Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2015

1: My Sleeping Karma – Moksha (Napalm)

Moksha is total instrumental immersion from the first warm blushes of the mesmerising opener “Prithvi” to the closing twinkle of “Agni”. There’s a cotton-wool effect going on that dampens each and every note, cosseting you in down, absorbing you into its arms. Long, languid, gentle-warping notes intensify the mix of psychedelic trance, stoner and post-rock by bringing to bear a rich variety of Rajastani string, percussion and wind instrumentation. Engaging at every turn, the tracks consistently bear fruit, stretching the experience with a mind-boggling degree of layers. In a word, faultless.


2: Between The Buried And Me – Coma Eliptic (Metal Blade)

Since the birth of his solo career, Thomas Giles Rogers, has strengthened his vocal performance no end and BTBAM are reaping the rewards. With Coma Eliptic they continue to yank the wildest of genres together, everything from polka and bossa nova to death metal. However, what is different this time around is the simplified vision and consequently the interconnectness of each part. The music gently segues together with a single tone in mind. What that does is create continuity within each individual track and across all tracks. The joy of “The Coma Machine” is both explosively progressive and consistently engrossing but its relationship with “Famine Wolf” and to an extent the powerful “Option Oblivion” is undeniable. Even the beguiling dark two-minuter “Dim Ignition” breaks boundaries. In my mind, this is none other than BTBAM at their peak.

3: Periphery – Juggernaut (Century Media)

On release, Juggernaut hit me like, well, a juggernaut. Right smack between the eyes. Rabbit in the headlights. It is a concept double-album which could incite you to violence. It will make you both wince and weep. Even after playing, it will lodge itself permanently in your psyche. The story, told in heart-rendering first-person, will break even the hardest of you. Containing the groove, psychedelia, hardcore and jazz all ripped through with rhythmic conflict and dark lyricism, it truly is an essential piece of psychological musical warfare. You have been warned.


4: Heights – Phantasia On The High Processions Of Sun, Moon & Countless Stars Above (Basick)

Ignore their somewhat erratic output – this is no ordinary side-project. Sharing a drummer with cult post-rockers Tesseract doesn’t count for shit. Yes, getting my hands on this was a case of luck rather than judgement, but that doesn’t alter the impact it has had upon me. It’s an instrumental work of sheer beauty that will see you speeding through the cosmos like a meteorite, pausing merely to marvel over the joy, colour and sparkle that Heights inject into their compositions without ever resorting to repetition; without ever sinking into use of force to get their concept across. Phantasia… is an utter delight from Big Bang to Big Freeze.




5: Enslaved – In Times (Nuclear Blast)

With their usual unrestricted vision, Enslaved have created a wonderful, drive-dominant, hook-laden album filled with chugging gallops, dark roars and menacing anguish. It is a work that will suck you in then cast you adrift. Replete with invention throughout, the highlight arrives at the album close. “Daylight” is the band at the peak of their powers throwing out choral builds that warm the heart. And it comes all washed through with strong echoes of Devin Townsend’s epic structuring, tones and textures – well, I’m sold.


6: Man The Machetes – Av Nag (Indie Recordings)

Whipping along at a dizzying pace, this sophomore effort from punk n’ rollers Man The Machetes draws its power from revelling in visceral heft. Standout moments come with the stepdown in pace to the crawling lead and sweet rock-a-bye riff on “Tung Luft” and with the crafty, constructive forethought that has gone into the humdinger “Orkenmarsj”. Their time is now; come join in the dance.


7: Acid King – Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere (Svart)

Lapping up the echoing majesty of such bands as Monster Magnet and Orange Goblin while sourcing the wild electric fuzz of St. Vitus, Acid King offer up an absolute peach of an album. Live, the tracks are mind-blowingly intense, yet here wrapped up in the smooth dynamics of the studio the music actually becomes even greater than the sound system upon which it plays. Then, just when you thought they couldn’t get more monstrous or distortion-hungry, vocalist Lori goes and twists her tonsils around “Laser Highlights” and take this beast to an even higher plane.




8: Caligula’s Horse – Bloom (Inside Out)

Jim Grey’s vocal is utterly beguiling and here, progressive technicians Caligula’s Horse, have created the perfect vehicle to show it off to its full potential. From elegaic, melodic numbers to big grooves with addictive choruses to malevolent pieces filled with hate-fuelled lyricism. Bloom is riddled with passion – it lets in a little light and a little darkness and is well worth your attention.


9: Wildlights – Wildlights (Season Of Mist)

Riddled with the uplifting braggadocio and enslaving hooks of Audrey Horne’s moxy and Torche’s power-driven post-rock, this startlingly adept debut is emphatically boisterous, consistently driving and engagingly addictive. It is effortlessly light, airy and voraciously catchy. It glows with an inner fluoresence, blazing a trail for others – I urge you to follow.


10: Secrets Of The Sky – Pathway (Metal Blade)

Oozing mournful, subtle introspection, yet bursting with gloriously-consuming black-edged terror and shrewd metal crunch comes something akin to the storytelling of Agalloch, Anathema or Alcest whilst drunk on Sabbathian doom and Opethian melancholy. This Californian quintet strictly adhere to their concept and unveil an opus that feels like a worn pathway to something truly sinister.


11: Intervals – The Shape Of Colour (S/R)
12: The Atomic Bitchwax – Gravitron (Tee Pee)
13: Kontinuum – Kyrr (Candlelight)
14: Steak Number Eight – Kosmokoma (Indie)
15: Arcturus – Arcturian (Prophecy)
16: Bauda – Sporelights (Prophecy)
17: Death Alley – Black Magick Boogieland (Tee Pee)
18: Vattnet Viskar – Settler (Century Media)
19: Ecstatic Vision – Sonic Praise (Relapse)
20: Intronaut – The Direction Of Last Things (Century Media)


Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/12/albums-of-the-year-2015/

Best of 2014: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of.html

Best of 2013: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of_17.html

Best of 2012: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feature-top-ten-albums-of-2012.html 

Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2013

2013 has seen large growths in the, quite frankly, already sweaty regions of punk n’ roll, progressive metal and retro blues rock. Naturally, this has made me a very jolly fellow. You might be able to spot a few of the more impressive additions in my all-singing, all-dancing end of year list. Happy xmas to one and all!

20. Iron Tongue – The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown

Iron Tongue roughly feed their country affectations and hefty, blues-tinged rock through the chomping maw of old school doom metal to inspire Steve Von Till to comment that The Dogs Have Barked has… “a power and an edge and soul that rarely exists in music today”. [Review Here]

19. Gorguts – Colored Sands

Those 12 years of waiting between albums were worth it. The vast leaps made in production quality mean Gorguts have given us the gift of a powerful and precise shock to the system. Colored Sands is gritty, powerful and effortlessly precise and with songs like the epic title-track tearing us asunder it really is harem-scarem technical death metal of the finest quality. [Review Here]

18. Karnivool – Asymmetry

The essence of their post-rock forbears has always weighed heavy on Karnivool‘s work and, unsurprisingly, their third long-player Asymmetry shows all the same hallmarks. Song by song they draw upon the karmic power of giants like Tool, Deftones and The Mars Volta to grant us the opportunity to gaze upon yet another stunning, colour-streaked soundscape. [Review Here]

17. Motörhead – Aftershock

This album is proof that Motörhead are adapting beautifully to old age. It’s a little flabbier and it has a few more wrinkles, but this still comes with plenty of snarl amidst the laconic blues and gravelly rock n’ roll. Aftershock may not have come from the same dark hole that spawned Overkill or Bastards but it’s right up there with them. [Review Here]

16. Extol – Extol

Construction meets deconstruction as Extol lay waste to our perceptions of what is sonically possible. By turns, scrawling, visceral and beautiful, this magnificent spot of post-everything allows us a glimpse of the endless possibilities when boundaries are shattered beyond repair. [Review Here]

15. The Dillinger Escape Plan – One Of Us Is The Killer

Antagonistic short spurts of bloody hate, this contextually profound lump of chaos is DEP at their most vindictive. Just beware those misleading pop hits – those are there to tempt in the suckers amongst us. How mean. [Review Here]

14. Cult Of Luna – Vertikal

Patience is the key. The stylized emotional flow throughout is spasmodic, yet thought-provoking and utterly engaging. Beware, because when these beasts get their gnarly on, Vertikal‘s neanderthal sludge can become the monster of your nightmares. [Review Here]

13. Deafheaven – Sunbather

The ultimate sonic lightning bolt out of blue, Sunbather smears the visceral guts of black metal onto the blank canvas that is shoegaze. For an hour, they effortlessly fuse their songs together to do nothing less than break our hearts in two. [Review Here]

12. Funeral For A Friend – Conduit

Trimming a little off the sides and adding plenty of honest and committed metalcore power to the melting pot, FFAF give us yet another welcome stepping stone on their path back to glory. [Review Here]

11. Hatebreed – The Divinity Of Purpose

A stunning assertion of dominance designed to incite total mayhem, this hardcore behemoth provides sheer brute force to beat down the doubters. Predictable? Maybe. Empowering? Oh my god, yes. [Review Here]

10. Spirits Of The Dead – Rumours Of A Presence

It was inevitable that after producing such a brilliant debut, SOTD would become one of the finest of the current crop of retro bands. Rumours Of A Presence rams that thought home by worshipping at the twin altars of doom and prog; reinventing their forbear’s artistic touches to fit a thoroughly modern template. [Review Here]

9. Clamfight – I Versus The Glacier

Not just a pretty name, Clamfight‘s latest is one hefty statement of intent. First they ram it home with absolute power. Next, they open it all out into strong, hook-laden tracks and then they take their collective foot off the accelerator. Impressive stuff. [Review Here]

8. Palms – Palms

This ambient-minded supergroup’s debut is littered with moments that remove your capacity for resisting emotion and motion – your heads will nod, your hair will stand on end and your spine will shiver. [Review Here]

7. The Ocean – Pelagial

It is not by chance that you can sense the increasing depth, pressure and diminishing light as you progress through this album. What we have here is a conceptual masterpiece with genius to be found in both its shifting, beguiling, expansive post-metal wash and in those thick, dark brushstrokes that produce such thunder. Performed live, it has transformed The Ocean from an all-too-wieldy wall of screaming sound into an absolute tour-de-force of atmosphere. [Review Here]

6. Dark Buddha Rising – Dakhmandal

Mile-thick chants that sound like they come from the throats of a coven of hooded giants. Know that Dark Buddha Rising’s latest, no matter how gloriously trance-inducing it may seem, is pure evil and as such it should be restricted to small amounts and is definitely for personal consumption only. [Review Here]

5. Pelican – Forever Becoming

Rather than lament guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec’s decision to move on, Pelican have come out fighting and their fresh, beefed-up approach has resulted in a conveyor belt of riffs and wave after wave of warming euphoria to bathe in. Acceptance and absolute absorption in the rhythmic drive is essential; achieve that and you’ll reveal an absolute tour-de-force. [Review Here]

4. Secrets Of The Sky – To Sail Black Waters

Secrets Of The Sky fearlessly dive into their subject matter of death with real abandon and without restriction. By doing so, they treat us to monstrous production and five forms of vocal attack. The combined force of this results in an atmospheric, doomy, subversively black, richly progressive and bollock-janglingly heavy debut that marks these Californians out as real forgotten heroes. [Review Here]

3. Steak Number Eight – The Hutch

Prepare for luminescent flourishes à la Torche, Isis-rich thundering and cherry-picked moments from the entire Baroness’ discography. Prepare for slack-jawed, clean vocals, thick, rotational riffs and dark melodious washes. Then, as malcontent is piled upon upon disillusionment and ‘core edges are sharpened, prepare to acknowledge The Hutch as nothing less than the organic masterpiece that it is. It is SN8′s “coming of age” album; a deal-maker. [Review Here]

2. The Safety Fire – Mouth Of Swords

Both soothing and vicious, Mouth Of Swords glows with a fluorescent vitality. The constantly burbling, rise-and-fall guitarwork, the crisp tone and accurate switch-up from ripped invective to soft melody is TSF at their finest. They have developed into a unique, inspirational force and the verve of this album has rightly set the benchmark, not just for them, but for much of their competition. [Review Here]

1. Man The Machetes – Idiokrati

Fast, bombastic, anthemic, groove-riddled and utterly addictive, Man the Machetes’ debut long-player Idiokrati is a behemoth of Norwegian punk n’ roll. From the fire and swagger of opener “Sluk Det Rått”, through the “Slagen” gang chants and short rhythmic pauses for breath to the joyful menace of “Hjemkomst”, these Norwegian’s prove themselves more incisive than Kvelertak and more explosive than Oslo Ess. Their album is the very definition of “grip it and rip it”. [Review Here]

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2013/12/16/farewell-2013-john-skibeats-top-20-of-2013/

Further musings on the soundtracks that rocked 2013 can be found here =  http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/12/albums-of-the-year-2013/

Article: Desert Island Discs - 10 Of The Greatest Albums Ever Made

I don't like to think of myself as a geek, but knowing how often I've made a list of all my favourite things of various sorts, then I'd have to admit to being a little bit of a nerd-bucket. When it comes to music though, I think we all do it. As lovers of the artform, we are all eternally locked in our own private tribal battles over whether something is "the bollocks" or "just plain bollocks". To seal the deal, of course, we keep in our minds (or commit to paper) which few choons we'd take with us when we're journeying out on foot, by public transport or in the car or when we pack up to go on holiday.

Well, your "Desert Island Discs" list is your list of the ones you would take with you to a desert island, your own tropical sandpile, for an indeterminate amount of time. This is the place where modern civilization matters little and having your favourite music with you is the key to maintaining sanity. The whole concept might struggle to work in reality, what with battery issues and the like (I'm imagining some kind of solar powered MP3 player and a pair of headphones), but just go with it. This is your ultimate list - the, and I've expanded the format a little to suit here, ten albums that mean more to you than any others.

The list below are the ones I'd want by my side. I encourage you to consider them (take a chance and spin them, be it for the first or the hundredth time) when making your own minds up.


Nirvana - Nevermind (1992)
Album highlight = Lithium
How could you not take this? It changed the face of rock music. It brought a whole underground scene up and into the mainstream. Some actually attribute the death of hair rock to this very album. It certainly ended badly for it's creator but it doesn't change the impact it had on us, nor the infectious songwriting that lurks within it's baby blue cover. And yet, I still struggled to decide whether I'd take this or Nirvana's reactionary In Utero or their masterfully understated live performance as they went Unplugged In New York.

Metallica - "The Black Album" (1991)
Album highlight = Wherever I May Roam
You can keep your Master Of Puppets and your Ride The Lightning; this is Metallica's masterpiece. It manages to perfectly align anthemic melodies with addictive lyricism and backs it all up with a hefty dose of groove-heavy thrash metal. Every single track is a winner. There are simply no weak tracks. And next year, they're performing the thing in its entirety - Download Festival 2012 can't come soon enough.

Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction (1992)
Album highlight = Architecture Of Aggression
It's beyond me how far removed this album is from anything else Megadeth have created. Not even Rust In Peace comes close. When you consider that most bands struggle to stick two cracking songs side by side, it blows your mind to learn that Countdown's opening salvo manages five. Five of the greatest songs you'll ever hear, one after another. And this thing doesn't even seem to wane with age. It's still as staggering as it was 19 years ago. Yep, come next year, we'd better be lauding this bad boy's 20th anniversary.

The Doors - L. A. Woman (1971)
Album highlight = L.A.Woman
I've been in love with this album for a long time. It's not just "Riders On The Storm" that swings it, it's the whole laconic feel that the album is wrapped in. From the title-track's rickety Hammond organ and rocking vibe to the staccato hep of "Been Down So Long" and the blissed-out sashaying of "Hyacinth House", the album flows through the emotions better than any other I own. It's a complete joy.

Iron Maiden - Powerslave (1984)
Album highlight = Back In The Village
Maiden have played such a major role in my life - they've helped me through times both good and bad. No album of theirs is more deserving a place than Powerslave. I'd take Killers, Number Of The Beast, Live After Death and No Prayer For The Dying too if I had space. Both "Back In The Village", their finest moment, and the instrumental braggadocio of "The Duellists" demand I take this. Add on to that "Aces High", "2 Minutes To Midnight" and the epic "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" and you'd have to agree I made the right choice.

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger (1991)
Album highlight = Searching With My Good Eye Closed
I love the way grunge, as a genre, sucks up the mischievous stoner underworld and the fearsome rock middle ground. It's still alive today but no-one affected me quite like the combination of it with the vocal of Chris Cornell. He doesn't sing so much as he transmits emotion. Add to this, the fact that I experienced the most intense musical experience of my life whilst listening to this album being toured, and you can see why it's lying there in my trunk.

Machine Head - The Blackening (2007)
Album highlight = Aesthetics Of Hate
Machine Head did the impossible with this album; they surpassed one of the greatest metal albums of all time - their own Burn My Eyes. You just have to listen to the majesty of "Halo" and the nail-gargling 10-minute multi-part "Clenching The Fists Of Dissent" to see how they did it. In fact, the album was so good they toured it for four whole years. Jesus wept, that's impressive.

Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)
Album highlight = Even Flow
Pearl Jam's debut has everything. It is an album so perfect in design and delivery that they will never top it. If they do, I'll eat my hat. Every single track has its own voice, its own vibe and its own place. Ten has sold 10 million copies and is pretty much on every list of greatest albums of all time. No surprise then that when it was re-released for its 20th anniversary, it sold 60,000 copies in its first week. It's a masterpiece.


Oh, and here's another ten albums I'd leave my clothes behind to squeeze in:
Faith No More - Angeldust (1992)
The Verve - Urban Hymns (1997)
AC/DC - Highway To Hell (1979)
Lamb Of God - Sacrament (2006)
Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh (2008)
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine (1992)
Isis - Wavering Radiant (2009)
Biffy Clyro - Infinity Land (2004)
No Made Sense - The Epillanic Choragi (2009)
Funeral For A Friend - Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation (2003)
Mastodon - Crack The Skye (2009)
Chimaira - The Infection (2009)

Truth be told, all these are pretty much in order, but of course it's an ever-changing, ever-evolving list. Some are inked in, some are pencilled in. All are absolute works of art. You think otherwise, you know where I am.