GMD Poll: Top Ten Albums of 2006

@Slayed Necros not (enough of) a fan of VVorldVVithoutEnd?

 

Too raw on the ears?

 

1. Old - Down with the Nails
Raw evil Hellhammer/Celtic Frost worship with a much more thrashy edge than all the other Hellhammer/Celtic Frost worship bands out there (specifically Warhammer and Apokalyptic Raids), which for me makes them more interesting and vicious. This came out on Fenriz's (and Culto's I think) old Peaceville sub-label Tyrant Syndicate which I think is how I knew about it back in '06. This came out the same year as The Cult Is Alive but for my money it utterly eclipsed it.

2. Repugnant - Epitome of Darkness
The filth of early Swedeath wrapped around an evil core inspired by bands like Morbid and Tormentor. To think Tobias actually wanted to make Repugnant into a big major label death metal band like Amon Amarth and tour the world... they were bound to fail and fall apart. Way too fucking disgusting for the masses, and this record is pure fukking morbidity with riffs that crush, not exactly what I'd call "money metal" in the early-to-mid 00's.

3. Endwarfment - The Paralympik Sessions
Mongo grindcore as fuck. Norwegian retardation in grinding form, it's raw, vicious, entertaining, weird and fucking heavy. Plus you have some reggae and sampled interviews with disabled people thrown in for good measure. Pure wheelchair music, and one of my longtime go-to albums in pretty much any context.

4. Gut - The Cumback 2006
A total blasphemy on the metal scene! By mixing cybergrind, groovy goregrind, porno samples, dance music and rap, there was enough shit here on this album to piss everybody off. Back when it first came out and I ordered it from Necroharmonic with a cheque in the mail I was only familiar with Gut's fairly straight up porno goregrind style. I remember getting really drunk at the time and it blew my mind. Just made sense to me from day one, and now I can't fucking wait for the new album to drop and see what they have in store for my ears.

5. Suffocation - Suffocation
Cold, brutal, catchy, pummeling, riffage that turns buildings into rubble, drumming that pounds that rubble into dust - basically all the things that Suffocation do so well. This album has a huge nostalgia factor for me, because Suffo were one of the first death metal bands I got into and got really obsessed with, after I found their first 3 albums at a second-hand metal shop run by this sleazy old guy with a ponytail. He had tons and tons of random shit all for no more than $10 each, mostly older pressings and Aussie pressings from Modern Invasion Music, I even found a copy of Necrophagia's debut where someone had highlighted passages of text in the lyric booklet lol. Anyways returning to this album is like a comfort zone for me.

6. Bestial Mockery - Gospel of the Insane
In 2007 when Slaying the Life dropped and Bestial Mockery were doing interviews in Metal Maniacs mag (and others iirc) I became totally obsessed with them, and made it my mission to track down their back catalogue. As usual with things here in W.A. I had no luck finding more obscure albums, but I did manage to track down Gospel of the Insane somehow and even though Slaying the Life is still my favourite, Gospel of the Insane brought a somewhat tighter controlled chaos to the fore, with some of the best black/thrash/war metal riffing of the mid-00's, and a punk edge that I enjoy.

7. Coffins - The Other Side of Blasphemy
I didn't get into Coffins until 2008 when they dropped Buried Death, still my favourite of their shit to this day (one of the heaviest metal albums ever), but like most people you dig into the back catalogue of a band after discovering them and this album is my favourite of the first two albums. Absolutely gore-soaked death/doom with a great sense of pacing, using faster sections to demented effect. High hopes for their upcoming new album, after a slew of relatively disappointing releases.

8. Katharsis - VVorldVVithoutEnd
Raw, rusty as fuck production that makes everything sound so metallic and slicing. I didn't really get into Katharsis until maybe the early 2010's, and even then I didn't dive deep or anything like that. This one was a relisten-revelation for me and I don't remember Katharsis being so thrashy (or war metalish, whatever). Very punchy and catchy that almost sounds like it should come from Australia, like Sadistik Exekution meets D666 or something. Listened to it so many times over the last few days and I can see it rising higher in the ranks as time goes by, has the insta-fave quality.

9. Force of Darkness - Force of Darkness
The vocalist used to kinda remind me of Killjoy's 80's vocal style, I hear it less these days but it's still kinda there. Anyways the drums are fucking on point for me, the riffs are evil, the intensity is at 666% and it's basically everything I want in a thrashy black metal album. Way more recent discovery for me, even though I have known the band for ages, I never dug into their catalogue much for whatever reason. These games pay off.

10. Blood Freak - Live Fast, Die Young... and Leave a Flesh-Eating Corpse!
Razorback Records were on top of the world between like 2002 and 2009. So many classick releases, and I was completely sucked into that whole thing back in the day. I had just about every worthy CD the label put out, and the best ones were always (besides the Impetigo reissues) the Blood Freak and Ghoul CDs. Unfortunately this album was the one I spun the least back then, but I can see it rising through the ranks of the list with more relistens. Me and my old housemate nicknamed an old fort at a local park that homeless people would sleep in and smackheads would shoot up in "Carnage Castle" after a song from this album, especially because it smelled like piss and was littered with discarded syringes and shattered vials, it was hazardous as fuck. There was also dog shit everywhere from people walking their dogs at the park. "Gobble Up Your Guts Part 2: Revenge of the Turkey Monster" is my jam though.

HM:

Spoiler

Drawn and Quartered - Hail Infernal Darkness
Ibex Throne - Total Inversion
Ares Kingdom - Return to Dust
Pagan Altar - Mythical & Magical
Celtic Frost - Monotheist
The Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom - Battle Staffs in the Mushroom Woods
Zemial - In Monumentum
Bludwulf - Cryptic Revelations
Bewitched - Spiritual Warfare
Archgoat - Whore of Bethlehem

 

Yeah I think that's my favourite Ares Kingdom release too.

Haven't heard Incendiary yet.