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Album Reviews
Best Music Of 2019
Previous Nextauthor PP date 14/01/20
As is customary each year, music magazines across the globe gather around and form an arbitrary ranking of the best music released that year. Since music is largely a matter of taste, no magazine typically agrees, not necessarily even internally on what is the best album, the second best album, and so forth.
So here at Rockfreaks.net we have always taken a different approach: we think it's far more important to try to capture all relevant albums from a given year of release that will have some significance a few years down the line. That is to say: if you look back at the albums we've picked three years down the line, will you still remember them and go: "oh yeah, that IS a good release", even if you hadn't listened to it for a while.
So our writers were given the usual task: pick and mix your favorite records from 2019 and combine them into an ordered list of sorts. No particular minimum or maximum limit for each list. The only catch? They had to be releases you'd reflect back on three to five years from now, thinking along the lines of "damn, that album was good", or ones that you'd keep returning to as they pass the test of time, thus cementing their place among the highlights in their given genre when we look back at the decade gone by at some point in the future.
Thus whatever you take interest in from below, you can rest assured that we have listened to it many times over and ultimately found that these records satisfy from the first track to the last. And usually, the ones in top three or top five are typically assumed to become classics in their respective genres as time passes by. PP
PP is the Editor In Chief for Rockfreaks.net, primarily covering punk, hardcore, and related genres with occasional ventures into other genres as well. With between to one and two hundred album reviews a year for more than a decade straight, you can be sure that if an album is on this list, it's still worth a listen a few years down the line.
- 1. Lagwagon - Railer (skate punk)
- 2. La Dispute - Panorama (spoken word / post-hardcore)
- 3. Strung Out - Songs Of Armor And Devotion (technical punk)
- 4. Norma Jean - All Hail (metalcore)
- 5. The Get Up Kids - Problems (emo / alternative)
- 6. Nightmarathons - Missing Parts (punk rock)
- 7. PUP - Morbid Stuff (post-hardcore)
- 8. Much The Same - Everything Is Fine (skate punk)
- 9. Bayside - Interrobang (emo / alternative)
- 10. Tiny Moving Parts - breathe (emo / post-hardcore)
- 11. The Dangerous Summer - Mother Nature (indie / emo / alternative)
- 12. Burnt Tapes - Never Better (emo / punk)
- 13. Dave Hause - Kick (singer-songwriter)
- 14. Torche - Admission (stoner / sludge)
- 15. Blink 182 - Nine (pop punk)
- 16. The Bouncing Souls - Crucial Moments EP (punk rock)
- 17. Landfill Crew - Landfill Crew EP (punk rock)
Disappointing Records:
2019 saw our editor AP look further down the rabbit hole of avant-garde, experimental and extreme music, while some of his other genres of interest, such as progressive and stoner rock, did not yield as many worthwhile releases as previous years in his eyes. In 2020 he is hoping for the trend of mocking conventions, creating bold fusions and pushing boundaries will continue — perhaps even influencing the Danish scene, in which such agnosticism is still viewed by many with suspicion, to a greater degree as well. His mind is ready to be bent as it was by the albums and shows listed below.
AP’s top albums of 2019
- 1. Misthyrming - Algleymi (black metal)
- 2. Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear (post-metal)
- 3. Gold - Why Aren’t You Laughing?(post-hardcore / post-punk)
- 4. ORM - Ir (black metal)
- 5. Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis (psychedelic black metal / doom metal)
- 6. Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them (drone / noise rock / shoegaze)
- 7. Inter Arma - Sulphur English (black / sludge / post-metal)
- 8. Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness (doom metal)
- 9. Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas )death metal / grindcore)
- 10. Opeth - In Cauda Venenum (progressive rock)
AP’s top gigs of 2019
- 1. Mono & the Jo Quail Quartet performing Hymn to the Immortal Wind at Roadburn Festival
- 2. Cult Of Luna at Pumpehuset
- 3. Daughters at Roadburn Festival
- 4. Between The Buried And Me at Lille VEGA
- 5. Gold at Roadburn Festival
- 6. Amenra at Stengade
- 7. Anna von Hausswolff at Pumpehuset
- 8. Cancer Bats at Hotel Cecil
- 9. King Diamond at K.B. Hallen
- 10. BAEST at Copenhell
As one of our two resident Århusian metalheads, the tall viking is as synonymous with metal as they come. If it growls and blastbeats, it has probably caught Rune's attention during the course of the year. His list is, therefore, a unique insight into what have been the best (and the heaviest) metal releases during the past year. Prepare for some serious headbanging below.
- 1. Vltimas – Something Wicked Marches In (blackened death metal)
- 2. Misþyrming - Algleymi (black metal)
- 3. Darkthrone - Old Star (doom / black / speed metal)
- 4. Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas (grindcore / death metal)
- 5. Orm - Ir (black metal)
- 6. Mayhem - Daemon (black metal)
- 7. Mgła - Age Of Excuse (black metal)
- 8. Tool - Fear Inoculum (progressive rock)
- 9. PUP - Morbid Stuff (post-hardcore)
- 10. Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond The Dark (black metal)
Honourable mentions – in no particular order:
- Rotting Christ - The Heretics (melodic black metal)
- Opeth - In Cauda Venenum (progressive rock)
- This Gift Is A Curse – A Throne Of Ash (black / sludge / crust)
- Vitriol - The Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice (death metal)
- Wolfbridge - The Enemy: Reality (hardcore / crust)
- Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen (black metal)
- Waldegeflüster - Mondscheinsonaten (black metal)
- Implore - Alienated Despair (blackened death metal / crust / grindcore)
- Firespawn - Abominate (death metal)
- Nile - Vile Nilotic Rites (death metal)
- Denial Of God - The Hallow Mass (black metal)
- Blood Incantation - Hidden History Of The Human Race (death metal)
- Altarage - The Approaching Roar (blackened death metal)
- The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism (black metal)
- Matyrdöd - Hexhammaren (hardcore / crust)
- Devin Townsend - Empath (alternative metal)
Best Gigs:
- 1. The Armed @ Roskilde Festival
- 2. Taake @ Royal Metal Fest
- 3. Rotting Christ @ Midwinter Meltdown
- 4. Power Trip @ Roskilde Festival
- 5. Cult Leader @ Roskilde Festival
- 6. Primordial @ Aalborg Metal Festival
- 7. Cattle Decapitation @ Aalborg Metal Festival
- 8. Der Weg Einer Freiheit @ Aalborg Metal Festival
- 9. Tool @ Copenhell
- 10. Vltimas @ Copenhell
- 11. Philip H. Anselmo & the Illegals plays Pantera @ Roskilde Festival
- 12. The Psyke Project @ Copenhell
- 13. UADA @ Copenhell
- 14. Alestorm @ Voxhall
- 15. Septicflesh @ Voxhall
- 16. Dimmu Borgir @ Copenhell
- 17. Sleep @ Train
- 18. P.O.D. @ Voxhall
Gigs that blew my mind, but didn’t review:
Elder @ Voxhall
Vital Remains @ Studenterhuset, Aalborg
...And probably a lot more as 2019 has been absolutely insane, simply put!
The second of our Århus-based writers, Kristoffer's broad taste in anything technical, atmospheric, progressive and far-reaching takes him across a wide array of genres ranging from technical death metal to post-rock. Those of you whose music tastes aren't limited to just one style of rock or metal will find plenty of progressive gems in his list, and much more!
Best albums:
- 1. Norma Jean - All Hail (metalcore)
- 2. Northlane - Alien (metalcore / djent / nu-metal)
- 3. Thornhill - The Dark Pool (metalcore / djent)
- 4. We Never Learn To Live - The Sleepwalk Transmissions (post-hardcore)
- 5. Cult of Luna - A Dawn To Fear (post-metal)
- 6. Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond the Dark (atmospheric black metal)
- 7. Earth Moves - Human Intricacy (post-metal / post-hardcore)
- 8. Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas (progressive death metal / deathgrind)
- 9. Misþyrming - Algleymi (black metal)
- 10. GOLD - Why Aren’t You Laughing? (post-punk / progressive rock)
Album runner-ups:
- Tool - Fear Inoculum (progressive rock)
- Wheel - Moving Backwards (progressive rock)
- Whitechapel - The Valley (deathcore / metalcore)
- This Gift Is A Curse - A Throne of Ash (black metal / sludge metal)
- Orm - Ir (black metal)
- La Dispute - Panorama (post-hardcore / emo)
- Opeth - In Cauda Venenum (progressive rock)
- VLTIMAS - Something Wicked Marches In (death metal)
- Numenorean - Adore
- Shadow of Intent - Melancholy (deathcore / tech death)
- Fleshgod Apocalypse - Veleno (symphonic death metal)
- White Ward - Love Exchange Failure (atmospheric black metal)
- Periphery - Periphery IV: Hail Stan (progressive metalcore / djent)
- Implore - Alienated Despair (grindcore / hardcore)
- Fit For An Autopsy - The Sea of Tragic Beasts (deathcore / metalcore)
- Employed To Serve - Eternal Forward Motion (hardcore)
- Unprocessed - Artificial Void (progressive metal)
- Knocked Loose - A Different Shade of Blue (hardcore)
- Astronoid - Astronoid (blackgaze)
- Holding Absence - Holding Absence (post-hardcore)
Best live gigs:
- 1. Vildhjarta - UK Tech-Fest
- 2. Anna Von Hausswolff - Roadburn Festival
- 3. Mono - Roadburn Festival
- 4. Cult of Luna - Pumpehuset
- 5. Daughters - Roadburn Festival
- 6. Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Aalborg Metal Festival
- 7. Meshuggah - ArcTanGent
- 8. The Ocean - VEGA
- 9. Psycroptic - UK Tech-Fest
- 10. Cattle Decapitation - Aalborg Metal Festival
And with that note, dear readers, we invite you to list your favorite records of the year below in the comments section. Feel free to argue, praise, or defame if you so wish, but please do provide your own 'best of' list that consists primarily of records you know you'll be listening to in years to come as well.