldfells - The Sea Inside (Single)
- Coltsblood - Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness
- Contrarian - To Perceive Is To Suffer
- Converge - The Dusk In Us
- Cormorant - Diaspora
- Creeping Death - Sacrament of Death
- Crooked Face - Shroud
- Cruel Wonders - Gentle Doom
- Dawn Ray’d - The Unlawful Assembly
- Death Worship - Extermination Mass
- Demonic Death Judge - Seaweed
- Desolate Shrine - Deliverance from the Godless Void
- Devouring Star - Antihedron
- Dopelord - Children of the Haze
- Dreadnought - A Wake In Sacred Waves
- Druj - The Malignant Dweller
- DSKNT - PhSPHR Entropy
- Dumal - The Lesser God
- Dying Fetus - Wrong One To Fuck With
- Dyscarnate - With All Their Might
- Earth Electric - Vol. 1: Solar
- Elder - Reflections of a Floating World
- Emptiness - Not For Music
- Endalok - Úr Draumheimi Viðurstyggðar
- Enisum - Seasons of Desolation
- Entheos - Le Zahir
- Execration - Return to the Void
- EYE OF NIX - Black Somnia
- Funeral Chant - Funeral Chant
- Funeralium - Of Throes and Blight
- Future Faces - Revolt
- GlerAkur - The Mountains Are Beautiful Now
- Goatwhore - Vengeful Ascension
- Godflesh - POST SELF
- Gravetemple - Impassable Fears
- Harvestman - Music For Megaliths
- Haunt - Luminous Eyes
- Hawkbill - Self Titled
- Heresiarch - Death Ordinance
- Heretoir - The Circle
- Imber Luminis - Nausea
- Imperceptum - Aeons of Saturnine Desolation
- Impetuous Ritual - Blight Upon Martyred Sentience
- Incantation - Profane Nexus
- Ingurgitating_Oblivion - Vision Wallows In Symphonies Of Light
- Integrity - Howling, For The Nightmare Shall Consume
- INTRCPTR - INTRCPTR “I”
- Isenordal - Shores of Mourning
- Jassa - Incarnation of the Higher Gnosis
- JK Flesh - Suicide Estate Antibiotic Armageddon
- Kassad - Faces Turn Away
- kelly moran - bloodroot
- Kevin Hufnagel - The Protected Shards
- King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering
- Klabautamann - Smaragd
- Krallice - Go Be Forgotten
- Krallice with Dave Edwardson - Loüm
- Lantern - II : Morphosis
- Laster - Ons Vrije Fatum
- Les chants du hasard - Les Chants du Hasard
- Light of the Morning Star - Nocta
- LINGUA IGNOTA - ALL BITCHES DIE
- Lo! - Vestigial
- Maggot Heart - City Girls
- Malokarpatan - Nordkarpatenland
- Manetheren - The End
- Mesarthim - Presence (E.P.)
- Mesarthim - TYPE III (E.P.)
- MONARCH! - Never Forever
- Morast - Ancestral Void
- Morrow - Fallow
- MSW - Hell (full length)
- Myrkur - Mareridt (Deluxe Version)
- Nemorensis - The Fae Queen
- Nidingr - The High Heat Licks Against Heaven
- Njiqahdda - Clouds Upon the Sanctuary
- OCRILIM - SRILIMIA
- Oikos - The Great Upheaval
- Omahara - Omahara
- One Master - Lycanthropic Burrowing
- Owlcrusher - Owlcrusher
- Pallbearer - Heartless
- Pharmakon - Contact
- Pillorian - Obsidian Arc
- Planning For Burial - Below the House
- Portal - ION
- Primitive Man - Caustic
- Ragana - YOU TAKE NOTHING
- Rampancy - The Sublime Conquest of Nothing
- Rebel Wizard - Triumph of Gloom
- Rebirth of Nefast - Tabernaculum
- Rope Sect - Personae Ingratae
- Saiva - Markerna bortom
- Satyricon - Deep calleth upon Deep
- Seer - Vol. III & IV: Cult of the Void
- Selbst - Selbst
- Shaarimoth - Temple of the Adversarial Fire
- Siberian Hell Sounds / Convulsing - Split
- Sinmara - Within the Weaves of Infinity
- Skáphe - Untitled
- Solbrud - Vemod
- Sólstafir - Berdreyminn
- Succumb - Succumb
- Summoning - With Doom We Come
- Sum Of R - Lights on Water
- Sun Of The Sleepless - To The Elements
- Sunrot - Sunnata
- Svartidauði - Untitled
- Tchornobog - Tchornobog
- Tervahäät - Kalmonsäie
- Thantifaxath - Void Masquerading as Matter
- The Bug vs Earth - Concrete Desert
- The Holy Circle - The Holy Circle
- The Obsessed - Sacred
- The Ominous Circle - Appalling Ascension
- Throne of Heresy - Decameron
- time lurker - Time Lurker
- Trenchgrinder - Peace Is Forfeit
- Tyrannosorceress - Shattering Light’s Creation
- Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar
- Unjustly Labeled - Desolation
- Usnea - Portals Into Futility
- Vampillia + the body - xoroAHbin
- Vanum - Burning Arrow
- Verheerer - archar
- Vin de Mia Trix - Palimpsests
- Violet Cold - Anomie
- Void Ritual - Heretical Wisdom
- Völur - Ancestors
- Wearg - Hæðen War Metal
- Weeping Sores - Weeping Sores
- White Ward - Futility Report
- White Willow - Future Hopes
- Wiegedood - De Doden Hebben Het Goed
- Wildspeaker - Spreading Adder
- Witch Vomit - A Scream From The Tomb Below
- Without - Elaborations: II
- Wode - Servants of the Countercosmos
- Woe - Hope Attrition
- Wolves in the Throne Room - Thrice Woven
- Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie
- Zaraza - Spasms of Rebirth
- Zetkin - Vanguard EP
OK, I know I’ve said that I don’t do “top 10” lists or anything like that, but if you’ve made it all the way to the bottom of this post, I do want to highlight a few that were particularly notable: Bell Witch, Boris, Chelsea Wolfe, Goatwhore, Godflesh, King Woman, Lingua Ignota, Myrkyr, Pallbearer, Portal, The Bug vs Earth, Woe, and Wolves in the Throne Room.
Plus special mention to Tyrannosorceress for having my favorite band name of the year.
Tags: music