A.V. Club’s Best Metal of the Decade
A.V. Club continues its Best-of-the-Decade series. There was the Best TV of the Decade I posted about last week, while this past Friday saw the site post their Best Music of the Decade. I’m not really going to comment much on that list because, truthfully, it’s more or less along the same lines as Pitchfork’s P2K (albeit much shorter). I would, however, like to give A.V. Club credit for acknowledging Metal and doing a Best Metal of the Decade list to compliment their general Best of Music. Since Pitchfork usually can’t be bothered to see past anything not named Mastodon or on Southern Lord, it’s great that a site with as wide and varied a readership as A.V. Club will, with this list, expose some of their audience to some great albums from this past decade. But let’s get onto the list, shall we?
The list’s author (Leonard Pierce) self-admittedly concedes that this list is not comprehensive, and is in no particular order. It’s main purpose is to try and identify as many of the great releases from this decade, from across the wide spectrum of Metal genres. So did he do a good job? There are some things that are spot-on, some that shouldn’t be there (and I don’t mean Toxicity… that was as good as commercial metal could have gotten this decade), and other things that were completely overlooked. One blatantly glaring omission is the lack of modern Thrash albums. Skeletonwitch’s Breathing the Fire was as close as he got to including any of those albums. Kind of sad, since this decade (especially the last 5 years) has probably produced some of the best Thrash since the late 80s and very early 90s.
But my main point for posting this was to hopefully egg on Prolly and Jack Crank to go off on it in the comments section. Come on guys, look at my lead image… you know you can’t resist!
November 24th, 2009 at 11:34 am
LIST
Iron Monkey – Ruined By Idiots
END LIST
*n
November 24th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I MUCH prefer ‘Miss Machine’ to ‘Ire Works’ as far as essential DEP albums go. I’d also have to say–much as it probably is not a popular opinion–that ‘You Fail Me’ is the superior record to ‘Jane Doe’ for Converge.
And I’m a huge fan of ‘Ghost Reveries’ with Opeth, though I have not heard Watershed.
And and: Hell Yes Toxicity is a great fucking album. It’s a great fucking album. Sad to see the absence of Tool, which is another one of those mainstream-but-credible superacts…
3 Inches of Blood is a pretty glaring omission, too…(thought I seem him calling it out in the comments. Better late than never)
November 24th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Hateball,
Considering how many amazing releases Converge has piled up, I’m always confused by the hipster dogma that Jane Doe must be considered their finest work. You Fail Me is a fine choice. Though I do wish Converge hadn’t opened their set with “Plagues” the other night (San Jose). I’ve always considered a rather odd song, but whatever, they killed it.
And because it’s fun to point out omissions:
Drudkh “Blood in Our Wells” Rosetta “Wake/Lift” Gris “Il Etait une Foret” Rwake “Voices of Omens” Kylesa “Static Tensions”
November 24th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Oops, confused my Converge albums there. “Plagues” is on No Heroes. You Fail Me, therefore, has no blemishes.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
You Fail Me is short. That’s its only blemish in my book.
Between that and Jane Doe… The Converge sound has evolved, I can very well see both of them on an equal footing if such things were acceptable in lists.
I’m more pondering the choice of Meshuggah’s “Catch Thirty Three” as opposed to “I”. Which is a much more amazing piece of music than the former, although in a very similar register…
Good A on putting Goatwhore and Orthrelm in the list, too.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Am I the only person who thinks The Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge shouldn’t be anywhere on a “Best of Metal” list? I never think of either of those bands as Metal.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Both are ‘-core’ bands, but I also don’t really think Deftones and/or QOTSA (not to mention Mars Volta) are really ‘metal’ either….
November 24th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The thing with those bands Crook is that if you don’t try and fit them into the metal category, they get lost in a sea of genre definitions.
Why the hell is Phantom Limb in there instead of Prowler in the Yard… Prowler is by far Pig Destroyers best album, if not one of the best albums of ALL TIME!
November 24th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Yeah I never understood why the fuck Phantom Limb had such a “canonical” status. prowler definitely beats the shit out of PL.