It's that time of the year again: got to make a list of all the music I bought last year (+ 3 cds I received) and review them. 2009 was another good year in music and I found a lot of new bands and also bought more music than last year – almost two times as much. Not bad for an unemployed (until June) or a student (from September onwards). I won't be picking a favourite this year as there's too many great albums and it's impossible to choose. But let's cut the crap and take a look at what I bought!
1.
Skyforger -
Semigalls' Warchant
I received this album (as well the next one) from my friend. Thanks to
Ron_W! Semigalls' Warchant is the first demo album of Skyforger and this one I have is the re-release of it that comes with Asinslauks EP. The demo tracks are somewhat harsh
black metal and not of the style Skyforger plays nowadays. I'm not a big fan of raw black metal so I'm not into these songs so much. The vocals disturb me the most, they're pretty poor and don't work at all in the english tracks. Songs from the Asinslauks EP on the other hand are way better and I really enjoy listening to them, they sound how I like my Skyforger to sound like.
Uz Ziemeļkrastu is brilliant! Even if the demo tracks are weaker, Semigalls' Warchant is an interesting curiousity for those who want to see how Skyforger has evolved so if I had put money on this I wouldn't say they went to waste.
2.
Skyforger -
Pērkoņkalve
This album is brilliant, a great blend of latvian folklore and metal. The translations of the lyrics in the booklet and some additional info in English about the songs is a good thing also. I bet I would like Skyforger even more if I could understand what they are singing about without having to look it up. Nevertheless this album is a masterpiece and a must-have for all the fans of folk/pagan metal.
3.
Kilpi -
Kaaoksen kuningas
Bought this one from the midprice basket at some supermarket and boy is it worth every 6 euros I put into it! Kaaoksen Kuningas is über catchy from the very beginning although the lyrics can get very corny sometimes (lyrics in tracks like
Kahdeksas Ihme sound like they were straight from some finnish easy-listening artist). I think the album doesn't have any weak tracks, I enjoy listening to them all. Definetly worth buying. Oh and about the album art...
Master of Puppets anyone?
4.
Sabaton -
Cliffs of Gallipoli/
Ghost Division CDS
This single I received as a free gift when I bought a Sabaton T-shirt at
Jalometalli Winterfest 2009. About the Sabaton gig I got to say that it was the best effing gig I've ever seen and Sabaton is probably the best new band found in 2009 for me. And of course this single is top class also, two tracks of pure greatness. First up is the slower, epic tribute to those who fell in Gallipoli (
Click here you ignorant fool!). The song's quite touching really, definetly one of the best slower tracks by this band. The other song, Ghost Division, is something completely different on the other hand but not any less awesome. It's fast and catchy as it can get. I can't give enough praise for this release or the band. Anxiously awaiting for the next release, buying it for sure!
5.
Torture Killer -
Sewers
Now from the world of
power metal to the realm of
brutal death metal. Torture Killer's Sewers is in my books the best album by them so far. Other death metal bands start to bore me after a while but these guys are something completely different. Torture Killer has always had an extraordinary groove into their music and that's why I love them, even the usually boring mid-tempo tracks are very enjoyable.Juri Sallinen suits Torture Killer better than Chris Barnes in my humble opinion. Sewers is a neckbreaking album, straight-forward, compact, brutal and shows no mercy. Yeah, it's short but it delivers everything needed in just under 30 minutes. One of the gems of 2009 for me.
6.
Kotiteollisuus -
Ukonhauta
Everytime you buy yourself the new Kotiteollisuus album you know what to expect. The band hasn't changed this time either and why should they? It's weird how people don't complain about how bands like
AC/DC never change but Kotiteollisuus doing something they do best is something unbearable! If you like other stuff by Kotiteollisuus and don't expect them to change then I'm sure you will enjoy Ukonhauta also like I did. By the way this is the first Kotiteollisuus album to get all it's songs into my mp3-player right away.
7.
Before the Dawn –
Soundscape Of Silence
Soundscape of Silence is also one of the great albums I bought in 2009. It doesn't have that kind of instant hits like
Deadsong or
Faithless on their previous album
Deadlight but it really doesn't have bad songs either. A very solid performance by the man Tuomas Saukkonen yet again. More of this please!
8.
Iced Earth –
The Crucible of Man: Something Wicked Part 2
The most disappointing album I bought this year. I had pretty big expectations for the newest Iced Earth album with Matt Barlow on vocals and when I finally got it in March I was shocked. The album is filled with boring mid-tempo tracks, it tries to sound epic but in my opinion fails miserably and is far too long. Somewhere around halfway I started to wish that it would end already. There are some good hooks in the songs but most of them are big disappointments, building up for something good but then crumbling down.
The Dimension Gauntlet was the only song that I really liked from the album. Also the artwork in the cover and in the booklet looks incredible but that doesn't save much. I'm most probably buying the next album too whenever it comes out. Hopefully I won't get disappointed again.
9.
The Black League –
Ghost Brothel
I didn't get into the newest League album right away. Actually only after hearing the songs live in
Qstock 2009 I realized that this is a pretty darn good album. It delivers the drunken and/or stoned southern atmosphere really well.
Joke's Over and
No Parole were great tracks from the very beginning. Tonight I'm bulletproof!
10.
Ajattara –
Noitumaa
”Acoustic black metal?!” Now that's something I got to hear. When I heard the songs of the new Ajattara album in MySpace I knew that I got to get this album. I'm not that big fan of Ajattara and find their material quite boring except for few songs. But Noitumaa totally blew my mind! It's evil, twisted, dark, sick, dirty and mean! The acoustic instruments create a very eerie and brooding atmosphere and the groans of death only add into it. Definetly worth buying if you want to hear something completely different. Who would have thought that black metal can sound so good with acoustic instruments? I'm buying the next Ajattara album for sure. But only if it's acoustic too. Oh and Ajattara's gig in Qstock sucked (Stop eating mushrooms Ruoja!) but it doesn't take away from the greatness of this album, does it?
11.
Black Sun Aeon –
Darkness Walks Beside Me
Another project by The Man I told you about earlier. Tuomas Saukkonen's Black Sun Aeon is heavier, slower and more personal than Before The Dawn. You can't approach Darkness Walks Beside Me as easily as Soundscape Of Silence, it's going to take a lot of time to open. I'm still not sure if it's great or a masterpiece, the worst part being the album art which I find pretty ugly. No complaining otherwise. The guest vocals add a nice little touch to the songs, tthe sounds range from melancholic and depressing guitar melodies into furious drumming and walls of sound. I've just found out that there's more of this coming: Saukkonen is currently recording the follow up named
Routa. And it's going to be a double-CD! Can't wait for it
12.
Chaosweaver –
Puppetmaster Of Pandemonium
First I liked this album, then I started to grow more and more bored of it. By now only two songs have survived in my mp3-player:
White Noise and
Horned Serpent. I can't quite put my finger on what makes me not like this album that much. Maybe it's that bizarre spaghetti horror feeling in most of the songs. I've never liked italian horror movies that much. Juha Har... I mean Cypher Commander still does a great job on the vocals but I prefer his work with
Shade Empire over Chaosweaver. Anyway, I'm on two minds about this album and can't really decide whether it's good or not. Check it out and see yourself.
13.
Stratovarius –
Polaris
I was expecting this album to be either the best album of the year or a complete disappointment. I came to notice that it isn't either of those. It's just an alright Stratovarius album with, luckily, more than half of the songs pleasing to my ears (6 out of 11 actually). Matias Kupiainen does a good job filling Timo Tolkki's boots though, I got to hand it to him. By the way, Tolkki said that he's going to make an album that he sees as the last Stratovarius album with his new band
Revolution Renaissance. As much as I hate the twat, I'm still going to check it when it comes out to see if he can bag his trash. And to Stratovarius I wish long days and pleasant nights, hopefully we'll get to hear a lot more from you but not in tabloids this time.
14.
Viikate –
Kesävainaja EP
This EP features two of the songs that define my summer of '09.
Tanssi and
Aaveissa vainko olet mun are both brilliant tracks and the rest are great too. It's nice to hear the songs from
Vaiennut soitto also as I don't have those songs in my music library. Even if they are live in this release. The quality of the songs is good and I almost get the feeling of being there at some finnish summer festival listening to the sweet sounds straight from Kouvostoliitto. Somewhere around August I heard that Viikate are releasing a full-length album in just a few weeks. I was blown from my chair. More of that follows next!
15.
Viikate –
Kuu kaakon yllä
If songs from Kesävainaja defined my summer, then Kuu Kaakon Yllä definetly defines my autumn of '09. It's among the greatest albums released this glorious year. I think that this is the best album Viikate has released so far. The album borrows sounds from both old finnish schlagers and classics of heavy metal (I could hear familiar sounds from such artists as
Motörhead,
Metallica,
Alice Cooper and
AC/DC. Can you spot more?) but still sounds like Viikate. Not a single weak track on this one, a must have!
16.
Obtest –
Iš Kartos Į Kartą
I had been meaning to check more of this band for a long time.
Necroculinary had recommended them to me a long time ago and now I finally got enough spare cash to buy one of their albums. Iš Kartos Į Kartą is a high-speed rush from the start to the last seconds of the album. At some points it gets a bit numbening but then the guitarists throw in some really nice melodies and you're fully focused again. One thing I was missing from the albums was traditional folk instruments. Yet again I give praise for including the translations of the songs in the lyrics booklet. A good album and a good band, more easily approachable than Skyforger I would say
17.
Insomnium –
Across the Dark ltd. CD+DVD
Across The Dark is one of the best albums of 2009 and the best of Insomnium and that is a fact. They show that reinventing the wheel in the vast genre of
melodic death metal is not necessary if you just do what you are doing damn well! Now that
Sentenced is dead and buried I think Insomnium delivers the most beautiful melodies of nordic melancholy. Across The Dark doesn't have a single weak track. One thing that might need to get used to is the clean vocals of Jules Näveri in some tracks and I think they wouldn't have been necessarily needed. But this is just a minor thing and doesn't take away from the pure brilliance of this album. The limited edition version is worth getting just so you can hear
The New Beginning. I think it's one of the best tracks from the entire album.
Into the Evernight is a bit weaker in terms of production but it's from the sessions of
Since the Day it All Came Down and an interesting piece of work to hear. The bonus DVD is also worth the extra money I put into it, it's nothing mindblowing but it's still nice to hear about the making of the new songs and see the making of video of the music video for
Mortal Share. Get Across The Dark! You won't regret it. I bought it twice because it's so great! Well the other went as a present for my friend but anyway!
18.
Eternal Tears of Sorrow –
Children of the Dark Waters ltd. Digipack
The soundtrack for the weekend when I had my 20th birthday! I loved Children Of The Dark Waters from the very beginning. The winter had already started to take victory over autumn, grounds were frozen, leaves were falling from the trees and the chilly wind was blowing while I was listening to this album for the first time and I bet I enjoyed it more than I would have enjoyed it if I bought it in May when it came out. I would describe the atmosphere of the new EToS album as cold and most of the thanks of that go to the well arranged keyboards. They sound like a natural part of the soundscape. On Children Of The Dark Waters we hear a lot of clean vocals which isn't necessarily a bad thing as the raven-like singing of Altti Veteläinen can get quite monotonous every now and then. The limited edition comes with an acoustic reprise of
Sea of Whispers which is a very beautiful track but I would have liked to get a bit more extra than just one different version of a track already on the album. By now I've grown a bit bored on some of the songs but most of them still sound awesome, eerie and cold. Definetly worth buying. But get the regular version instead
19.
Rammstein –
LIEBE IST FüR ALLE DA special edition digipack 2CD
LIFAD was the most anticipated album of the year for me. I don't know why but I always nervously wait the new Rammstein albums so that in the end it's almost unbearable. Liebe Ist Für Alle Da is going to divide people, you either love it or hate it. And I love it. It's not
Mutter-good but nevertheless brilliant. At first I didn't like some tracks but a new listen on my laptop made me like all the others too (note to self: get a new DVD-player, the old one fades some of the sounds). Only
PUSSY doesn't fit in with rest of the songs and only time will show if I'll be listening to it years and years to come. The bonus tracks are very solid performances also and I don't regret choosing the more expensive version. I'm just worried that there won't be enough new tracks to be added to the singles that will be released from the album now. And as always Rammstein is just as visual experience as it's musical: the artwork suits the overall mood of the music very well. Oh by the way, is it just me or is the drum sound on this album the best Rammstein has ever had?
20.
Total Devastation –
Wreck
Next up: six albums I got from the Pay What You Want -campaign of Firebox Records. Total Devastation plays some sort of death metal with industrial overtones I would say. Wreck is an alright album with really heavy sounds but you'll eventually grow numb on it. There isn't really much more to say. The album's not great but it's not absolute bullshit either. Next one!
21.
Dauntless –
Execute The Fact
I could say the same things about this album as I did about the last one, only this time the style is death/thrash metal. The album sounds really aggressive, drums are blasting nicely and there's no complaining in the guitar sound either, singer does a good job on the mic and the whole package is well produced but like almost everytime in this kind of music it starts to sound all the same towards the end. Execute The Fact is worth listening like the the previous album too but I probably won't buy more of these guy's stuff
22.
Manitou –
Deadlock
Now this is something more original and I enjoy listening to this more than I do with the previous two. I've had some of the tracks from Deadlock for a while now and decided to check more. I don't know anything about guitar playing but the guitar work on this album make it especially good. Thumbs up for Markus Vanhala and Antti Laurén. Some more catchiness into the choruses and this would be a brilliant album.
23.
Elenium –
Caught in a Wheel
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Probably the best out of these six albums I paid very little for. And the strangest. At some points the album sounds like traditional melodic death metal, next there's some jazz like breaks. And the lyrics! They make no sense at all! There's a very surreal feeling throughout the whole album and I love it. The vocals are especially good and in closer look we might notice that the vocalist sings in
Omnium Gatherum also. Good shit, man!
24.
Kamara –
Synti, tuomio, katumus
What a load of fucking diarrhea dog crap this album is! It's the worst piece of trash I've got my hands onto this year! It's trying hard to be one of the bands that make heavy music in finnish that should be taken seriously. But remember kids! Trying is the first step to failure! The album lacks in every way possible. Plain and boring waste of time. The album and the band doesn't have the aggressiveness of
Mokoma, melancholy of
Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus, catchiness of
Kotiteollisuus or the sheer mentallly disturbed attitute towards music like what
Stam1na has. Stay away from this band! It's for the good of everyone
25.
Gotham O.D. –
Monochromatic
Monochromatic kicks off nicely after the intro with three good songs, then it get's a bit boring for a while for two tracks and gets better again for another two tracks. The rest is again quite plain. Still I don't regret getting this one. The album would be better if the singer had more power in his voice, it can get pretty monotonous at some points.
26.
Kotiteollisuus –
Kuollut Kävelee EP+DVD
The last four albums were ordered and paid in 2009 but listened in 2010. The new decade started nicely with listening to the newest Kotiteollisuus EP in a cold car while others were sleeping. Them lazy, hungover buggers.
Loveen langennut was one of the best tracks on Ukonhauta for me and the EP has a more compact version of it. Still nice though. The next two tracks are leftovers from the Ukonhauta sessions.
Poissaolevalle Ystävälle is a good track. Even if it's about a lost friend it isn't overly depressing but actually has some hope in it: life continues and memories remain.
Jäälintu reminds me of the album
Kuolleen kukan nimi. The cover version of
Eppu Normaali's song was quite funny with Hongisto on vocals this time, made me smile. The live tracks are really good and again I almost get the feeling of being there myself.
Isä Meidän was a bit weaker than the others, the playing sounded pretty lazy at some points. The keyboards of Tuomas Holopainen add a nice touch to the overall sound and finally we recorded him playing
Satu peikoista with the band. I would like to hear a studio version with him though. The DVD included is nothing special as there's only music videos included (would have liked to have some sort of making ofs there also). The music video's are fun to watch (except for
Taivaankaunis which is some sort of art faggotry. As far as I know it's not an official video though.) but I doubt I'll be popping this DVD in my player anymore.
27.
To Separate the Flesh From the Bones –
Utopia Sadistica
What's the purpose of this album? Really, tell me! 27 minutes and 33 seconds of stuff sounding exactly the same. I don't understand it. I guess I could listen to this between songs every now and then while shuffling through my playlist. Bought this only to get one more stamp into my Record Shop X card. 10 stamps = 17 euro gift vouncher, 17 euro purchase = 1 stamp. I was 30 cents short of getting one more so I chose something cheap and got this. Got to give thumbs up for the drummer though. Who would have thought that we can hear the drummer of
HIM play
grindcore?
28.
Turmion Kätilöt –
U.S.C.H!
In last year's Albums I bought journal I said I would have bought this if it was just released in CD format. So in 2009 U.S.C.H! finally got itself a physical release. And I would have been a hypocrite if I didn't buy it, right? When I was first listening to U.S.C.H! in 2008 I had the feeling that it might be the best Turmion Kätilöt album and after a little more listening I was sure. And I still am. Luckily the CD release has some bonus tracks which are just as good as the others, this time we also hear quite a lot of all kinds of C64/NES sounds.
29.
Slayer –
World Painted Blood ltd. CD+DVD
Slayer is definetly the biggest surprise of the year for me, I was expecting a mediocre album with some good tracks after hearing [track artist=Slayer]Hate Worldwide[/tracks] in YouTube but World Painted Blood is kick-ass! Just what made me like Slayer in the first place, I enjoyed listening to this album very much and even the song Hate Worldwide fits in very well with the other songs. World Painted Blood is an aggressive album of purest
thrash metal without any fillers. To me the album sounds like it could have been released between
Reign in Blood and
South of Heaven but with modern sounds. The limited edition dvd comes with an animated graphic novel Playing With Dolls. Good story and well but a bit predictable in my opinion. I wonder if Atrocity Vendor will ever be released... It sounded just as good as the other songs from what I can tell about the short clips in the video. The limited edition version isn't a necessity in my opinion but as it costs only one euro more (in Record Shop X at least) you might as well get it for a cool, bulkier package. I haven't had the time to listen to this album that much yet but right now I feel like it really stands up well against those classic Slayer albums. Not their best but worth paying for. One thing I could complain about is that the red cover on the package that slides away gets smudged really easily if touched.
Alright, that's all the music I bought last year. I'm going to summarize this by listing the six greatest albums released last year. They are in order of listening because I really can't pick just one that stands above everything this year.
1.
Torture Killer -
Sewers
2.
Ajattara –
Noitumaa
3.
Viikate –
Kuu kaakon yllä
4.
Insomnium –
Across the Dark
5.
Rammstein –
LIEBE IST FüR ALLE DA
6.
Slayer –
World Painted Blood
I spent quite a lot of time writing this so I would appreciate it if you would comment. Also, tell me if some of the pictures are broken, I'll find new ones.
I Still Buy CDs
