(Re-Rank’d) Albums Of The Year 2019

Heh…Wank.

Welcome once again to the Re-Rank’d series, last time was rough. Had to get a technicality entry just to have something different. Truly a bummer year in comparison to the others and ESPECIALLY…2019. This year was absolutely STACKED. In not just old bands but completely new(to me) bands creeping into my rotations. Kind of insane to go back to this one, it’s gonna be a good one. Let’s DO THIS.

But as always we have concessions, omissions, and changes. This time is a bit different, because in my old post, I had an honorable mention list. Which I don’t believe I ever did again because really, I should either have an album on and just make the list longer or just, not. So here i’ll include those as well as my current changes. So….

Honorable Mentions(for the first, and maybe last, time)

As I Lay Dying - Shaped By Fire. The Tim Lambesis apology record…it’s pretty decent actually, but My Own Grave is the only great song and well, the band is basically dead…again. So i’m glad it’s here at least.

Killswitch Engage - Atonement. The Jesse/Howard collab we all wanted, and it delivered…and is the only modern Jesse song i’ll listen to…Sorry man, i’m a HoJo fan for life.

T'yr - Hel. A neat little folk metal to spice things up for me in 2019, was the beginning of the future of my folk metal fandom to come in 2020.

Bad Wolves - N.A.T.I.O.N. The less said about Bad Wolves now, the better. One good song in I’ll Be There. I already gave em the only flowers i’ll ever give them on a previous list.

Dream Theater - Distance Over Time. Liked this one, but there’s only so much of James Labrie vocals I can handle.

And….that’s it. The first list with ZERO omissions and ZERO new albums to add. THAT’S HOW GOOD THIS WAS. But there ARE changes, so let’s begin.

EP Of The Year: Jinjer - Micro (Originally linked with the LP and was #.1)

I had discovered Jinjer in 2019, as many others did. Their video for Pisces was and is still, insanely popular, but I actually went out and supported the shit outta this band. Bought the damn collectors edition of the full LP Macro, I HAVE THE CASSETTE DUDE. The lead vocalist needs no introduction, Tatiana is incredible. The most range i’ve ever heard of any female vocalist then or now and even matches(and destroys) A LOT of men too! Don’t even forget the rest of the band, whom are a trio of masters of the craft. Roman is a djent god on guitar, Eugene SHREDS on bass harder than most lead guitarists and Vlad…dude can drum. Groove and polyrhythmic insanity in every track. This EP has probably my favorite Jinjer track in Teacher, Teacher, but Ape is right there too. And Perennial has Tatiana’s best clean vocal work and the fact that she can pull it off PERFECTLY live too is incredible to behold. The band still haven’t quite hit the magic of the two releases they put out in 2019, but are still going strong and even more popular now. Awesome to see.

Favorite Track - Teacher, Teacher!

12. KoRn - The Nothing (Originally # 5)

I actually forget this album exists sometimes, it really fell off for me hard after 2019. It just didn’t have the lasting power that Serenity Of Suffering has had on me, despite it being newer. Not as many bangers on here. Cold is GREAT, Idiosyncrasy is probably the catchiest of the bunch, Can You Hear Me is a pretty good ballad-y type track and H@rd3r is another solid banger but, nothing really stands out as an all timer except maybe Cold. It’s the similar feeling I have with their follow up to this…it’s just, okay. I didn’t omit it off the list because there’s nothing inherently wrong or terrible in here. It’s just, okay.

Favorite Track - Cold

11. Periphery IV - Hail Stan (Originally #.12)

The biggest problem with Periphery now, is that everything they put out is incredible, and yet is not as good as their double album, aptly named, Juggernaut. P4 is still a great record and production still beats 90% of bands out there. Though let’s put an attention to the absolute BALLS on a band to open an album with a SIXTEEN minute prog epic THEN go into their lead single, batshit. Hasn’t been done too much that I can remember. Reptile is such a great song too. More than worth the price of admission. The rest of the record has it’s highs and lows, nothing too notable other than Crush being a bit out of place in a Periphery record. Plenty of DJENT on Blood Eagle and Follow Your Ghost and some catchy stuff like It’s Only Smiles. Oh and the very closing seconds of Satellites with “suck my balls” perfectly encapsulates the seriousness of this record with style and grace.

Favorite Track - Reptile

10. Fit For An Autopsy - Sea Of Tragic Beasts (Originally #.9)

Maybe you can’t improve on perfection(spoiler alert for 2022, you can), but The Sea Of Tragic Beasts just didn’t hit the highest of highs that The Great Collapse did for me. Yet, it still has some all timer riffs and tracks in here that still make this album worth returning to. Will Putney’s production and guitar work are of course the main focal point for me, but this time around we had the introduction of clean vocals. Now while they later perfected this new formula, there were some growing pains(for me) on here. The title track introduces it, but to me it just doesn’t quite FIT in my Autopsy, you feel me? Afterwards we get to the HEVYer hitters like Shepherd, Unloved and the insanely catchy groove of Warfare. But where the all timers club gains a new member, is Mirrors. This could have easily been on The Great Collapse and escalated it’s status to #1 Deathcore record for me. But it’s here, and it’s fantastic. The moodiness, the RIFF, the groove, “OUR WORLD IS COLD AND FUCKING EMPTY”, the ending, all so good. Just wished that level of perfection carried on to the rest of the record. Well, it took 3 more years to do that.

Favorite Track - Mirrors

9. Dirty Shirt - Letchology (Originally #.11)

Dirty Shirt. A band from Romania, that completely caught me off guard in 2019. It’s very European in its style but nu-metal in its influences. Think System Of A Down with breakdowns and Romanian folk music and you’re close. Put It On was the joint that got my attention. HEVY riffage, mixed with…polka? Oh yes, my friends. Polka. But you get that, with a bunch of different vocalists in there. A clean guy and a female vocalist with a screamer behind them, singing in English and Romanian. But the tracks that put me over the edge were Fake and Hora Lenta. Fake has a helluva funky groove throughout and plenty of HEVYness that culminates in a NUCLEAR level breakdown that had me Will Farrel bobbing and crab walking in my proverbial pit. Just listen, you’ll understand. But Hora Lenta might have one of my favorite all time intro’s. Slow chunky bass starts off, with a TV playing in the background(MAGA) and the band commenting over it(only good things I can only assume), and then this MONSTER riff takes over the whole song. My god it’s so good, simple yet powerful can go a long way, and boy it goes all the way. Fantastic stuff. I still go back to those two often, but the rest of the record is still a lot of fun in it’s odd nature. Really glad it exists. Their follow up didn’t garner as much love from me, but i’m glad they’re still going at it.

Favorite Track(s) - Fake and Hora Lenta

8. 3TEETH - METAWAR (Originally #.7)

Probably my favorite album cover of the year next to Fit’s. What I couldn’t describe of them, then, I can do now. These guys are Cyberpunk. Anti-establishment, anti-authority, anti-corpo industrial metal music. Bass as far as the ear can hear, with vocals murked in distortion and static. Very much a band THEY don’t want you to hear. To that I say, fuck ‘em. These guys kick ass, if you have the subwoofer that can handle it, you too can destroy entire corporations with EXXXIT alone. Mostly this album is slow, bass-y, de-tuned guitars and the aforementioned distorted vocals, but plenty of stompy grooves and anthems to shout out. And a FANTASTIC cover of Pumped Up Kicks that nails the tone of the subject matter far better than the original. It’s all very Manson meets Fear Factory. If you’re into that sort of thing, then dig in, and fuck capitalism. Very much a band you will see VERY soon on a new list of mine….

Favorite Track - Original: President X / Cover: Pumped Up Kicks

7. Whitechapel - The Valley (Originally #.8)

I don’t think a band has had such a huge shift in tone since Opeth went Pink Floyd. Well maybe not that dramatic, but still it’s pretty big. Phillip Bozeman, opener of hell portals, with his legendarily low growls…does cleans. Well. The opener encapsulates that perfectly, his legendary lows, but then he does really good cleans for the chorus and the bridge and, wow. 2019 me was shocked to put it lightly. The Valley is the beginning of a direction, a direction they later went a bit too all in on. This, I feel is the perfect balance of old and new. Here, Phil tells a very personal story, one of abuse and loss and finding oneself after said events. It’s a subject HEVYer than the guitars. It’s the reasoning for his venture into clean vocals, and you really feel it the most in Hickory Creek. 99.9% cleans, all from the heart. The man can sing. Fantastic track. The opener, Black Bear, and Lovelace are some other favorites of mine but Hickory Creek really hit the hardest for me.

Favorite Track - Hickory Creek

6. Car Bomb - Mordial (Originally #.10)

I think the album artwork perfectly encapsulates exactly what Car Bomb is, abstract art. A technical, math-y, prog metal band, that defies what metal can be. It doesn’t have to make sense the first 99 times you hear it, but that 100th time, that’s when it all comes together. Just go in with Fade Out, it doesn’t make sense. Why are the drums slower than the guitars but also faster? Vocals are slower than everything? Time changes every second. But, it sounds incredible? Why do I love this? Pretty much my experience with every track to differing degrees of insanity. Perfect production, you hear every odd timed beat and strum of the guitar with the crooning cleans and harsh growls. The pinch harmonic-laden cacophony Dissect Yourself was my introduction to Car Bomb, yet it’s far from the best. Vague Skies has a most pleasing slow down riff, Hela’s off kilter groovy as fuck chorus(?) rips, Blackened Battery’s HEVY beatdown into a thrash solo is all kinds of fun. All fantastic moments in an album that makes no sense, but makes ALL the sense, if that makes sense?

Favorite Track - Hela

5. Get Scared - The Dead Days (Originally #.6)

Dead Days indeed, an Emo meets Metalcore band that died(not literally), but put out an album on the way out? A really fucking good album at that. “Catchier than AIDS at an orgy” as I originally put it(i’m quite the wordsmith you see). Not that far off, my old self. Right off the bat with Bad Things you get the hooks buried in your skull, and they ain’t coming out. Sorry, it only goes deeper. Once you get to Hell Is Where The Heart Is, you’ve already gone all black with the skinny jeans and guyliner. Man, I loved this album then and dammit, I still love it. Sometimes you just want HEVY songs you just wanna sing along to, that’s Get Scared in a nutshell. I miss em. “MAYBE I SHOULD GIVE UP MY GHOST AND LIVE FOREVERRRRRRRRR!…”

Favorite Track - Give Up My Ghost, in my car, singing at the top of my lungs, poorly.

4. Issues - Beautiful Oblivion (Originally #.4)

The album that made Issues, and subsequently killed them(gee thanks TC). Such a bittersweet record. Not as good as Headspace, but still an evolution of the formula I fell in love with. HEVY Djent with tons of R&B melodies. I need more of this, so much untapped potential. They lost their keyboardist/screamer, so it lost a lot of the HEVYness that balanced Headspace and prior records. So it leans way more R&B, it’s still good though. The opener Here’s To You is the appetizer and a perfect balance of the 2 genres. Drink About It and Tapping Out reach the highest highs they ever hit, catchy killer melodies I never not sing along to with those damn Djenty guitars that groove the fuck out. Without You and Rain is Bruno Mars if he made good music. And Flexin’ is probably the guiltiest of pleasures since Backstreet Boys for me. CANNOT not sing it. One could say….it’s a problem.(just listen to it.) Tyler Carter made this band what it is, fantastic vocalist with some of the catchiest melodies in the genre, but….he also killed it. RIP Issues.

Favorite Track(s) - Around People: Drink About It or Tapping Out // In My Car: Flexin

3. Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind (Originally #.3)

Wanyk…heh….wank. You know, All Out(fucking)Life really should’ve been on this record. It fits perfectly and we wouldn’t have to dig separately through Spotify to hear it. Anywho, this is modern ‘Knot at its finest. My 3rd favorite album overall with All Hope Is Gone and Iowa being my top 2. This album was a welcome return to form for them. A perfect blend of Iowa and Vol.3 with experimental goodness thrown in. Plenty of Jim and Mick guitar goodness for me in here, but Corey really killed it on this record. Unsainted, Nero Forte, Solway Firth all give his pipes plenty of work in both cleans and screams, and are all time classics. But the real nugget in here is Spiders. A unique, catchy, haunting, off tempo little ditty, with very little ‘Knot in it. But still an incredible track that fits with the brutality and catchiness of the others. A truly classic album that is a stark contrast to the later release The End, So Far which I, DID NOT, enjoy in the slightest.

Favorite Track - Nero Forte

2. Jinjer - Macro (Originally #.1)

Somehow, Jinjer release an EP and a full length in the SAME YEAR. And BOTH are incredible. And were awarded Album Of The Year by me back then, but that’s a bit unfair to lop them together. So without the EP attached it gets the bump down, only slightly, to 1b….no, 2nd. Not copping out again. Definitively….Number Two. With that, what a record this is, their best. Right off the bat, a fucking banger in On The Top, gets you right into the action hard and HEVY. Then Pit Of Consciousness doesn’t let up with it’s infectious groove and high speed brutality. The main single Judgement (& Punishment) is Jinjer in a nutshell, DJENT with Tatiana’s incredible Stefani-esque vocals and unrelenting growls accompanied with blast beats. Retrospection(my wife’s favorite) is Tatiana in full force, singing in her native Ukranian tongue and in English then going full beast mode with a STOMPER of a groove behind her. Pausing Death is non stop fury. Noah is another Tatiana showcase piece in the chorus. Home Back features a funky groove as well as Tati’s lowest ever decibel hits, that rival even Phil Bozeman. Portals of hell open after every listen. And The Prophecy is a solid banger and the real closer while lainnereP is just a remix of Perennial from Micro that isn’t nearly as good. This album is a talent and musicianship showcase of the highest order, every band member comes together perfectly to create truly powerful, incredible music.

Favorite Track - (I’m with my wife) Retrospection

Knocked Loose - A Different Shade Of Blue (Originally #.2)

An album that can make me so angry, while at the same time make me feel positively euphoric. The album that made me fall madly in love with the band that created it. The album that has saved me my job(and my sanity)on countless occasions. That album, is A Different Shade Of Blue, and that band, is Knocked Loose. Nothing is heavier than Knocked Loose, nothing is angrier than Knocked Loose. Once you hear Belleville for the first time, you get exactly what I mean. That build up, that riff, could bring world peace. Let’s not be angry at each other, let’s instead listen to Knocked Loose. What follows the intro track is a journey of self reflection. I’m angry, and that’s ok. Mistakes Like Fractures is the epitome of that anger. “God fell silent, when I cried out” I can’t tell you how many times i’ve played this track to just take everything out and beat the ever-loving shit out of it. Then I forget that Forget Your Name always drops immediately after and with that opening riff, I lose myself once again. I’m a bit much with the hyperbole sometimes, but few art forms make me feel just so damn good, and Knocked Loose accomplishes this in everything they do. And you will most definitely be hearing more about them later on in these lists.

Favorite Track - Whichever one is on at the time.

Well that was fun. 2019 was a blast, really. But trust me, there will be many feels in 2020. The year the earth stood still….and bitched about masks. Thanks again, and see y’all next time.