TONEwood's Top 10 Albums of 2019

While preparing the write-up for my top 10 albums of 2019, I realised that most of the albums I had listened to only really felt like top 10 material because, as a whole, I haven't felt very strongly about many releases this year.

I had looked forward to the new albums by Tinariwen, The Budos Band, Death Hawks, Lord Gore, Power Glove, Black Mountain, Grand Magus, and more. But they all sounded aggressively "okay" to my ears.

So, rather than doing an elaborate triple-entendre of top 10 metal and top 10 non-metal albums and runner-ups like I normally would, I ended up deciding on a more concise 10 album format with 5 runner-ups.

TONEwood's Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2018

On a personal level 2018 has been one of the more stressful ones in recent memory for me, with the birth of my first child ranking as probably the biggest change in my life. The way your priorities change has definitely made it harder to find the time to delve into new music. Even so, I've managed to listen to hundreds of new tracks in 2018 - though my year-end list does definitely lean heavily toward bands and groups I was already acquainted with, and albums that released before I became a parent.

Bolido: "Heavy Bombers"

Stone cold heavy metal bombardment

Chile's heavy rock meteorites Bolido pretty much sound exactly like you'd expect from an album with a harsh, angular band logo adorning a picture of war planes carpet bombing the Earth with guitar munitions from orbit. Bolido's brand of heavy and moderately fast classic metal is a strictly no-frills experience, but does it have thrills then? The band's noticably thunderous rhythm section surely brings some personality to their compositions, but with this sort of retro-styled metal it's always a matter of whether or not the band is capable of matching the massive hooks that made the bands that inspired them huge to begin with.

TONEwood's Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2017

They say variety is the spice of life. For years heavy metal has been my go-to music style, and to this day it remains the style that I consume the most of. But even if heavy metal has numerous very different subgenres, there always manages to sneak a bunch of very un-metal albums into my consciousness. These are the Top 10 non-metal albums from 2017 according to the Gospel of TONE.

Demon Head: "Thunder on the Fields"

Bluesy Heavy Rock Thunder from Denmark

With exceptional and prominent bands praciticing the style like Horisont, Kadavar, Witchcraft, Graveyard and many, many more, the sort of proggy sound of 70's-tinged hard rock is back in full vigour. Add to this roster the Danes in Demon Head, and you've got yourself a fully fledged 'scene' with a lot going on.

Horrific: "Your Worst Nightmare"

Merely horrific by concept - Not by execution!

Good ol' Slasher Dave is arguably most well known in metal for his involvement with Detroit's deathly psychedoomia group Acid Witch, and secondly for his synthy 80s horror film soundtrack-inspired outings. But 2009 also saw him release a solo album under the pseudonym Horrific, with the title Your Worst Nightmare.

Grenouer: "Computer Crime"

Is it rock or is it metal?

With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has become a bigger and bigger part of the international music scene. In heavy metal, Russia has fathered several prominent slamming brutal death metal bands like Abominable Putridity, Katalepsy and Abnormity, but the band in question - Grenouer - doesn't quite fall under that classification.

Greenleaf: "Rise Above the Meadow"

Relevant, ballsy in attitude and free of trend

The Swedish band Greenleaf has had a lineup in near constant turmoil since their debut in 2000. Yet they've always managed to channel that change into a positiv thing, utilising it to mix things up with their sound. Though originally combining stoner rock and alternative rock elements like Queens of the Stone Age and similar bands they've since become more modern and as a direct result come more into their own.

Sammal: "Myrskyvaroitus"

Standing out with howling praise

A part of the struggle of participating in trends is standing out from the lot, and those that achieve this are ironically often those that give the trend the most unusual twist. The vast majority will suffer from being unimaginative and ordinary, which when done well may be a strength on its own. Often the boundary between blindly following a trend and expanding into new territory becomes blurred; At which point exactly does music go from simply paying tribute and drawing inspiration from something to discovering new areas to colonize? The Finnish band Sammal, who are with the release of Myrskyvaroitus now three releases into their journey, seem to be an example of this question.

Hard Action: "Sinister Vibes"

Leather-rocking biker music with everything that entails

Everything about this band screams "we're one of those seventies hard n' heavy clones from Sweden that land somewhere in the midst of a circlejerk consisting of early Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy and Girlschool". The promo shots features sunglasses, denim, beards and a bandana. The cover presents wrecked guitar equipment and a stylish seventies design. Songtitles like Watch Me Burn, Cut to the Bone and Dead Dogs really does the trick. It's a sure thing, right? Well, no, not really.

Witchcraft: "Nucleus"

The Swedes leave behind the 70s

Witchcraft broke out as an early mover in the the resurgence of 70s influenced doom metal and hard rock in the 00s with classic albums like "Witchcraft" and "Firewood". Their style, however, changed quite a bit with 2012's "Legend", the Swedish group's fourth album. By then the songwriting had put on a more modern guise, taking on a more widespread audience. This time around Witchcraft's main songwriter Magnus Pelander is flanked by two new members in Tobias Anger on bass and Rage Widerberg on drums.