My Top Albums of 2023

1. χ ξ ς’ – The Seven Seals of the Apocalypse​-​(​Revelation 5​:​7)

He’s done it again! For the fourth time in eight years, Sakis Tolis has topped my album-of-the-year list. He did it with his band Rotting Christ in 2016 and 2019 (with the records Rituals and The Heretics respectively), then he did it as a solo artist in 2022 (with Among the Fires of Hell), and now he’s done it again with his χ ξ ς’ project (which, like Rotting Christ, is ostensibly a Sakis solo vehicle). From start to finish, The Seven Seals of the Apocalypse​-​(​Revelation 5​:​7) sounds like a follow-up to Rotting Christ’s The Heretics album – the atmospherics, iconography and lyrical themes are heavily related. Also, this new release has certain apocalyptic parallels to my novelette Revelation Was Wrong (although Sakis’s lyrics make no mention of zombie burds, Buckfast tonic wine or an alcoholic Scottish prophet known as Tam the Bammus). The distinctive sound is instantly recognisable as this Greek master craftsman at work, showcasing the skills he’s honed through decades of dedicated metal delivery. No one else does it quite like him.

2. Winger – Seven

Who’d have thought that Kip and co. would be rattling out a barnstormer of a rock album in 2023, seemingly out of the blue? (In recent years Kip Winger has been busy composing, performing and conducting classical music, with considerable success.) Not that I’d written off Kip’s ability to rock when the mood takes him. He has always been a musical tour de force, since way back in his Alice Cooper days, when he, along with the equally phenomenal Kane Roberts on guitar, redefined the Alice band’s look and sound. I won’t pontificate at length about Seven. If you’re already a Winger fan, you’ll love it. If you’re a rock fan who has never encountered Winger before, chances are you’ll love it too. And even metal fans who’re too up their own pretentious arses to admit to liking Winger will almost all love it, even if they don’t acknowledge this to others. It’s a cracking album loaded with catchy tunes, big hooks, outrageous solos and masterfully crafted rock-cum-metal.

Here’s a wee true story involving me and Winger. Not long after the band had released its second album (the outstanding In the Heart of the Young), a tour date was booked for Glasgow. The band did a signing session in the city’s Tower Records beforehand, so in I went with my Winger vinyl, cassettes and gig ticket, to get it all signed by Kip, Reb, Rod and Paul. This all occurred not long after Kip had appeared in Playgirl magazine in the scud (although I hear his photoshoot was a “tasteful” one, with his knob always covered by some object such as a cushion, a plant pot or a coffee mug… in true Austin Powers style, even though the Austin Powers films hadn’t been made yet). Anyway, there I was in Tower Records chatting with Reb Beach, Rod Morgenstein and Paul Taylor as they signed my gear, while Kip was notably distracted by some article about himself in a rock magazine. Rod said to me, “Kip’ll be with you in a minute. It’s the massive ego, you see? He has to read everything everyone writes about him.” I said, “Is his ego even bigger since he did the Playgirl spread?” Rod, Reb and Paul burst out laughing and Rod said, “Like you wouldn’t believe!” At this point, Kip (whom I’d thought was oblivious to our conversation), looked up from his magazine, peered at me over the top of his circular blue glasses, and asked, “Well, have you ever been in Playgirl?” Straight off the cuff, I hit back with, “No, but I can grow a proper beard.” That just about finished Rod, Reb and Paul, who fell about laughing, which in turn set me off. The four of us were in stitches, tears of joy rolling down our cheeks from laughing so hard, as Kip’s face remained stony serious and his glare stayed fixed on me, a reaction that made the whole thing all the funnier. I looked like a caveman who’d just emerged from a hole in a rock: several months of wild untouched beard growth on my face; hair all over the joint. By way of comparison, Kip’s hair was immaculately coiffured and his beard trimmed to a designer-stubble length (as had become his trademark look, and had led to him being nicknamed “the blow-waved Bee Gee”). He slid his glasses down his nose and gave me a long stare, eye to eye. Eventually, his mouth morphed into a half smile/half sneer, then he spoke the immortal words, “Touché, asshole.” That tickled me, Rod, Reb and Paul, and the laughter started up all over again. Once that had settled down, Kip signed all my Winger gear and we had a lovely chat. He’s an authentic human being, as are his bandmates. Artists and virtuosos, but humble with it. Not above having a laugh, even at their own expense. I think it’s a beautiful thing that decades after that day in Tower Records, those same four individuals are still composing and recording amazing music together. The new ingredient in the Winger sound is Jon Roth, who shares lead-guitar and backing-vocals duties with Reb Beach. Perhaps it’s the addition of a fifth member that makes the sound on this album so especially huge. That must be part of it. Regardless of the reasons, Winger sounds as fresh and inspired as ever. It’s fantastic to have the band back. Not that they were ever really away…

3. Sam Thomas – Rane

Ten years ago Sam’s debut album Blind Theatre blew my mind. It still does. Rane, Sam’s second full-length solo album, was a long time coming (who the hell am I to talk about sequels taking a while?) but turned out to be worth the wait. An astonishingly uplifting record, it showcases Sam’s unique talent in the same sort of way the track I’m Gonna Be a Witch did a decade earlier, with sweeping musical soundscapes that defy categorisation, each one a journey that transforms the listener for the better, like a spring-clean to the soul. I’ve used the word genius to describe Sam’s musical abilities in the past. Rane makes it abundantly clear that I was right to use that term. So far beyond the usual intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-outro blueprint that it beggars belief, these sounds are in a realm of their own. It’s a beautiful world to visit. I recommend it. It’s worth mentioning that, as on Blind Theatre, Sam plays all the instruments on this album, with guest vocals coming from the glorious pipes of Lim Orion, Ösp Eldjárn and Sian O’Gorman. Spellbinding, from start to finish.

4. Peter Gabriel – I/O

Speaking of musical geniuses… here’s another one. I’ve loved Peter Gabriel’s voice and music since I was a kid. My first conscious memory of hearing him is when the single Games Without Frontiers hit the British charts way back in the mists of time… near the arse-end of a different millennium. That track so impressed me that I made a point of grabbing all the Peter Gabriel solo material and also his albums with Genesis. I’ve continued to keep up with Pete’s solo releases, each of which has caused my jaw to drop in awe. I/O keeps that trend going. It was 20 years in the making but completely worth the wait.  The album is available in a variety of formats. I opted for the big fuck-off bumper version (not its “official” title), which features 3 discs. The same tracks feature on each of the discs, but the mixes and arrangements are radically different on each one. Disc 1 features the Bright-Side mixes, disc 2 the Dark-Side mixes, and disc 3 a 6-channel Dolby 5.1 surround-sound make-your-toast-in-the-morning-and-bring-you-a-coffee-in-bed mix of the album. At a push, I’d say I like the Bright-Side disc most, but each one has its own unique sound and particular strengths. The lyrics are deep and simple at the same time. Pete’s not trying to be pretentious here. Rather, he’s showing that real profundity comes when all the nonsense and illusions are stripped away, leaving just the truth. Every note, every word, every nuance sounds authentic and heartfelt. I love it.

5. Mesarthim – Arrival

These Australian atmospheric-black-metal maestros have topped my year lists more than once. Arrival is another worthy addition to the band’s discography. Once again, the soundscapes are immeasurably vast, and once again the glorious über-heavy riffage, blast-beat drums and banshee-wailed vocals are seamlessly combined with occasional electro-dance elements and ambient interludes. The overall effect is stunning.

6. Insomnium – Anno 1696

When I read that two of my favourite musical artists – Finland’s Insomnium and Greece’s Sakis Tolis – would be collaborating on a track for this album (the song White Christ), that piqued my interest in a big way. Insomnium’s albums have topped my year lists often, as has Sakis as a solo artist and with his band, the mighty Rotting Christ. Like fellow Finnish melodic-death-metal pioneers Amorphis, Wintersun, Omnium Gatherum and Swallow the Sun, Insomnium is able to flit seamlessly between light and shade, heart-wrenchingly delicate melodies and gut-tremblingly brutal heaviness, always knowing when to do which, for maximum emotive impact. Anno 1696 isn’t my favourite Insomnium album (Above the Weeping World holds that distinction), but it’s a cracking listen nonetheless, showcasing the immense sound that the band has honed and perfected.

7. Faidra – Militant : Penitent : Triumphant

Often summed up as “depressive” and/or “atmospheric black metal”, Faidra’s sound has a cathartic honesty to it, an authenticity of spirit. I find it compelling. This record is in the same vein as the band’s outstanding 2020 release, Six Voices Inside, which was one of my favourite albums of that year, and remains one of my favourite records, period. This new collection of songs is every bit as strong, every bit as deep, every bit as cathartic, every bit as poignant, and every bit as resonant. It also features one of the greatest track titles ever: Punishment Nailed Deep. That’s how it’s done.

8. Exitium Sui – Endless/Regression

Another Australian outfit. You won’t find any tracks about sunshine, beer or kangaroos on here, though. Geographically, Exitium Sui may exist in the warm land of Oz, but sonically the band is closer to the cold sounds of Russia’s Olhava, Finland’s Insomnium, Germany’s Alrakis, Sweden’s Faidra, Switzerland’s Triptykon, and Romania’s Negură Bunget. And there’s nowt wrong with any of that! With the exception of the intro to the last track (… Into Fog), there are no clean vocals to be found, so if you’re not a fan of growlers (the singing variety as opposed to the ones found between women’s legs), this album won’t be your cup o’ tea. The music is an inspired blend of lightness and heaviness, with atmospherics that owe much to the Finnish melodeath vanguard (Insomnium, Amorphis, Swallow the Sun, Omnium Gatherum, Wintersun) and also to atmospheric-black-metal titans Alrakis and Mesarthim.

9. Myrkur – Spine

The lightest Myrkur album to date (musically, not thematically), Spine is another sterling release featuring Amalie Bruun’s ethereal vocals layered over compositions that feature obvious influences from metal, electronica, Nordic folk music, classical, and even pop. These components aren’t randomly flung together in a musical clanjamfrie, but, rather, are expertly applied for optimal dramatic effect. Valkyriernes Sang, for example, starts out like Nightwish meets Wardruna in a misty Nordic forest, until out of the blue at 2:57 a guitar riff arrives which is pure Iron Maiden. Then at 3:10 Amalie’s astonishing voice soars in again and puts its unique stamp on the song. Sublime.

10. Monasterium Imperi – Voices of Ecclesianum

“Grimdark Chants”. That’s how this Serbian project’s creator sums up the sound of his music. Imagine the Gregorian chants on Enigma’s iconic debut album (but waaaaaaaay darker), then add some sublime synth à la Vangelis, chuck in some sections of dungeon synth (think Mortiis’s early solo work, but with cleaner production), some Era atmospherics, and recurring Jarresque sonic leitmotifs, for an overall result that has a hypnotic effect on the listener. This outfit has been releasing music thick and fast over the past three years. A phenomenal work rate, yet the quality hasn’t suffered. These sounds really take my mind places. What places? That’s none of your business, nosy! Give Monasterium Imperi a whirl for yourself if you fancy something seriously atmospheric. If you go to the outfit’s bandcamp page, you can hear all the band’s tracks, and, if you choose to, buy the albums for a bargain price of 1 Euro each (that’s a minimum price – you can pay more if you want to). As a starting point, to hear what this outfit is capable of, I recommend checking out the track Lamentium (on this album) – sheer out-of-this-world musical escapism. It moves me in profound ways. Like all the best music, it doesn’t just reach ears and brain, but gets into the soul and resonates there, bringing on altered states and deepened moods. Phenomenal.

That’s it for now. A short-and-sweet top 10 rather than the lengthy pontifications of previous years (let’s not talk about the 10,000+ word summation of my 2015 top 45, even though that had to be done – it was a huge year for music). There were plenty of other albums that impressed me in 2023. I’m not going to list them all here, as it’d take all day and I’ve a big book to finish… hadn’t you heard? I’ll mention Metal Church’s Congregation of Annihilation, though, not just because it’s a cracking album (as all MC releases are) but also because it’s the first one the band recorded since the tragic death of longtime vocalist Mike Howe. The new MC vocalist, Marc Lopes, does a stellar job in the role, his voice sometimes sounding eerily like the original Metal Church singer, the legendary David Wayne, without coming across like a contrived clone. Good to hear them on form as always. It was also good to get a decent new studio album from Metallica. When was the last time that happened? In a different millennium! The newie 72 Seasons didn’t make my top 10 of the year, but it did slap a smile on my face, and still does whenever I listen to it. There’s some quintessential riffage from Hetfield, some tasteful lead work from Kirk Hammett, and some inspired compositions. It’s not too shabby.

In addition to being a year that saw some excellent new music, 2023 was a year of many losses. I won’t list them all here, in case I miss any who deserve to be included. Mike Howe, I’ve already mentioned above. One loss that hit me hard was Geordie Walker from Killing Joke, who died near the end of 2023. He was one of the most innovative and original guitarists ever to walk the planet. I have everything the band ever recorded, and I’ve been lucky enough to witness their greatness live, up close and sweaty in the best (existing) venue in the world, Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom (I say existing because there was once an even better gig venue – The Glasgow Apollo – where I saw my first live metal shows, and also where AC/DC recorded most of the equal-greatest album of all time, If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), on which the crowd’s energy can be felt, not just heard). Back to Killing Joke, though. Speaking of the first time he ever heard Geordie play guitar, Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman said, “It was like fire from Heaven.”

The Albums of 2022

1. Sakis Tolis – Among the Fires of Hell

I’m not sure why Sakis chose to release Among the Fires of Hell as a solo album rather than a Rotting Christ release. The moniker doesn’t matter, though – it’s the music that counts. Sonically and thematically, the material on AtFoH is just like latter-day Rotting Christ – the walls of riffage are there in force, as is Sakis’s distinctive growl, monk-like chanted backing vocals, and numinous lyrics. From the spoken words that kick off opening track My Salvation to the closing refrains of final song Nocturnal Hecate (a cover of the Daemonia Nymphe track), this album is pure atmospheric perfection. During his career with Rotting Christ, Sakis pioneered and honed his own sonic blueprint, which is all over this solo release. For an exhilarating example, listen to the track I Name You Under Our Cult, which is a masterclass in metal. When the chorus arrives with its sublime cascading layers of guitar and Sakis roaring, “Apollyon… release the fire,” the emotional impact is stunning. Total mastery of metal composition, execution and atmospherics. Immaculate.

2. Orphans of the Ash – Ellipsis

Since my first metal gig as a primary-school kid (Iron Maiden at Glasgow Apollo), I’ve seen thousands of guitarists playing live. Most of them were impressive, some jaw-droppingly so (Vai, Malmsteen, Satriani, Gilbert, Van Halen, Skolnick, and many others). The most impressive of all was Zal Cleminson. Still is. No one else can do what he can do with a guitar. There are plenty of guitar maestros, but Zal is the guitar wizard. This fact is well known by fans of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. One only has to play the SAHB discography (preferably on vinyl) on a quality hi-fi system to hear guitar sounds so unique, so inspired, so tasteful, so rich in nuance and melodic genius, that the listener is forever changed for the better. (Zal’s guitar work didn’t exist alone in those grooves, of course – there was a beautiful musical synergy between him and his bandmates Alex, Chris, Ted and Hugh.) I’ve been lucky enough to see Zal play live a bunch of times, both with SAHB and also with his Zal Cleminson’s Sin’Dogs project. It’s always a transcendent experience. In a live setting he does the impossible: makes perfect songs sound even more so. How can he do this? How is it even possible? It shouldn’t be. But as I said, Zal’s a wizard. So I was excited to hear about his Orphans of the Ash project. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I knew it would be special. It is. Ellipsis is a barnstormer of an album – fearlessly creative, expressive and cathartic. Once again (as he did with Sin’Dogs), Zal proves that in addition to his renowned fretboard abilities, he’s also a ferociously effective frontman. The album’s opening track, Evolution Road, might be the best example of this: I got chills – actual shivers of awe – when I heard Zal roar, “My fingertips, my Holy Fire!” A lyrical tip o’ the hat to the much-missed Alex Harvey, whose Faith Healer imagery is seared into the soul of every SAHB fan. (“The fingertips of Holy Fire, everlasting sweet desire.”) Evolution Road starts out with some of the most sublime acoustic guitar ever recorded, accompanied by a heartfelt vocal delivery, then at 1:28 a cataclysmically heavy riff arrives, to stunning effect. That guitar sound is heavy. As in, weights-made-of-lead heavy (couldn’t resist a SAHB pun). As always with Zal, when he goes heavy it’s never done just for the sake of heaviness. There’s always a bigger picture, an overarching melody… a vision. And as always, every note, every tone, every nuance is just right. The album isn’t a one-man show, though. The chemistry between Zal and collaborator Billy McGonagle is amazing. This isn’t the first time the two of them have played in a musical outfit together. Billy was also in Zal Cleminson’s Sin’Dogs. (Before that, he was in a SAHB tribute band, The Sensational Alex Harvey Experience, in which he played the role of Zal. Surreal or what? Billy must be in hog Heaven now that he’s recording as a duo with the real Zal Cleminson.) I could pontificate about the immaculate sounds of Ellipsis until the cows come home. It’s a work of genius.

Serendipity is a strange thing. A couple of weeks before the release of Ellipsis, I had been listening to Led Zeppelin (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and also listening to The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (as every decent human being should at least once a day). Alex’s words and imagery were swirling around in my mind (those fingertips of Holy Fire), as was the Zep fallen/falling angel icon from their Swan Song record label. I set about creating an artwork that combined the two: a 3D-rendered digital model with pose and overall vibe based on the Zep icon, but with a SAHBish revision – the angel’s right hand sported fingertips of Holy Fire. (That wasn’t the only revision I made to the original blueprint: I also put a pair of half black/half tartan trousers on the angel (based on a pair I own), made his physique more muscular (think Macho Man Randy Savage circa 1990), put the Gáe Bulg (Cúchulainn’s spear from Celtic mythology) in his left hand, and made his wings out of coruscating blue fire.) Then the Ellipsis album plopped through my letterbox, I played it for the first time and stood stunned as Zal roared, “My fingertips, my Holy Fire!” Awesome.

Here’s a few pictures of me and Zal in Edinburgh. If you look really closely you might be able to see some Holy Fire emerging from those Cleminson fingertips. Even if you can’t, it’s there. (Thanks to my friend Fraser – another beardy guitarist – for taking the pictures.)

3. Amorphis – Halo

My equal-favourite band in the Universe. The journey of these Finnish masters parallels that of the above-mentioned Sakis and Rotting Christ in many ways. The timeframe is the same, with Sakis founding Rotting Christ in 1987, and Amorphis kicking off in 1990. Both Rotting Christ and Amorphis have kept up a tireless work rate in the studio and on the road. Much growth occurred along the way: musical, lyrical and spiritual. This can be heard in the music; felt in it too. What Sakis did to put Greek metal on the world map, Amorphis did to place Finnish metal there. The groundwork Amorphis laid down in Finland played an influential role in what followed: the culture embraced that style of music to such a degree, Finland now contains more metal musicians per square mile than any other country does. By far. Metal’s spiritual home may be Aston, Birmingham, England (where four icons known as Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill gave birth to previously unheard and unimagined sounds in 1968), but Finland is now metal’s main breeding ground. Has been for the past couple of decades. Enough history, though. What about the present? What about Halo? Well, it’s another corker from Amorphis (that’s a highly technical musical term – corker, noun a thing so impressive that it causes jaws to drop, spines to tingle, body hairs to prick up, and souls to resonate). I mean, listen to the track The Moon at high volume on a quality sound system. If that doesn’t move you profoundly, you’re either dead inside or your soul needs an enema. I won’t yammer on at length about the rest of the album. It follows the same masterful Amorphis blueprint that the band has refined over three decades. As with much of the band’s previous music, there’s a strong folk influence, to the extent that some of the melodies come across a bit like metal incarnations of sea shanties with a Finnish folk flavour (i.e. dark, deep and atmospheric). A spellbinding record.

4. Solár – Atlas

This one really took me by surprise. Even before hearing a single note of Solár’s music, I was drawn to this record. The band’s name and the album title resonated with me, I found the cover art compelling (still do), one of the album’s tracks is named after the abstract artist Sam Francis, and in addition to all those things, some sixth sense was telling me to grab the record and dive into its sounds. As always, the animal instincts were right. I wouldn’t describe any of the tracks as songs. They don’t follow the usual “rules” or even “suggestions” that determine what constitutes a song. Atlas consists of six vast soundscapes, each unique, each mesmerising in its own ways (one of the tracks is even called Mesmer). Opener Nomad is 22 minutes and 8 seconds of staggering, echo-heavy sound that’s fearless, free and organic, like Pink Floyd’s more melodic moments from The Division Bell filtered through cold Swedish post-rock sensibilities then tweaked by a producer with an Alrakis obsession (not that there’s anything wrong with that – I have one of those obsessions). My favourite track on the album is Sam Francis, a beautiful example of how a piece of music can build and evolve as it progresses rather than just delivering verses, choruses and solos to some predetermined blueprint. The track starts with a sublime guitar refrain and Sam Francis himself talking of his “ways of seeing”. This segues into an instrumental jam phase (the musical type, not the strawberry stuff): a section whose repeating leitmotifs have a hypnotic effect on the listener. Then arrives a monumental riff, a thing of wonder, the sort of riff every other guitarist will listen to and say, “Fuck me sideways, I wish I’d come up with that.” Impressive isn’t a sufficient word to describe this track. It’s a masterpiece. A gesamtkunstwerk. From start to finish, Atlas is the sound of true artists creating music driven by passion, love and creative freedom. It’s there in every note, every nuance, every aspect. A joy to hear.

5. Saor – Origins

If Origins had contained material as inspired and groundbreaking as the track Children of the Mist (from the 2014 Saor album Aura), it would be sharing the 2022 top spot with Sakis. That’s how impressive Saor can be, when the conditions are right and the inspiration is there. The thing about recording a track so unfeasibly, ridiculously good is that every Saor track from that point on gets compared to the masterpiece… by me, anyway. Can’t help it. I’ve never been disappointed by any Saor release, though. I’m just always hoping for an album loaded with tracks of a Children of the Mist calibre. Some folk would say that’s an unrealistic thing to hope for – it’s like hoping for Black Sabbath to release a new album on which every track is as unique and groundbreaking as War Pigs, or for Deep Purple to do a new album loaded with songs as iconic as Child in Time, or for Led Zeppelin to create a new record containing nothing but tracks of a No Quarter quality. You get my point. But the thing about hoping is that it doesn’t have to be realistic. Realistic shit happens all the time. It’s the unrealistic stuff that has to be hoped for. Enough philosophy, though. To Origins. It’s an amazing album in its own right. The distinctive Saor sound is there throughout – a captivating blend of Thin Lizzyesque Celtic guitar melodies, much heavier black-metal influences, and indigenous folk flourishes that help to create a true Caledonian atmosphere. An Alba atmosphere! This is done so well that it always comes across as authentic, never as twee or contrived. Saor mainman Andy Marshall describes his music as, “Caledonian Metal from Scotland, inspired by history and nature.” That’s an accurate summation. The Nature influence has been evident in Saor’s music from the very beginning, and it’s a breath of fresh air in the genre. A Saor album is the musical equivalent of climbing the Aonach Eagach in Glencoe and then looking out across the glen while you stand in awe with the sky in your hair and the breeze on your face. If that sounds like your cup o’ tea, give this band a whirl. Your heid will never be the same again.

6. Mitch Murder – Selection 6

Sublime synthwave from the busiest man in the business. The Jarre and Tangerine Dream influences are evident (as they are in all electronica), there’s a strong Air influence too, and there’s even some jazz-fusion electro grooves à la Jan Hammer (especially his original Miami Vice soundtrack work). Selection 6 features fifteen slices of upbeat ’70s/’80s-style synth genius. It’s the musical equivalent of cruising along a California coastal road in a convertible with the top down, and not a care in the world other than soaking up some rays. Bliss. Check out the track Beach Interlude Redux for a prime example of this. Pure sonic sunshine.

7. Stratos Zero – Stratos Zero I 2012 – 2022

That Murder man again. Named after the original Lancia Stratos prototype (the Stratos Zero: a thing of beauty styled by Marcello Gandini), this band is a solo side-project of Mitch Murder, who describes SZ as a fusion of classic electro, techno, acid house and (mostly ’90s) electronica in general. Like all electronica, it owes a heavy debt to Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, the visionaries who paved the way for all subsequent electro acts. There’s also an unashamedly Depeche Mode sound (definitely a good thing) on a couple of tracks, and hints of Legion-era Mark Shreeve here and there (another good thing). There’s even a tripomatic Jam and Spoon influence on some tracks (yet another good thing!), most notably on Accelerator Control Network, which has as smooth and easy a vibe as you’ll find anywhere this side of Right in the Night. The album is an excellent blend of light and shade, joy and melancholy, established rhythmic blueprints and new synth textures. It’s challenging in parts, asking some questions of the listener rather than just going for the easy option (smooth synth) all the time. More enjoyable with each successive listen, it’s like a puzzle that takes a while to figure out but is worth the effort.

8. Saxon – Carpe Diem

I won’t call Saxon “the Barnsley Big Teasers” (again), because Biff will correct me (again) and say, “I’m not actually from Barnsley… I’m from Honley, which is fifteen miles up the road from Barnsley.” Except when he says it, it comes out like, “Eh oop, Rice lad, Oi aren’t from them thar parts, Oi be from oother parts oop the road from them thar parts.” Sorry, Biff. I couldn’t resist it. To the new album, though. Carpe Diem is quintessential Saxon. As always, the songs are masterfully crafted and immaculately executed. As always, the hooks are huge, the choruses anthemic. As always, the tracks feature some of the most impressive twin-guitar work in the known Universe. And as always, the vocals are utterly inimitable; no one else sings like Biff. (In my novel Metallic Dreams the young Spark MacDubh describes his first experience of Saxon thus: “I was ten when I heard the music that ended the first phase of my life and launched me towards a new horizon at the speed of sound. Drenched to the skin, I stood on Dunoon’s pier peering out to sea through sheets of rain, looking for the ferry that would take me home. There on the everwet west coast of Scotland I heard it: electrified powerchords slicing through the dreich weather. My body hairs pricked up like antennae. To my young ears these amplified guitars sounded angelic, for surely no man-made instrument could produce that tone. The singer couldn’t be human. His voice was too clean, too pure, too resonant, as though a robot larynx were piping words through vocal chords of polished silver. The overall effect was intoxicating – a storm of drums, earthquake bass, razor-sharp guitar riffs, and soaring vocals of astonishing clarity. I knew that I was hearing the future.” – excerpt from the chapter titled Heavy Metal Thunder). That description still fits Saxon perfectly. The young MacDubh was describing Princess of the Night (autobiographically, for I had that exact experience) from the iconic album Denim and Leather, but the 2022 incarnation of Saxon sounds just as fresh, energetic and inspired as the early version of the band did all those years ago. A testament to the band’s influence is this: I’ve met a lot of metal musicians – thousands – with widely ranging tastes and opinions, but not even one of them has ever had anything negative to say about Saxon. Among metallic peers, this is the most universally loved and respected band. Carpe Diem is a reminder of why this is the case.

9. Isafjørd – Hjartastjaki

Sólstafir has long been one of my favourite bands. (The 2015 album Berdreyminn is one of the most perfect things ever recorded. The other stuff’s impressive, but Berdreyminn is immaculate.) The recently formed Isafjørd project features Sólstafir founder Aðalbjörn “Addi” Tryggvason and occasional Sólstafir touring member Ragnar Sólberg Rafnsson. The duo’s resulting Hjartastjaki album is a supremely listenable and atmospheric piece of work. Sonically, the Sólstafir influence is the most evident one, but there are others too: some of the more delicate melodies remind me of Atti’s (and Ragnar’s) fellow Icelandic visionaries Sigur Rós. The blend of melancholy and optimism is there, as are the light and shade. Atmospherics in spades. Hjartastjaki was recorded in Norway, where Ragnar lives. Thank you to my fellow Scottish author (and major birder) Peter Carroll for drawing my attention to this album a couple of weeks after its release.

10. Soul Dissolution – SORA

The front cover is straight from the Bathory school of album art. A Naturescape so magnificent, mysterious and atmospheric that one can sense the old gods just out of sight behind the scenes, waiting, watching, preparing for their return. Belgian band Soul Dissolution was a welcome new discovery for me in 2022. SORA impressed me so much that I went straight out and got the rest of the band’s discography (by “went straight out” I actually mean “sat on my arse in my office and ordered online”… but old habits die hard… and it sounds better to say “I ran straight out and got”, which is how I used to do things as a kid… I’d hear a tune for the first time on Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show, then the very next morning I would run 2 miles to my local Impulse Records shop to buy the chunk of vinyl whose grooves had so impressed me on the radio the night before). So anyway, SORA impressed me so much that I remained sitting on my arse in my comfy swivel chair, moved my right index finger almost imperceptibly in order to click a mouse a few times, and downloaded Soul Dissolution’s discography in lossless digital format. Doesn’t sound even remotely impressive when I put it like that. Where’s the epicness? Where’s the running for miles through the ice and snow, like I used to have to do to get records? Where’s the sweat and the blood and the guts? Where’s the sense of expectation and ritual? Where’s the pain and sacrifice? Even though I didn’t have to don my battle jacket covered in studs and patches, wrap a bullet belt round it, then brave winter storms, fighting off rampaging neds and assorted other nutjobs along the way, in order to get to a physical record shop and buy SORA, I would happily have done so if that had been an option. That’s the way I used to do things. But Impulse Records is long gone along with all the other local record stores. (A bookies now exists in the space where Impulse used to be. That’s regress, not progress.) It’s not just the cover art of SORA that’s captivating – the music is too, from start to finish. The use of varying guitar tones is used to amazing effect. On heavier interludes there’s much of what I call “the Halifax sound”, i.e. the guitar tone heard on the early releases by Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema (I know Anathema hailed from Liverpool, and My Dying Bride from Bradford, but both of those bands were such a pivotal part of the Halifax doom scene that their sound – along with that of actual Halifaxsters Paradise Lost – essentially defined that scene). SORA‘s tracks counterbalance real heaviness with delicate moments (as Anathema did even in the early, heavy days), frequently veering into blackgaze territory to create hypnotic soundscapes reminiscent of Deafheaven and Alcest. There’s even a couple of sublime piano intros that fit seamlessly into the songs. It’s impossible to label this band. That’s how it should be. Musical artists, like all artists, should explore and express, not hem themselves in.

That’s my top 10 albums of 2022. Of course there were loads of other albums that also impressed me this year. I’m just not going to write about all of them at length. I’ve a big sequel to finish, don’t you know? (Currently 423,788 words and counting.) I don’t want the year’s other cracking albums to go without even a mention, though, so here’s a list of the releases that didn’t make my top 10 but resonated with me nonetheless: The Hu – Rumble of Thunder, Starfield – Confluence of Two Stars, Amon Amarth – The Great Heathen Army, Doodseskader – Year One, Timor et Tremor – Realm of Ashes, Brymir – Voices in the Sky, Vermilia – Ruska, Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s Star One – Revel in Time, Midnight Oil – Resist, Syöjätär – Pyhät puut, A Place of Level Earth – Fractured, Lost in Kiev – Rupture, Dawnwalker – House of Sand, Nothing but Echoes – The Sixth Extinction, Lunar Mercia – Leaving the Fragile Space, Russian Circles – Gnosis, Skid Row – The Gang’s All Here, AURORA – The Gods We Can Touch, Lumnos – A Glimpse Through the Event Horizon, Venom Inc. – There’s Only Black, Terra – Fur Dich Existiert Das Alles Nicht, Eternal Helcaraxe – Drown in Ash, A Mountain of One – Stars Planets Dust Me, Avantasia – A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society, Ilvilja – Skymningsdager, Primordial Woods – De Rerum Natura, Herbstlethargie – Melancholie im Blattfall, Ilvilja – Endless Rivers, Grima – Frostbitten, Nurez – Nachtlied, Uzlaga – The Might of Waves, Interior Mors – Fronde, Spettri Ed Antiche Pietre, Eerie Heir –Your Face Forgotten, Your Fate Nightmare, Adrenalin Ghosts – Impossible Piano Pieces, Corpus Vitreum – The Roots of Corpus Vitreum, Olhava – Reborn, Dark Funeral – We Are the Apocalypse, Abbath – Dread Reaver, KORN – Requiem.

My Top Albums of 2021

1= Mesarthim – Vacuum Solution

My favourite Australian band found the perfect sound in 2021. The duo’s early material blew my mind – I knew I was hearing the start of something special. Some of those early tunes, despite being musically immaculate, were held back a little by production that could have been fuller. No such issues anymore. The production on Vacuum Solution captures the vastness of the band’s sound. Captures isn’t the right verb, in fact. Expresses is a more appropriate one. These soundscapes are too vast to be captured. That’s why it’s so difficult to get the production right for a band of this scope: what do eternity, infinity and a supremely sentient consciousness roaming through space sound like? They sound like this. Vacuum Solution is up there with the Alrakis albums as the most inspired and inspiring atmospheric black metal ever created. The tracks delve into electronica too. This isn’t Mesarthim’s first time fusing ambient elements with colossal metal. It is, however, a showcase of just how good the band has become at blending the two styles. Listen to A Manipulation of Numbers and you’ll hear what I mean. It starts off like something from Jan Hammer’s soundtrack to the original Miami Vice TV series – delicate keyboards and sublime melodies. Then 49 seconds in, the music quietens, there’s a momentary lull, expectation builds, and… BOOM! A gargantuan wave of riffage explodes out of the speakers. On top of that wave, riding it like a berserk surfer, is a roar of sheer cathartic abandon. The effect on the listener (in my experience, at least) is monumental. Endorphin flood. Shivers up the spine. Body hair standing up like a legion of antennae sensing magical frequencies in the air.

Vacuum Solution is technically a 5-track EP but I’m including it in my album-of-the-year list because: (a) it’s as staggering a piece of work as any album; (b) Slayer’s Reign in Blood LP is only 28 minutes and 55 seconds long, yet that doesn’t stop people from hailing it as a classic album (Vacuum Solution clocks in at 27 minutes, 48 seconds). Listen out for tips o’ the hat to Enigma’s Sadeness in A Manipulation of Numbers – Mesarthim acknowledging their electronic influences. I like that. It’s respect. Despite this duo being very much an atmospheric black metal band, the opening riffs of Heliocentric Orbit are total melodic death metal in the Finnish vein, sounding just like Wintersun. Nothing wrong with that! The same track also features brief appearances from a plinky-plonky melody that sounds like it came out of a Fisher-Price kids’ keyboard. Reminds me of the keyboard sound on the phenomenal Nobody’s Wife by Ten Benson (one of the most underrated bands on the planet). The influences here are many and varied. I urge you to listen to this EP in lossless format: vinyl, CD or lossless digital FLAC. Lossy formats such as mp3 are, in a word, shite. They’re called lossy for a reason: they lose much of the original source material’s frequency in order to reduce file size. The result: smaller files with horrifically diminished sound. Mesarthim’s music is vast. It has to be heard it in all its lossless wonder. Turn it up loud and be wowed.

1= Deafheaven – Infinite Granite

There are some similarities between this album and the Mesarthim EP above. Both feature soundscapes that fluctuate between quiet introspective melodies and huge walls of riffage. Both delve into electronica and ambienta in pursuit of the perfect balance between heaviness and melody. Both transcend what could be referred to as “songs”, creating something so much bigger it’s transformative to hear. That’s why I use the term soundscapes to describe them. They’re vast. Deafheaven’s music is often labelled blackgaze. That’s not a bad way of summing it up – a mixture of shoegaze and black metal (the hi-fidelity, endorphin-boosting variety as opposed to the lo-fi, burn-down-churches-in-Norway brand). While Mesarthim’s vocals are roars in the abyss, Deafheaven’s singing is cleaner and more delicate than ever before. I saw one preposterous article (I won’t name and shame its writer – he’s entitled to his opinion, even if it is ludicrous) about this album. The writer in question lamented the direction Deafheaven took with Infinite Granite. He expounded at length over how the band had veered disastrously out of blackgaze territory and into shoegaze. Such a pronouncement was preposterous in so many ways, I’m not even going to get into them here. That article’s writer just doesn’t get 2021 Deafheaven. He whined and moaned about how the songs on the new album don’t get any emotional response from him. If that’s his experience he has every right to voice it. He went on, however, to declare that none of the songs on Infinite Granite would stimulate awe in any listener, as the band’s early classics did. That’s not for him to say. He can’t extrapolate his experience out to everyone; to think he can is evidence of a character disorder and/or some sort of god complex. Music is all about resonance. The new Deafheaven material may not have resonated with him but it does resonate with me. Utterly. So much so that the album’s right at the top of my 2021 list. To me, it seems weird that anyone could listen to the track Lament for Wasps and not be moved on a profound level. Sublime intro, gorgeous tones, vulnerable vocals, flawless melodies, then the escalation, the expansion into a tsunami of sound that gets into every part of me and affects me on a molecular level. I feel it happening every time. It resonates. And as I said before, it’s all about resonance. Every moment of Infinite Granite resonates perfectly with me. I consider it a masterpiece. That’s my experience.

I recommend playing this album in lossless format, turned up loud and pumped through big speakers. It just may change your life for the better.

1= Insomnium – Argent Moon

This isn’t the first time a release from Finland’s Insomnium has topped one of my album-of-the-year lists. Or the second. Or even the third. The first Insomnium LP to do so was Above the Weeping World back in 2006. That pioneering album – my equal-favourite record of all time – was a defining moment for melodic death metal. Since then, each successive Insomnium release has achieved top billing in my list for that year. Insomnium’s music resonates with me. Totally. I love this band. I’ve listened to their albums thousands of times and they never get stale. The music is mythic, dark, beautiful and wintry. It’s heavy yet always driven by melody, even in its most brutal moments. Like Mesarthim’s Vacuum Solution, Insomnium’s Argent Moon is technically an EP. Also like Vacuum Solution, Argent Moon is absolutely going on my 2021 album-of-the-year list, for the same reasons given earlier. Plus it’s my fucking list so I’ll fucking well put whatever the fuck I want on the fucking thing and if any fucker has any objections, (s)he can fuck right off. So as I was saying, I like Insomnium. Prior to the release of Argent Moon, band bassist/vocalist/founder Niilo announced that it would be an EP featuring four new tracks, all of them ballads. This fascinated me. I know what Niilo means when he says ballad. An Insomnium ballad is a long way from Every Rose Has Its Thorn and More Than Words. If you’re not familiar with Insomnium and you’re wondering what a ballad by these melodeath pioneers might be like, imagine your soul tearing itself apart in existential sorrow as you look up into the Finnish winter sky at night, feeling limitless longing while the Universe sheds Her icy tears onto your skin. That’s what an Insomnium ballad is like. There’s beauty and delicacy, poignance and heartache, but there’s also anger and catharsis, rage and roar. There is balance. Light and shade. Each of the tracks on Argent Moon is a classic in its own right. This was by far my most listened-to record of 2021. I played it relentlessly for months while working on the Metallic Dreams sequel (which is nearly finished – more on that later). Perfect atmospheric music for the soundtrack of my book. Perfect music, period.

1= Wardruna – Kvitrafn

Wardruna founder Einar Selvik used to go by the name Kvitrafn in his previous band Gorgoroth. Kvitrafn means White Raven. Paradoxical, see? And as Salvador Dali pointed out, “All true art is utterly paradoxical.” This latest album from Wardruna is loaded with the highest quality of music, astonishing vocals, awe-inspiring atmospherics and real emotional depth. It’s the music of nature and the north. It talks to the listener’s soul. It resonates. There’s that word again. Wardruna’s most unique feature is my pal Lindy-Fay Hella, whose voice takes the music out of the worldly realm and into the otherworldly. While Armored Saint’s John Bush gets my vote for best male metal vocalist, Lindy-Fay gets my vote for best vocalist, period. That voice. Words can’t describe it. Just when the listener is soaking up the sounds of ancient Nordic instruments and the ritualistic chants of Einar Selvik, and thinking that a particular song is so perfect it couldn’t get any better, Lindy-Fay’s vocal arrives, elevating the whole experience sonically, emotionally and spiritually. Out of this world.

1= Adrenalin Ghosts – The Plague Fountain

The unlikely way in which I found this album proves the existence of serendipity. Here’s the story. You may already know (but if you don’t you’re about to find out) that the greatest song ever written is I Could Be So Good for You by Dennis Waterman. There are other equally good songs but none better. You can’t improve upon perfection. As you may also know (and if you don’t you’re about to find out), I Could Be So Good for You, in addition to being a hit single, was the theme tune for Minder, the best TV show of all time (rivalled only by Chorlton and the Wheelies). Minder was a full-on Watermanfest. Dennis not only composed, wrote lyrics for, performed and sang the intro and outro music for the show, he was the star in the programme too (along with the inimitable George Cole as Arthur Daley). I have the single of I Could Be So Good for You. From that I created a lossless FLAC version years ago, to listen to in the car and on my Cambridge Audio black-magic upscaling digital witchery device at home. It’s one of the songs I’ve sung to the wolfchild since he was just a wee explosion of polar-bear-white fur with enormous ears and paws (which he soon grew into). He has always loved me singing to him, and I Could Be So Good for You is the song he enjoys most (along with Uncle Elijah by Black Oak Arkansas). So when I couldn’t find my FLAC version of the Waterman standard, a sort of panic set in. (I lost a lossless file – there’s surely some sort of irony in that.) I could have created a new FLAC from source, but I figured it would be quicker to find a lossless version online. No such thing exists, though. A shitey mp3 download was available from Amazon but I had no interest in that. It had to be the real thing with the full sound. Figuring Dennis might have a bandcamp page, I Googled “Dennis Waterman bandcamp” only to find that he’s not on there. Google did deliver an intriguing search result, though: a link to the page of Adrenalin Ghosts, a musical project I’d never heard of before. Why was that page presented as the answer to my query? Because the band’s bio says the following: Adrenalin Ghosts is a mostly solo project of Si Egan, who plays everything, and does the artwork. Like Dennis Waterman without the singing or acting. As soon as I saw that, I knew that serendipity was at work. I clicked on the link, which took me to a page featuring the most recent Adrenalin Ghosts album, The Plague Fountain. Even before sampling the sounds, I was captivated by the album’s front cover. It has the same haunting quality as the cover art of Iron Maiden’s debut LP. There’s no Eddie the Head with his spiky hair, wide eyes and cadaverous menace, but there doesn’t need to be. The atmosphere in The Plague Fountain‘s cover is just as surreal, its nocturnal scene like a vision from a dream. Instead of Eddie’s eerie eyes staring out, it’s an old Volvo estate car with the headlights on. Like the debut Maiden cover, there’s mist, lamppost streetlights, a bus stop, a bin and some mysterious-looking flats. (I often see or hear connections even when they weren’t consciously created. That’s the way my mind works. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been listening to someone ramble on about some random topic or other, and I’ve blurted out, “That reminds me of a Blue Öyster Cult lyric!” Then I’ve proceeded to recite the lyric and explain the link between it and whatever the individual in question had just been talking about. Sometimes this blows the person’s mind. Other folk stare back startled, like I’ve just swooped in from some alien planet and imparted information in a language they don’t understand.) Anyway, back to Adrenalin Ghosts. The music is the product of genius. So much subtlety, such an innate understanding of layers and dynamics and repeating leitmotifs in order to bring about an altered state in the listener. As I sampled the tracks on The Plague Fountain, each one felt familiar. Even though my ears and brain had never experienced these tunes before, my soul knew this music. And when I played Trevelyan’s Rocker for the first time, it was like meeting a best friend I hadn’t seen in forever. I knew every nuance of the tune. And it knew me. So I bought the entire Adrenalin Ghosts discography. The Plague Fountain album in lossless format – upscaled through my Cambridge Audio black-magic machine and pumped out by huge speakers – is a monumental sound. Every time I hear Trevelyan’s Rocker my soul feels at home. The hypnotic tones of Labyrinth Music bring on an ultra-relaxed state, their leitmotif like a ghost that gets into the listener and, when it leaves, is missed. The Six Tasks of the I Ching is sonic bliss. Immaculate melodies, gorgeous layering – restrained and minimalist yet weirdly cathartic. Title track The Plague Fountain sounds like classic ’60s/’70s prog with a funky bass line and some Deep Purplesque keyboards. If this song were tagged onto a remaster by Focus or Van der Graaf Generator and listed as a “previously unreleased session track” not a single fan would disbelieve it. It’s that accomplished. I could go on and on about this album but I’ve said enough. It resonates with me. Each track evokes a cascade of emotions, so much so it’s like sorcery. There being no vocals doesn’t take anything away from the tunes. They’re all the more evocative because they don’t feature vocals. Singing would ruin these soundscapes. They’re perfect as they are.

1= Ministry – Moral Hygiene

Angriest album of 2021 by a country mile. As always, Al Jourgensen’s lyrics are incisive, observant and wholly unwilling to tolerate the hypocrisy and deception perpetrated by so-called government, corrupt corporations and their shill lackeys in the mainstream media. If everyone were as outspoken and savvy as Al (and I wish that were the case) the world would be in a much better state. No one would listen to “politicians” or other such deceitful, manipulative cunts. There are sociopaths out there getting away with murder on a vast scale. They have committed – and continue to commit – crimes against humanity. For that they will be held accountable. They’re in the medical-pharmaceutical complex, “governments” (a joke of a term) and the so-called World Health Organisation (the most inaccurately titled collective in history), assisted by their puppets in the media (who peddle whatever propaganda and lies their corporate funders pay them to disseminate). If you’re not fearlessly outspoken against all of that, you’re part of the problem.

To the music, though. It’s my favourite Ministry album. What does that mean? Well, Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs blew my mind when it first came out. Still does. It’s a cerebral, articulated venting of focused rage. Even the gibberish of Jesus Built My Hotrod – on which Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes delivers one of the most berserko vocal deliveries of all time – makes perfect sense within the context of that album. It might be thematic and lyrical light relief compared with the more serious anti-religion moments on the record, but musically it has the same energy: it’s a geyser of boiling fury. Moral Hygiene has even more anger… and with good reason. It’s heartening to see and hear that someone has his eyes open and his mind unpolluted by the pathetic political pantomime that has been playing out for years, culminating in the current deranged situation in which megalomaniacal psychopathic morons are trying with all their (feeble) might to control the thought processes and behaviour of the masses, proposing the permanent stripping away of individual freedoms because “it’s in the best interests of everyone”. Which it isn’t, of course. It’s in the financial interests of a few manipulative little cretins but in the absolute worst interests of everyone else. The pollution of people’s minds and bodies is going to come to an end and the perpetrators will be held accountable. That is already underway. The truth they’ve desperately tried to hide is known by many. More people are becoming aware of it every day. I’m still troubled that so many people were/are so easily duped. Critical-thinking faculties are in short supply. Kids should be taught – as I was – to question everything. They should know that “authority” is a mere illusion pushed by those who seek to manipulate. Understand that and you will always be free. You’ll perceive things as they actually are. You’ll see through every Emperor’s New Clothes lie. You’ll be a beacon of truth. Speaking of truth, Al dishes out ten servings of it on Moral Hygiene. There are musical tips o’ the hat – I’m not sure if they’re conscious or inadvertent – to some other legendary sonic innovators. Opener Alert Level kicks off with a rhythm reminiscent of White Zombie’s More Human Than Human, followed by a guitar riff that’s a variation of Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath – a tune that scared the shit out of millions through effective use of the tritone: that three-part melody which the church tried to ban centuries ago because they believed that it could usher in the Devil. Back then churchgoers named the tritone “Diabolus in musica” – the Devil in music – having witnessed its ability to stir up a sense of unease and fear in those who heard it. (In an inspired move, Slayer chose Diabolus in Musica as a title for one of their albums.) This new Ministry album starts as it means to continue, with more fury than even the angriest Slayer record. Listen to the unrestrained rage in Al’s voice as he roars the opening line, “The cards are on the table, the hands are on deck, heading to a future we all reject.” Staggering. Track three on Moral Hygiene – a furious ditty called Sabotage Is Sex – starts out like a speedier version of Testament’s Low (nothing bad about that!). Further on in the song, starting at 2:24, a new backing melody comes in, sounding a lot like the opening rhythm of Amorphis’s Towards and Against. Could be deliberate tips o’ the hat to Testament and Amorphis, or subconscious tributes to them, or maybe just accidental soundalike moments. Moral Hygiene contains one cover version, included because it fits perfectly with the album’s theme: it’s Search and Destroy, originally by Iggy and The Stooges. Every song on this album is loaded with fury. The track titles speak volumes, among them: Disinformation; Broken System; We Shall Resist; Death Toll. This is a visceral non-fiction antithesis of the lies and nonsense pushed by politicians, their corporate masters and the shill lackeys in the media. It’s the sound of an avenging angel roaring in righteous rage. And it is fucking glorious.

1= NEGURĂ BUNGET – Zău

The swan song of my favourite Romanian band. Zău is testament to the creativity and innovation of band drummer/founder Gabriel “Negru” Mafa, who died in 2021 aged just 42. It’s a sonically complex beast. The album uses a wide range of sounds to build a truly original atmosphere. Spacey keyboard tones, pan pipes, arboreal sounds, wind, haunting whispered male voices and hypnotic female chants combine to astonishing effect. Opener Brad is one of the most epic pieces of music ever composed – 15 minutes and 53 seconds of utter atmospheric perfection. It begins with mesmerising ambience – the soundtrack to wintry woods at night – as a layer of keyboard and a whisper invite the listener in deeper. Then, halfway through the piece, when the listener is in too deep to escape, the mother of all riffs arrives like a bolt from the blue; this wall of black-metal riffage changes the whole dynamic from relaxation to awe. Later, the piece returns to ambience before once again delivering dark riffs of immense magnitude. The rest of the record continues in this vein – sublime ambience and heavy atmospherics in perfect balance, complementing each other but never competing. I can sum up this musical balance in three words: Zău is Zen.

The band was always inspired by nature, particularly that of their home region. This comes through in the music. Even the band name reflects it. “NEGURĂ BUNGET” is derived from ancient Romanian for “dark misty forest”. There’s no better name for a metal band. As well as being NEGURĂ BUNGET’s final release, Zău completes the Transylvanian Trilogy, which started with Tău and continued with Zi. This is the music of nature, winter and eternity. At points it actually transcends music and becomes something else – a primal sonic force. The use of traditional Romanian instruments recorded in an echo-heavy environment (some parts sound like they were performed in an echo chamber) is used to amazing effect on the intros and/or outros of several tracks. I could write all day about this album, then keep writing about it all night. There’s so much in it. Zău is so authentic, so deep, so rich in resonant soundscapes, so laden with mystery and emotional impact, it deserves to be hailed as one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

2= Autumn Nostalgie – Ataraxia

Innovative atmospheric black metal from Slovakia. Ataraxia is Autumn Nostalgie’s second album. The first – Esse Est Percipi – released in 2020, would have placed joint #1 at the top of my album list for that year if only I’d heard it that year. I didn’t come across Autumn Nostalgie until 2021, though. If I start retrospectively editing my albums-of-the-year lists whenever I discover new (to me) records, that would become a full-time job. So my posted album lists stay as they are, but in my mind Esse Est Percipi is right up there with Armored Saint’s Punching the Sky as the best album of 2020. Successor Ataraxia is a phenomenal album too. The ultra-fast sweep-picked cold-echo-in-the-void guitar work that characterises atmospheric black metal is present in force. There’s also a healthy amount of down-tuned rhythm riffage and bottom-heavy bass that the listener feels in the guts as much as in the mind. Light interludes are used to excellent effect. The album is sublimely delicate in parts, featuring dreamlike keyboard layers and some of the most beautiful guitar intro/outro melodies I’ve ever heard.

2= Mesarthim – CLG J02182–05102

When a band named after a binary star system in the constellation of Aries releases an album named after a galaxy cluster whose behaviour is baffling astronomers and physicists alike, it’s a safe bet that the results will be cosmic. CLG J02182–05102 is exactly that. The album features wholly different material from the Vacuum Solution EP released earlier the same year (although the LP does include a sequel to one of the EP tracks – A Manipulation of Numbers Part 2 (Vacuum Decay) is, unsurprisingly, the follow-up to A Manipulation of Numbers). This album is loaded with quintessential Mesarthim soundscapes: immersive, vast, profound, entrancing. The only reason CLG J02182–05102 isn’t joint #1 on my 2021 list is because the opening vocals in A Manipulation of Numbers Part 2 (Vacuum Decay) sound like Elmo from Sesame Street having a go at singing black metal. The familiar raw roar returns soon enough but the opening section of that track would have been far better sung in the usual Mesarthim way or delivered as a spoken-word section – a technique that can work extremely well with atmospheric black metal. The Elmo Incident is a minor blip on an album that’s otherwise immaculate. Electronica influences are present in abundance, blending perfectly with the heaviness and adding an extra dimension to the sound. In the case of instrumental Nucleation Seed, heavy elements are abandoned altogether, leaving just layers of electronica that could fit seamlessly onto a Jean-Michel Jarre album.

A deep, dark, awe-inducing album. Like everything these innovative Aussies have ever recorded, it’s essential listening.

3= Sundrowned – Become Ethereal

Atmospheric black metal again, this time from Sweden. Sundrowned’s Become Ethereal is the sonic equivalent of a cool breeze on a blazing summer day. To paraphrase a certain beer manufacturer, this music refreshes the parts (most) other atmospheric black metal can’t reach. Cracking band name. Phenomenal album cover. And, crucially, music with substance, texture and depth. I love it.

3= Lindy-Fay Hella & Dei Farne – Hildring

That Hella girl again. And that voice. There’s no way of summing up Hildring just by throwing a category at it. Yes, it’s folky but there’s more to it than that. Yes, the music digs deep into Lindy-Fay’s Nordic and Sami roots, yet there’s more to it than that. At points, her voice gets into the listener’s soul and cleans it out from the inside, revitalising and renewing. A heady experience. Sonic magic. The good stuff.

Backing band Dei Farne shouldn’t go without mention. Their music brings a unique energy and atmosphere through a form of electronica that sounds simultaneously current, futuristic and ancient. That doesn’t happen by accident. There’s serious talent on display here.

Hildring means mirage. That’s a perfect name for this record. The music and vocals are evocative and at times otherworldly, the images they conjure up in the mind very much altered-state dreamscapes.

One thing that amazes me about this album is how different it sounds to Lindy-Fay’s solo album Seafarer and her iconic body of work with Wardruna. Some of the same thematic elements are there – nature, mythology, ancestry – but the music here has a sound all of its own. A unique collaboration.

4. Mr Bungle – The Night They Came Home

All the previous Mr Bungle albums are worth owning and listening to, as is any music that features Mike Patton. One thing those records have in common: each contains a couple of absolute classic tracks and a bunch of odd experimental noisemongery that’s at best tolerable and at worst annoying. Yet I always grab Mr Bungle albums as soon as they come out, just as I do with music from Patton’s other projects, of which there are many (Faith No More and Tomahawk, most notably). For me, The Night They Came Home was the biggest musical surprise of the year. I don’t perceive it as a truly immaculate album worthy of joint #1 at the top of this list, but it isn’t a kick in the baws away from it. The opening track Won’t You Be My Neighbor? sees Patton in lounge-lizard crooner mode (just as he was in Faith No More’s cover of The Commodores’ Easy), but unlike in Easy, Patton switches into a full-on rage and takes the song in a whole different direction. After that, the album is loaded with ridiculously heavy riffage, low-end bass, blast-beat drumming, and Patton’s voice(s), as always, set to impress. There’s none of the clownfoolery of the past – no snippets from porn films, no carnival music (although there is a bit of death-metal mariachi), nobody wailing on brass instruments and annoying my ears with that horrific sound. This album is all about songs. Riff verse chorus riff verse chorus widdly guitar solo chorus outro riffage stop. That sort of song. No fannying around. They just get the job done. And holy fuck, they do it in style.

5. Greta Van Fleet – The Battle at Garden’s Gate

Their debut LP Anthem of the Peaceful Army placed equal top in my 2018 album-of-the-year list. To the critics who complain that GVF’s music sounds like Led Zeppelin, I’ll say this: do you eejits think Led Zeppelin invented the sounds on their albums? Newsflash – they didn’t! Led Zep pilfered in the most flagrant way, nicking big chunks of blues songs, sometimes whole songs. They even stole lyrics in their entirety from journeyman blues artists. You don’t think Robert Plant came up with that lemon-squeezing stuff by himself, do you? Most of LZ’s The Lemon Song is a plagiarised Killing Floor by Howlin’ Wolf, then towards the end of the track Plant chucks in a bunch of lyrics nicked from Robert Johnson’s Traveling Riverside Blues. And Robert Johnson got those lyrics by stealing them! From Joe Williams, who in 1929 sang about an unspecified someone squeezing his lemon and causing the juice to run down his leg, in his track I Want It Awful Bad. (Joe must have enjoyed having his lemon squeezed, for not only was he moved to write a song about the experience, the lyrics express a desire for more of the same. That song could even be interpreted as a recruitment campaign for lemon squeezers.) So Zep’s The Lemon Song features multiple layers of thievery, yet the band had the audacity to claim all writing credits for the music and the lyrics. Until Howlin’ Wolf’s record company sued them, that is. Zep settled out of court and revised the songwriting credit so that it acknowledged Chester Burnett – aka Howlin’ Wolf – as the song’s creator. And that’s just one example of Led Zep’s magpie behaviour. They also nicked lyrics and music from a host of other musicians, many of them relatively obscure in commercial terms (and therefore safer to pilfer from – less chance of litigation in response). I love most of Led Zeppelin’s music. Although they were undeniably thieves, they were able to use stolen ideas and fuse them with their own innate musical sensibilities, in the process coming up with some iconic music. For a critic to complain about Greta Van Fleet nicking Led Zeppelin’s musical style is like saying, “That car thief is totally out of order for stealing a car from the dude who stole it from somebody else!” It’s that level of nonsense. Music critics: they’re like bumholes – they smell funny and they talk shit. I mean, I’ve never heard a football commentator get incensed and shout, “How dare that player come out onto the pitch wearing shorts, a shirt and boots, and then kick the ball into the goal net? That’s been done before! He needs to be utterly different from every other footballer who ever existed, otherwise we will criticise him while frowning heavily in his direction!” All musicians have influences. Some wear theirs on their sleeves, musically speaking. In GVF’s music I do hear a strong Zeppelin likeness, but I also hear a big Boston influence, some Triumph (especially on the vocals), lots of Rushesque technique, some Alice Cooper, a soupçon of Lynyrd Skynyrd, a bit of The Eagles, the occasional Black Sabbath riff, and hints of myriad other musical artists. And guess what? In the music of every single one of those artists, I hear the influence of musicians and composers who came before them. That’s how music works.

Now that that’s off my chest, let’s talk about this second full-length Greta Van Fleet release. I love it. Not quite as much as the debut, but still a lot. The debut will always be extra special to me because I played it relentlessly in the car during one of my stays on the Isle of Lewis, my ancestral homeland. It was the perfect soundtrack – timeless and epic like the island itself. I listened to that album so much as I drove all over Lewis and Harris, the music became weaved into the fabric of the landscape, merging with the rays from the sun, the roar of the sea, and the golden sand of the beaches. Now when I listen to that LP – no matter where I happen to be – I’m transported back to my favourite island. So album number two from GVF had a lot to live up to. There isn’t a dull moment on it. Two of the tracks don’t quite hit the spot for me, but the rest are every bit as powerful as the material on the debut. Yes, there are some blatant Led Zep chunks, including one intro that sounds like a hybrid of Stairway to Heaven and Robert Plant’s solo track Ship of Fools. There’s also a couple of nicked Alice Cooper guitar melodies (Only Women Bleed and I’m Eighteen), a flurry of Skynyrd’s Freebird guitar solo, a melody reminiscent of The Eagles’ Hotel California, and a riff that’s essentially Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell in amongst the more original elements, but so what? These are tips o’ the hat to the music that helped these kids become what they are. And what they are is phenomenal. Such is the elemental power in some of their music, it feels like it hasn’t been created but unearthed. Josh Kiszka’s voice can do all the Robert Plant stuff and more: Kiszka can sing with such immense power while conveying such deep emotion, the effect is stunning. It resonates with me. That word again.

If you’re going to listen to this band, I recommend choosing a lossless format so you hear the music as it’s intended to sound, not some butchered version of it. This applies to all music, so I won’t say it again in this 2021 list. Take it as read. Lossy music doesn’t just lose quality – the music also loses much of its emotional impact. Lossless is the way. Hear music in all its sonic glory.

6. Andrew WK – God Is Partying

The album title is an in-joke for fans. Since the start of AWK’s musical career he has done, redone, re-redone and re-re-redone the party theme… and then done it a whole lot more. This led many people to misjudge the man, writing him off as some moronic drunken rocker with a low IQ and a one-track mind. The reality is far from that, though. He’s a remarkably eloquent, intelligent, compassionate and empathetic human being. This album is his most accomplished to date. The songs are beautifully crafted. The material is the heaviest (musically and thematically) AWK has ever created but at no point is it noise for noise’s sake. The musical craftsmanship on display here is sublime. As Andrew has grown up, so has his music. Not that there was anything wrong with his early material. It contained some of the catchiest, most endorphin-boosting anthems ever written. All of AWK’s music – this album included – has one key feature in common: it doesn’t hold back. That’s one thing I love about this dude. He gives his all. As in, he gives his ALL. Whether he’s pouring his heart out or roaring his lungs out, he gives 100%. The only track on this record that would fit seamlessly onto one of his early albums is Not Anymore: a straightforward fuck-you to all his detractors. It has the same relentless gung-ho attitude as early anthems Party Hard and She Is Beautiful. Turn this track up loud. Pogo around the room / punch the air / do whatever the music moves you to do. Repeat as necessary. Pure catharsis. Music therapy of the best kind.

Although the album is titled God Is Partying, there’s no song of that name on it. There is, however, a track called Goddess Partying. I like the balance. The observant among you may have noticed that Goddess Partying and God Is Partying are homonymic phrases, i.e. they sound the same but have different meanings. Which reminds me of my one teenage year spent in Virginia, USA, when every day in school a dude who sat in front of me used to turn round, gaze into my eyes, flutter his eyelashes and whisper, “I love you.” This freaked me out at first but by the end of the year I was used to it. On the last day of school, when everyone was signing yearbooks, he wrote two words in mine – “Elephant Shoes” – then signed his name underneath. Took me a moment to figure it out.

7. Death SS – X

My equal-favourite Italian musical artists (along with Ludovico Einaudi and Alan Sorrenti). I’ve been listening to Death SS a lot recently, not just this new album but the band’s entire discography, which contains some of the most iconic and influential shock metal ever recorded. Stefano Silvestri – or, to give him his band name, Steve Sylvester – doesn’t get enough credit for the groundwork he laid musically, thematically and in terms of image. Since Death SS’s inception back in the ’70s, he has been wearing horror-movie makeup and writing songs that are essentially sonic versions of horror films. I’m sure that the Sami Curr character in the film Trick or Treat was based on Steve Sylvester.  I’ve a picture of Steve from the early ‘80s which looks identical to stills of Sami Curr from that film (which arrived a couple of years later), from his clothes to his hairstyle and even the crazed look in his eyes. I’m also sure that Death SS’s image and music have been a big influence on Ghost (along with Mercyful Fate and Blue Öyster Cult), Rob Zombie, GWAR, Lordi, Deathstars and many others. To the album X, though. Its predecessor Rock ‘n’ Roll Armageddon was a barnstorming record: an adrenalin-fuelled blend of Deathstars’ over-the-top shock metal and the horror influences of Death SS’s early material. The sound of heavy metal firing on all cylinders. This successor is a return to the band’s roots in terms of musical style. The production isn’t as big as on Rock ‘n’ Roll Armageddon. Most of the tracks on X are less like actual sonic weapons, and more like palpable threats – the musical equivalent of a horror film that has you looking over your shoulder afterwards… just in case. That’s what Death SS’s music has always been about: metal mixed with effective theatrics. While I prefer Rock ‘n’ Roll Armageddon to X (not by a huge margin, though), the former was the sound of Death SS being influenced by bands who had first been influenced by Death SS, so it had a karmic circularity to it. X, on the other hand, is Death SS being influenced from within. It’s their own sound which they pioneered decades ago, then refined and produced in order to add a more polished finish. At its heart it’s the same raw, theatrical horror metal that only Alice Cooper (and, on the original Hellbilly Deluxe, Rob Zombie) can do this well. The difference is that Alice and Rob are clearly putting on a show, whereas with Death SS the listener can’t help but wonder if these nutcases are doing it for real.

For me, the standout track is Heretics, which has an amazing groove, a Spaghetti Western twangy guitar style and an anthemic singalong chorus. It’s the lightest track on the record but also the catchiest. Like the D.A.D. classic Sleeping My Day Away and Tarot’s stomper Painless flung into a blender with Satan and a bunch of horror-movie ghouls. It’s a new subgenre! Satanic Spaghetti Western Twangery. I love it. I also love the rest of the album, which is heavier than Hell lined with lead.

8. David Crosby – For Free

It may surprise some people to hear that I have all the music David Crosby has ever recorded. Not just his work as a solo artist but also his many collaborations. This newest solo record is my favourite of the lot.

For Free is a masterclass in music. From the quality of songwriting and production to the musical execution and vocal delivery, this is a spellbinding record. Crosby’s vocals are more poignant, exposed and authentic than ever before. The listener can actually feel Crosby’s soul in the vocals. And soul is something he has a lot of. For evidence of this, listen to the track I Won’t Stay for Long – the pinnacle of this album. It is one of the most beautiful, vulnerable, utterly captivating songs ever recorded. I am in awe of it. I turn that song up loud and my jaw drops. Moves me to tears. Every. Single. Time.

Art without artifice. An amazing album from a true legend.

9. Moonspell – Hermitage

They topped my 2014 list with Extinct, an album I consider as immaculate as anything ever recorded. Hermitage is another quality album by my favourite Portuguese outfit. The atmospherics aren’t as dramatic as those on Extinct, the production’s not as crisp, and the music is a lot less gothy. Extinct had a distinct Type O Negative influence. The two bands toured together and were good friends, so it’s natural that some stylistic bleedover would happen. Not that Moonspell were ever emulating TON – the influence was subtle but it was there. I don’t hear any Type O influence on Hermitage, though. This record delves more into Opeth territory, exploring the land of heavy progressive metal. This gives Moonspell the chance to stretch themselves musically and express their artistic vision in new ways. But Hermitage – musically adept as it is – doesn’t set my excitement on fire the way Extinct does. When Extinct first came out I listened to it continually for months. It was by far my most listened-to album of that year. Hermitage is different. It doesn’t captivate me but I can appreciate its artistry and deeply enjoy it. There are some gorgeous moments: sublime guitar work, particularly. Pink Floydy in parts. More evidence of prog leanings. It’s an introspective piece of art. That’s the main difference between Hermitage and Extinct. Extinct was a roaring catharsis of an album. Hermitage is more inwards-looking, more solitary, true to its title.

10. Mike Tramp – Everything Is Alright

I like Mike. White Lion played their part in my adolescence. Their tunes are still special to me. Mike’s subsequent project Freak of Nature delivered heavier music that was hugely underrated, but the folk who got it really got it. Since then, as a solo artist, Mike’s music has been consistently strong, never more so than on 2021’s Everything Is Alright. For me the album’s highpoint is Trust in Yourself, an emotive song that shuns the moronic herd mentality prevalent today. That track is very much the spiritual and musical successor to White Lion’s Living on the Edge, in which Mike sings about packing his bags and riding into the sunset, not knowing where he would go but not being even the slightest bit worried about that. Shades of Freak of Nature’s Open Space too. Perfect songs, all.

Mike continues fearlessly on, free as a bird, creating music from the heart, guided by his own inner compass. There aren’t many like him. The album has some exhilarating moments. That unique voice is instantly recognisable, dripping with emotion and truth, singing meticulously crafted lyrics. Mikey’s the real deal. Always has been.

11. Fear Factory – Aggression Continuum

One of my all-time favourite bands. I played Soul of a New Machine, Demanufacture and Obsolete relentlessly back when they came out. Likewise with the tour-de-force return to form Genexus in 2015. Fear Factory pioneered cyber metal. Taking electronic cues from Front Line Assembly, Gary Numan and Brad Fiedel, and philosophical themes from Terminator, FF combined these with precise industrial metal. And lo, cyber metal was born. Burton C. Bell’s soaring voice is perfect for this style of industrial machinistic music. His tones are irrepressible, loaded with hope and a refusal to submit. He can roar but his voice can also soar, and that’s when it’s most effective. Aggression Continuum is – like Ministry’s Moral Hygiene and a lot of the savvy art of the past couple of years – a work of enlightened, angry social commentary. Whereas Ministry’s album is raw and visceral, Fear Factory’s is polished shinier than a T2 robot. It’s the sound fans have come to expect from the band – the Fear Factory blueprint. As usual, there are tips o’ the hat to Brad Fiedel’s amazing soundtrack work from the Terminator films – a leitmotif that carries across several Fear Factory albums. It works. Sometimes the band forgets about melody and veers into all-out noise. That’s a necessary part of their craft, but I prefer when they blend melody and heaviness. When Burt uses clean vocals and lets his voice soar, that’s when Fear Factory’s music has maximum impact. That’s when it takes the listener on a journey. Aggression Continuum isn’t my favourite Fear Factory album but it is – in parts – stunning. A welcome addition to the band’s groundbreaking discography.

12. Swallow the Sun – Moonflowers

One of my friends – a fellow Swallow the Sun fan – can’t get into this album at all. He finds it too introspective, the songs too dirgelike. (That same friend summed up the recent Alan Parsons live album as sounding “similar to a bunch of old goats bleating in a barn” – a description that had me crying with laughter… and I’m an Alan Parsons fan!) Back to Moonflowers, though. It’s not a happy smiley album. No Finnish melodic death metal is. But of all the bands in that movement, Swallow the Sun has always been the most grief-laden and funereal (thematically they’re like a Finnish incarnation of Halifax doomsters My Dying Bride). Some of their songs are tributes to fallen loved ones – mythic laments awash with delicacy and emotion. There’s a huge Dark Tranquillity influence (always a good thing) on Moonflowers, particularly in the vocals. Most of the tracks start out with soft intros featuring guitar work that sounds a lot like Steve Rothery’s (another good thing). Some songs remain restrained throughout. Others grow heavier, exploring the full spectrum of the melodeath sound. This album is an ideal accompaniment to reflection, meditation, remembrance and grief. It heightens those experiences. The track Woven into Sorrow is the spiritual successor to Queensrÿche’s Silent Lucidity. Epic in sound and scale.

A monumental album by a monumental band.

13. Tomahawk – Tonic Immobility

Another Mike Patton project. Tonic Immobility is the first Tomahawk record in eight years. Musically, the album reminds me a lot of of Faith No More’s King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime, which makes sense in one respect but is strange in another. It’s logical that these two albums might sound alike, as Mike Patton sings on both and is involved in song composition too. The likeness is chronologically strange, though, in this sense: King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime came out in 1995, then four years later Patton formed Tomahawk, yet the early Tomahawk material doesn’t sound much like FNM at all. Not to my ears, anyway. But Tonic Immobility is essentially King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime Part 2. There are the same jagged riffs, vocal delivery and dense production. Admittedly, the track Business Casual harkens back to slightly earlier FNM, sounding like Kindergarten from the 1992 album Angel Dust. All of which is good. I’m always happy to hear Mikey’s musical output, from his myriad obscure projects to his “supergroup” Tomahawk, his “side band” Mr Bungle, and his “main band” Faith No More.

A little piece of trivia. Mike Patton has a six-octave vocal range – the largest in all of rock or metal music. I’ve always loved the way he can flit between deep, menacing growls and glass-shattering shrieks. I think I know how he achieves this. When I was a kid, one of my metal-loving friends and I were sitting listening to music in my room one afternoon. I asked my friend how he thought vocalists such as Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Bruce Dickinson, King Diamond and Eric Adams were able to hit stratospheric high notes with apparent ease. My friend pondered this for a moment and then replied, “They must be squeezin’ their baws. I mean, it isnae natural for a man tae sing that high. No’ unless someone’s squeezin’ has baws.” There was definite logic in what he said. So I put his theory to the test. I selected a song with a super-high vocal scream – Jag Panzer’s Harder Than Steel – and played the track at considerable volume, singing along with gusto. 26 seconds in – just as Harry Conklin’s voice soars into the upper register – I grabbed my balls and squeezed hard. I hit some really high notes. Not the right high notes, but high notes nonetheless.

14. Dark the Suns – Suru Raivosi Sydämeni Pimeydessä

Suru Raivosi Sydämeni Pimeydessä – easy for you to say! Those words are of course Finnish for “buy this album or we’ll kick you in the genitals”. Not really. It’s actually Finnish for “my grief raged in the darkness of my heart”. Which is a much better title, admittedly, than one about booting people in the nether regions.

Like previous Dark the Suns releases, this album is melodic death metal of the original Finnish variety, in the same vein as the titans of the genre: Insomnium, Amorphis, Omnium Gatherum, Wintersun, Swallow the Sun. Certain sections sound a bit like Mors Principium Est… and there’s nothing wrong with that. Vocals alternate between guttural roars and clean-toned singing – a technique pioneered by Insomnium’s Niilo. Done well (as they are here), this vocal duality is effective. It brings balance to the heaviness, light to the darkness, and emotional impact to the atmospherics.

15. Gojira – Fortitude

A hugely enjoyable chunk of heavy groove metal. For the first time on a Gojira record, the riffage features an unmistakable Pantera influence. Not just here or there but throughout most of the album. There are those trademark bouncy, groovy riffs and even the squealies (pinch harmonics, if you want to be all music theory about it) that Darrell used to amazing effect in Pantera’s music. In terms of Gojira 2021 vocals, they sound a lot like Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, to the extent that some parts of this record could be straight off KJ’s 2015 release Pylon (my equal-top album of that year). Gojira’s rhythm section, on the other hand, has a distinct tribal sound reminiscent of Sepultura’s circa Roots. No bad thing. But Fortitude isn’t just a cobbled-together bunch of influences. Sonically the album stands very firmly on the shoulders of giants (most notably Pantera, Killing Joke and Max Cavalera-era Sepultura), but it features song structures with true originality, even though they’re delivered using techniques that have been heard before. This band has never been about breaking new ground for the sake of it, though. They’ve always been about the groove, the songs, the flow, the totality of the sonic elements. Fortitude is a supremely listenable record, from start to finish.

16. Helloween – Helloween

Self-titled albums annoy me. Not musically but through their titles. How lazy is it to just fling out an album with the same name as the band? Smacks of can’t-be-arsedness. Imagine the flak I’d get if I released a book called Mark Rice! And rightly so. Pushing aside nomenclaturial gripes, though, let’s focus on the music. Helloween has been one of my favourite bands since they kicked off, back when I was a metal kid with hair like an untended hedge. Their Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I album was a life-changer for me. The first time I heard Future World I thought I was going to explode with awe. I played it over and over, going berserk, amazed by the Iron-Maiden-on-speed staccato riffing, and the stratospheric vocals of Michael Kiske. Since then the band has been through a few lineup changes but the quality of their material has never seriously dipped. I don’t think they’ve ever matched Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I – that album was a slice of magic: a unique occurrence that resulted from many outside factors aligning perfectly while band members felt simultaneously inspired and able to work together in harmony, without “creative differences” or bickering.

Helloween’s 2021 LP showcases this band’s talent. Masters of their craft. They make it sound easy.

17. Ken Hensley – My Book of Answers

The word legend is much overused these days. Some moron posts a 10-second video of himself doing something inane, and within days millions of other morons are hailing him as a legend. They have no clue. Ken Hensley was a legend. In fact, Ken Hensley was a LEGEND. Capitals, italics and bold font are required to stress the magnitude of his talent. I hate using the word “was” with regards to Ken. I miss him. He was, is and always will be a legend. There. That feels better.

As a kid I became familiar with Ken Hensley’s talent when I found the music of an absolute one-of-a-kind band called Uriah Heep. Like Jon Lord in Deep Purple, Ken Hensley was able to make the keyboards in Uriah Heep an integral part of the band’s sound – not a frilly extra as is usually the case in rock. Hensley’s keyboards were a driving force, pushing the music forwards, like a wave for the other instruments and vocals to ride on. Quite something to hear.

Hensley wasn’t just a keyboard player, though. He was a prolific composer, multi-instrumentalist and an amazing singer too. I love his body of work with Uriah Heep, I love the new dimension he brought into Blackfoot’s music during his time with them, and I love his solo albums. My Book of Answers resulted from a chance serendipitous meeting between Hensley and Russian poet Vladimir Emelin, a huge fan of Ken’s music. Emelin spotted Ken at an airport in Spain, recognised him, approached, introduced himself, and the two started chatting. They soon realised they were kindred spirits. An idea for a collaboration began percolating. That idea bore fruit: My Book of Answers. Emelin’s poetic words suit Hensley’s musical compositions perfectly. One thing really surprised me about this record: Hensley’s voice. For most of the album he sounds like Blue Öyster Cult’s Eric Bloom. The two voices have the same sort of resonance. That word yet again.

I’m certain there’s enough unreleased Ken Hensley material to fill at least a 10-LP box set, so this record may not be the last thing we hear from him. But who knows if or when that other material will see the light of day? In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying this record as the beautiful swan song it is.

18. Thor – Alliance

Ever since hearing Let the Blood Run Red on Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show as a kid (and buying the single on blood-red 12″ vinyl in my local record shop the next day), I’ve been a fan of Thor. The force of his music has never dimmed. The themes of his songs haven’t changed either. Jon-Mikl Thor is an old-school heavy-metal stalwart whose tunes explore the archetypal themes of mythology, strength, perseverance, loyalty to tribe, annihilating villains, and never taking any shit from anyone. Jon-Mikl Thor’s offstage persona isn’t much different from his onstage one. He’s metal to the core, all the time. Alliance is another epic addition to the Thor discography. A glorious slab of anthemic metal.

19. Katatonia – Mnemosynean

A comprehensive collection of rarities and B-sides, Mnemosynean is an eclectic listen. Because it covers the 30 years of Katatonia’s existence, this record allows the listener to hear the evolution of the band’s sound. Some of the earlier material sounds almost indistinguishable from The Sisters of Mercy – the heavy goth influence and Eldritch singing style is there. As the band members matured, so did their music, which took a progressive path, lightening for the most part but still dishing out wall-trembling riffage on occasion. I got the double-CD expanded edition of this album. So many songs, so much pleasure and melancholy. Jonas Renske’s voice (his true voice which he he sings with now, not his Eldritch-clone goth voice of the distant past) is astonishing. It’s at once relaxing, evocative and loaded with melancholy. A voice that can break your heart and fix it at the same time.

Amongst the tracks on this album is a cover version of Judas Priest’s stunning Night Comes Down. The sleeve art of Mnemosynean is also a tip o’ the hat to Priest: it’s a sort of Nordic mirror image of Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance artwork. Priest’s classic front cover features a giant robot warbird known as the Hellion screeching diagonally earthwards – wings up – against the backdrop of a crimson sun surrounded by yellow sky, with the album-title lettering in the slipstream. Katatonia’s cover art shows a raven rising diagonally – wings down – against the backdrop of a grey sun and a slightly less-grey sky, with the album-title lettering in the slipstream. The moment I saw the Katatonia cover art I knew it was a tribute to Priest’s. Respect indeed.

20. Timecop1983 – Faded Touch

I went on at length about most of the releases above, so this time I’ll keep it brief for a change. Faded Touch is sublime synthwave. It’s upbeat, uplifting, inspiring and dreamy. The sort of music that’ll have you tapping your foot to the beat whilst smiling in stunned awe at what you’re hearing. Play it through big speakers, sit in the sweet spot between them, and you’ll actually feel the frequencies pulsing in your body. I recommend that. It’s an enjoyable tune-up. There’s a big Vangelis influence and an equally strong Tangerine Dream one. When it comes to synth-based music, that sort of provenance is about as good as it gets. Some scorching guitar solos on this album, too – those came as a welcome surprise.

I put the Timecop1983 track On the Run (from previous album Night Drive) onto a compilation CD I made for the car. The wolfchild loves that tune as much as I do. Whenever he hears it, his default expression turns into a lupine grin and he looks at me as if to say, ‘That is phenomenal!‘ As you may already know (and if you don’t you’re about to find out), wolves are not just excellent judges of character, they also have impeccable musical taste.

A couple of my favourite bands – The Skids and Saxon – released albums of cover versions in 2021. I never include covers albums, tribute albums, greatest-hits compilations, best-of collections or live albums in my year lists. Only newly released original material is included, although it isn’t always newly recorded – sometimes it has been lying around in a studio for decades, such as box sets I got by Jimi Hendrix, Alex Harvey, and Lynyrd Skynrd (individually, not jamming together – although that would have been something to hear!). That rationale is why Katatonia’s Mnemosynean – an extensive collection of rarities and B-sides – made it onto my 2021 list, but covers albums by Saxon and The Skids didn’t. In terms of musical calibre, those covers records are strong enough to be included in the year list, but they’re not original songs – that’s why they’re not on the list. The Skids and Saxon never release less-than-impressive music. I’ve been listening to Saxon since I was ten, but I was listening to The Skids even before that, back when I was practically a baby. My elder brother was a huge punk fan and used to buy every 7″ vinyl single by Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex, The Rezillos, and – of course – Dunfermline’s finest, The Skids. I soaked up those sounds as a child. Loved them. Bounced around to them. Those tunes accompanied me through highs and lows, enhancing my joys and lightening my sorrows. I’ve been lucky enough to meet and spend time with both Saxon and The Skids, the former as a result of their inclusion in my novel Metallic Dreams – an adventure they were only too happy to be part of. In 2018 I spent a weekend with The Skids in their home town of Dunfermline, just three months after the death of my mum. While I was chatting with singer Richard Jobson, he said, “You’ve been listening to our music for so long now – since you were a kid barely out of nappies – you’re more than a fan.  You’re a friend.” A surreal, life-affirming moment.

Some folk say you should never meet your idols, as you’ll only be let down by the result. I reckon it’s unhealthy to perceive anyone as an idol but it’s healthy to admire artists whose work resonates with you. And when particular art – be it music, literature, poetry or visual art – really resonates with you there’s an overwhelming likelihood its creator(s) will too. After all, the art came from them. Whenever I’ve met the creators of music that affects me on the deepest level, they have always resonated with me.

I urge you to check out the 2021 covers albums by The Skids and Saxon. You’ll hear a diverse array of classic tunes played like never before. Pump The Skids’ rendition of Ace Frehley’s New York Groove through big speakers. It won’t just blow away the cobwebs – it’ll blow your mind (and maybe your speakers too). And The Skids’ cover of David Essex’s Rock On is immaculate, starting out as a heavy-yet-faithful rendition of the original, then Jobson goes all spoken word and tells an immersive story of ’70s Fife life, when – in Dunfermline’s Kinema ballroom on DJ nights – the song Rock On was the cue for the most feared local gang, the AV Toy, to kick off a spree of violence; that track became the soundtrack to the AV Toy’s bloodthirsty bonanzas. Years later Jobson told David Essex that Rock On had been a notorious gang song in the east of Scotland. Essex was surprised yet said he could understand how that track might become a gang’s chosen fight song, as the music has “a seething underbelly” to it. David Essex’s original is an example of sonic restraint and understatement. The Skids’ version is a wild beast unleashed.

It’s worth mentioning that Enuff Z’Nuff also released a covers album in 2021. It contains only Beatles covers. The Beatles’ influence on Enuff Z’Nuff’s music has always been easy to hear, so it made sense that one day Chip and the lads would do a full album of Beatles covers. I’d rather have had a new studio album from EZ’N, but one of those will probably appear soon. A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet Chip Z’Nuff in Bannerman’s Bar in Edinburgh after an Enuff Z’Nuff show there. My friend Bruce – aka vocalist Thunderfuck from The Deadly Romantics – has been friends with Chip for decades. After Bruce introduced us at Bannerman’s, Chip and I had a good chat about music, writing, art and all that good creative stuff. I’m happy to report that Chip is just as friendly, upbeat and adorable in real life as his starry-eyed onstage persona implies. Peace and love personified.

In addition to all the releases mentioned above, there was an abundance of other new music that impressed me in 2021. You’ve read my top 20 list (which contains 28 items, breaking the “laws” of arithmetic) and my thoughts on 3 excellent covers albums. It would seem wrong to not mention the other artists whose new sounds enriched (and continue to enrich) my existence. So I offer love and thanks to Diana Ross, Wolfchant, Accept, Styx, Trivium, Tragedy (the second-gayest metal band on the planet, after Pink Stëël), Perturbator, Exodus, Night Ranger, Vangelis, Рожь, Ghost Bath, Devin Townsend, Jim Peterik and World Stage, Enslaved, Smith-Kotzen, Electric Boys, Sol Sistere, Скверна линия, Cân Bardd, Arde, Mostly Autumn, Bonfire, Thundermother (not the ’60s UK proggers but the 21st Century hairy sweaty heavy-metal burds from Sweden… not that there’s anything wrong with that – some of my most enjoyable experiences have been with hairy sweaty heavy-metal burds from somewhere or other), Rob Zombie, Ozric Tentacles, A Pale Horse Named Death, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, Skold, Michael Schenker Group, Fenris Vrede, Colotyphus, Folkrim, Gloosh, Einherjer, Blackmore’s Night, Alda, Yes, Tiesto, Kemerov, Fugit, Wolves in the Throne Room, Medwyn Goodall, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Olhava, HammerFall, Korpiklaani, Lindemann, Vouna, Eternal Valley, Kalmankataja, A Sea of Dead Trees, Jean-Michel Jarre, KK’s Priest, Aephanamer, Toyah, Eard, Athemon, Billy Gibbons, Cheap Trick, Mitch Murder, Faithless, The Darkness, Steven Wilson, Lesbian Bed Death, Ars Magna Umbrae, The Mission, Billy Idol, Alice Cooper, The Stranglers, Aquilus, Kreationist, Olio Tahtien Takana, Panopticon, Unreqvited, Breath of Wind, Bodom After Midnight, The Dropkick Murphys, Ruadh, Stormtide, Windfaerer, Firienholt, Ethereal Shroud, Lucifer, Nemorous, Koto, Flotsam and Jetsam, Medenera, Limp Bizkit, Joel Hoekstra’s 13, Auri, Mammoth WVH (the new project of Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang), Bellatrix, Iron Maiden, Cradle of Filth, Peter Goalby, Trevor Bolder, Lee Kerslake, and last but definitely not least, Lee Aaron (fwooooooaaaaaaaaar, etc. – sorry about that… the 12-year old me whose bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Ms Aaron took over for a moment).

As for the most epic work of metal fiction ever conceived – the sequel to Metallic Dreams – it’s nearly complete. More than twice as long as its predecessor – so big it’ll bend bookshelves – it’s an anarchic novel that doesn’t so much push the envelope as take a flamethrower to it. Readers who ask about the sequel’s progress have heard “it’s nearly finished” so many times I’m beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf. That may be a good analogy, because in that story the wolf did come eventually. When the time was right. Just like this novel. It’s worth the wait, I promise. The ending is written and the cover art is done. Just a few more chapters need to be transposed from my mind onto the page. Then the book will be ready. Cometh the hour, cometh the story.

Until then I’ll be incommunicado, either writing immersed in music, or somewhere in the wilderness with the wolfchild.

If you haven’t read Metallic Dreams (and if you haven’t, why not… eh… EH?) now’s the time to do so. You’ll then be ready for the sequel. The remastered edition of Metallic Dreams (which I spent a full year creating in late 2018 and early 2019) is at a reduced price on Kindle worldwide until that sequel arrives. It’s available in paperback form too. Or if you want to go all flashy and splash out a bit, there’s a hardback edition of the remaster. I’ll post links below. Click the bloody pentalpha to be taken to the Kindle page. Click the molten gold candlewax pentalpha to go to the hardback page. One orthodox Greek priest who is renowned for his attacks on anything he considers “of the Devil” (his kung-fu attacks on ATM machines are infamous in Athens) saw a promo front cover of the Metallic Dreams Greek translation and immediately tore it to shreds. He then announced that if the book is released in Greece, he will decry everyone involved as heretics and will publicly burn the novel. So my Greek translator friend mailed a paperback copy of the Greek edition to the priest, who subsequently burned the book and declared me a heretic (this shouldn’t come as a surprise to many people). If I ever set foot in Greece, there could be a Mortal Kombat-style battle between the kung-fu priest and me, Muay Thai Markie. You can’t buy that sort of book publicity.

As an extra gift (don’t say I’m not good to you), I’ve posted a short video (2 minutes 24 seconds) of in-car karaoke featuring the wolfchild dancing and me “singing” along to the the equal-greatest song of all time (which we’ve already established is I Could Be So Good for You by Dennis Waterman). There’s also a short burst of CW McCall’s Convoy (from the film of the same name) after that. I’ve embedded a link to the video on this page. Scroll down to beneath the Metallic Dreams covers and you’ll see it. I recommend choosing 1080p as video quality – don’t accept the default ‘Auto’ setting. Best seen in its true resolution and viewed full screen. And please feel free to sing/howl along.

Kindle Edition

Hardback Edition

My Top Albums of 2020

It was a good year for metal, a decent year for rock, a so-so year for electronica, and a not-much-happening year for punk. Every year’s a good one for metal, though. It expands and diversifies, evolving and surviving. Even in the ’90s when the print media – horseshit-talkers to a man – was blethering about “the death of metal” and claiming Kurt Cobain and Nirvana had killed it, actual events proved otherwise. Some of metal’s biggest-selling outfits sold fewer albums during the grunge years, but the old guard rolled on regardless, continuing to record new music, release it, and play it live around the world. Meanwhile, the Second Wave of Black Metal was building momentum in ways that changed the face of the genre forever. That Second Wave – or, as some call it, the First Wave of Norwegian Black Metal – saw a phenomenal surge in creativity which continues to this day. And just a few miles away in Finland, the melodic-death-metal scene was being born. It spawned the trailblazing bands Amorphis, Omnium Gatherum, Swallow the Sun, Insomnium, Ensiferum and Wintersun. A few miles in the other direction, Sweden’s Gothenburg scene was blossoming, with In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and Soilwork spearheading the vanguard. Yet magazines continued to print their nonsense about the death of metal, which in reality had never been more alive. The main breeding grounds had moved. That’s all. Metal was born in Britain in the late ’60s and grew there throughout the ’70s and right up to the early ’80s, with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (or NWoBHM to those in the know) spawning a staggering depth and breadth of talent. In the early ’80s the main breeding grounds moved to the US as the thrash movement (and, hot on its heels, the death-metal movement) exploded from San Francisco Bay Area (or in death metal’s case, South Florida) out to all other parts of that nation. And beyond. Then in the ’90s the main breeding grounds moved again, this time to the icy north – Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark – where they remain to this day. I don’t see that ever changing again. Finland spends five times more on musical education per capita than any other country does. It’s no accident that so many of the most talented musicians on the planet hail from Finland. Or that Finland has more metal bands per square mile than any other nation on Earth. By far. The cold beauty of that landscape plays its role too, as does the mythology of the people.

I usually have a difficult time choosing my favourite album of any given year, sometimes so much so that I award joint #1 to two or more records which I can’t separate in terms of quality. But in 2020, for the first time ever, it was an easy decision. The top album won by such a huge margin – a chasm – that the others couldn’t touch it or even get close. The album in question wasn’t by a Finnish or Scandinavian outfit either. Rather, it was a new release from one of the aforementioned old guard – the most transcendent recording they’ve ever created. A thing of utter sonic perfection. Without any further ado (or adon’t, or amight), here’s my list, starting with that astonishing slab of metal.

1. Armored Saint – Punching the Sky

John Bush gets my vote for best metal vocalist in the known Universe. He always knows exactly what note to hit, how much intensity to hit it with, what tone(s) to use, and how long to sustain it for maximum emotional impact. In short, the man’s a vocal powerhouse. He approaches singing in the same way he approaches life: fearlessly. I saw him fronting Anthrax a few times in Glasgow. At one of those gigs, Bush climbed up a huge stack of Marshall amps. When he reached the top, he was so high that he couldn’t stand up straight without putting his head through the ceiling. He stood there semi-crouched, looking out over the crowd. Then he leaned forwards, swaying back and forth like he was preparing to jump. I thought, ‘Surely he won’t. He’s a long way up.’ He did. Not some half-hearted jump either. A full-force launch that sent him flying over the crowd, whose upstretched hands caught him safely and passed him back to the stage. That is a frontman. Punching the Sky came 5 years after its predecessor. It was worth every minute of the wait. It’s a barnstormer of a record, an immaculate masterpiece – a gesamtkunstwerk – jaw-droppingly impressive throughout, from the haunting Uilleann pipe intro of opening track Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (an intro which reminds me of Gerry Rafferty’s Shipyard Town – one of my favourite songs) to the riproaring strains of closer Never You Fret. It’d normally be difficult to pick a favourite song on an album that’s utterly perfect, but in this case it’s easy – Lone Wolf is out of this world. It’s not as instantly haunting as the opening track, but after 10 seconds of slow Sabbathesque riffage it shows its true colours, baring its teeth and morphing into a hungrier beast. The verse is a slow-burner but the bridge is pure sonic magic. Then, just as it seems impossible for the song to get any better, the chorus hits and John Bush comes into his own. The chorus of Lone Wolf brings tears to my eyes, sends shivers rippling through me, causes all my body hair to stand up and the flesh at the base of each hair to steeple: an awe response. On that chorus Bush isn’t human-singing. He’s wolf-singing. Not high-pitched howls but drawn-out lupine lowing so plaintive and loaded with longing, it has a monumental emotional impact on the listener. John Bush: a wolf in human form. Armored Saint: stronger than they’ve ever been before.

2. Enslaved – Utgard

A near-perfect album from one of Norway’s most iconic and influential metal outfits. Enslaved’s recorded output has slowed a bit over the past decade, not through apathy or abandonment, but because frontman Ivar Bjørnson and his friend Einar Selvik (formerly drummer with black-metal titans Gorgoroth, and then founder/frontman of Wardruna) collaborated on their two groundbreaking Viking-folk-roots recordings Skuggsjá and Hugsjá. Bjørnson has brought some of these influences into Enslaved’s music (which was always rich in folk influences, but originally these manifested thematically, not musically). On Utgard these folk-roots qualities are more notable than on any previous Enslaved record, and the album’s all the better for it. Still, this is very much a metal album. There’s plenty of incendiary riffage and that familiar Bjørnson growl, but there are also quieter musical interludes (reminiscent of Opeth’s recent heavy-prog style) and some clean singing too. I love when I can hear a band evolving and growing from album to album, adding new influences and experimenting with new sounds, without abandoning the original vision. That’s musical maturity. Enslaved now understands that the spaces in between the notes are as important as the notes themselves, that both light and shade are necessary in order to create atmospherics. Utgard is one atmospheric album. Its vast sweeping soundscapes conjure images of frozen tundra, icy winds, angry seas, mountains, ravens, Vikings and the pantheon of Nordic deities. For every burst of aggression, there’s an ambient interlude to counterbalance it. That’s something Utgard gets just right: balance. It’s the sound of a band in control of its craft. Tracks this rich in atmospherics and emotional resonance don’t happen by accident or by following some music-by-numbers formula. These are personal songs composed and performed from the heart.

3. Pendragon – Love Over Fear

I’ve loved Pendragon since I was 10. Back then, my elder brother’s best friend (known to all as “Big Pete”) was a roadie for Pendragon and Marillion, neither of which had record deals yet. The giant Pete used to bring me demo tapes, badges and patches of those bands. That was a magical experience for me: being there at the very beginning, hearing amazing music by bands that other people – even rock and metal fans – hadn’t heard of. I felt like I was being entrusted with sacred secret sounds, which I suppose I was. Marillion went on to become one of the biggest rock bands in Britain. Pendragon didn’t achieve anywhere near that level of commercial success, but – full credit to them – they never went away. They stuck to their guns, creating some of the greatest and most underrated heavy prog albums on record. Love Over Fear might just be the greatest Pendragon album of all. And what an appropriate title. The first 55 seconds annoy me – I don’t know what kind of mushroom trip made Nick Barrett think that intro was a good idea. But after that, things improve immeasurably. The guitar tones are sublime – very much like the signature tone of Marillion’s Steve Rothery. Lyrically, the album is angry, observant and uplifting. One recurring theme is: seeing through and overcoming the lies and propaganda that have been ravaging the world. That’s a timely message, when most people have lost the ability to think independently, use critical-thinking skills and apply logical analysis to see through the lies spewed by so-called governments and medical authorities (two huge misnomers), and the mainstream media (news and social).

4. Paradise Lost – Obsidian

One of my favourite bands since they first riffed their way out of Halifax back in the ’90s. Obsidian is quintessential Paradise Lost. It combines the catchiness of the One Second and Symbol of Life albums with the doominess of early PL material and the heaviness of Obsidian‘s predecessor, Medusa. An ideal blend. As always, Nick Holmes’s vocals manage to be simultaneously dour and uplifting. That’s a paradox, I know, but Paradise Lost has always been a band steeped in duality: heavy yet catchy; gloomy yet inspiring; pessimistic but born survivors.

5. Blue Öyster Cult – The Symbol Remains

It had been a long time since a BÖC studio album arrived – almost 20 years. I’d heard Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma talk about an all-acoustic album they’d been considering for ages and might get around to recording/releasing. This isn’t it. The Symbol Remains is electrified and loud – it’s Blue Öyster Cult on top form doing what they do best: layering unique vocals and backing harmonies over glorious guitar riffage, while a rock-solid rhythm section keeps everything structured to perfection. This album came somewhat out of the blue. I’d seen the band perform live just a few months earlier in Glasgow, but they said nothing about a forthcoming album. Kept it very much under their hats. This meant a big surprise when I received a ‘you may be interested in’ e-mail with a link to a new Blue Öyster Cult record. I may be interested? I couldn’t be more interested! It’s perhaps appropriate that during the interim between BÖC’s most recent albums – 2003’s The Curse of the Hidden Mirror and The Symbol Remains in 2020 – Swedish band Ghost borrowed/stole/recycled the BÖC musical/vocal blueprint and melded it with Mercyful Fate’s darker sensibilities to great effect. Now the masters have returned to show that they can still do it like no one else. Others can mimic the style, but it’s never quite the same.

A wee Blue Öyster Cult story for you. In the early 2000s they played a couple of shows – 1 year apart – at my favourite gig venue (ever since Glasgow Apollo closed), originally called The Renfrew Ferry but later renamed The Ferry. At the first of these shows my journalist friend Mike (who was reviewing the show for a Scottish daily newspaper) was in his usual spot upstairs, directly above and behind the stage. (The main crowd/stage area downstairs had once been the ship’s engine room. In order to turn the vessel into a concert venue, the ship had to be disemboweled to make room for a stage platform and standing audience space.) Mikey and I prefer to be upstairs at Ferry gigs, seated at one of the few tables on the perimeter of the upper deck. This vantage point offers an uninterrupted view of the stage. Plus you can buy chips upstairs. And, in Mike’s case, beer too. At Blue Öyster Cult’s first Ferry gig, Mike went to the bar to buy a fresh pint of beer just before the band was due to arrive onstage. While he was on his way back to the table – which was right above the drum kit – the lights went out and BÖC stepped onto the stage. As the band launched into its opening track, Mikey rushed back to the table, tripped over a chair leg, and dropped his glass on the tabletop. The glass tipped and the full pint of beer poured down onto drummer Bob Rondinelli’s head. The poor bastard had only just sat on his drum stool and already he was drenched. Many drummers would have thrown a tantrum at that point. Some would have walked offstage and refused to perform. Rondinelli wiped beer out of his eyes but kept on playing. A true professional. A year later Mikey and I were back on The Ferry, awaiting the arrival of Blue Öyster Cult. I’d insisted on sitting at a different table upstairs – one at the right-hand side, in a location that offered a diagonal-front view of the stage and made it impossible for clumsy Mike to spill beer on the band. A few seconds into the gig, I’m watching Rondinelli closely to see if he looks up. I figure he plays thousands of gigs in thousands of venues, so he may not remember that this particular location was where he received a pint of beer on top of his napper. But he did remember! About 30 seconds into the first track, he looked up and an expression of recognition (and horror) appeared on his face. I nudged Mike with my elbow and pointed this out, laughing so hard I could barely hear the music. During the gig, Rondinelli looked up nervously 15 or 20 times, obviously wondering if/when he’d be soaked by a torrent of some idiot’s beer. I said to Mike, “Look! Look what you’ve done tae Rondinelli! He’s a nervous wreck! You’ve given him a twitch!” Bobby played beautifully, as always, but every time he looked up with that worried expression I fell apart laughing and shook my head at my eejit friend Mike. That’s my favourite Blue Öyster Cult story.

6. Diamond Head – Lightning to the Nations 2020

When I first saw this advertised I thought it might be a 2020 remaster of the original Lightning to the Nations album – Diamond Head’s debut – which I’ve loved since I was a kid. If it had been, it wouldn’t have qualified for an album-of-the-year list. Those are for new studio recordings only – not compilations, remasters or live albums. But LttN2020 is a complete revamp and re-recording of the tracks from the original record, plus some cover versions of other artists’ songs. Those early Diamond Head tracks are some of the most iconic metal ever recorded. They couldn’t be bettered in terms of song quality or compositional creativity. But the production values of the early material were sketchy, so there was a lot of room for improvement there. LttN2020 revamps the old songs enough to make them new and fresh – not just clones of the classics. These tracks are whole new animals – they’re still recognisable as the classic DH songs, yet they have a different sonic DNA. Vocalist Rasmus Bom Andersen sounds enough like original singer Sean Harris to give this record that quintessential Diamond Head sound, yet Andersen’s voice has enough of its own character to make this a new Diamond Head rather than a band trying to reproduce its old sound. Andersen also plays back-up guitars on the record, as well as being mixer and producer. He did an amazing job of the production. Every nuance of every track is fit to bear the name Diamond Head. It’s a phenomenal record. I was over the moon to receive a copy signed by all five members of the band – fantastic! One thing DH lacks now, though, is a member with a truly heavy-metal name. They lacked that in the beginning too. But they did once have a vocalist with perhaps the best name in metal: Nick Tart. He sang for them during the 12 years between Harris’s departure and Andersen’s arrival. I cannot confirm whether Nick has sisters named Strawberry and Slutty, but I like to think he does. I realise I’ve gone off topic a bit, but this is my blog and I’ll fucking well go off piste if I like. So there.

7. Biff Byford – School of Hard Knocks

Biff Byford is one of my favourite people on the planet. I love him. Not in the sense that I want to rip off his clothes and tamper with him, but in the platonic sense of having major respect for the man as an artist, a vocalist, a musician and a human being. While writing my first book, Metallic Dreams, and seeking permission to quote certain song lyrics in the manuscript, I quickly found out that record companies are greedy bastards who do nothing unless there’s a lot of money in it for them (in my experience there was only one exception – EMI Germany). Record companies – especially major labels – like to retain legal ownership of the music and lyrics of all the artists on their roster, even though the folk at the record labels didn’t compose the songs or write the lyrics. This is an area where many bands have been shafted, finding – to their horror – that despite selling many records (sometimes millions) they’re still broke…but the record company isn’t! Fledgling artists would do well to learn that lesson: don’t give away legal ownership of your art – retain it at all costs. This is true in all types of art, but music in particular is an arena where corporate entities have been financially shafting artists since recorded music became a business. Anyway, back to Biff. I had approached several record companies asking permission to quote lyrics from albums released on their labels. Most of these companies either didn’t respond or replied with something along the lines of, “Permission to quote said lyric in your book will cost you £X per word.” The X value varied from company to company but it was always a big number, particularly the X that Sony Music asked for. Sony’s X was so ridiculously high that I sent them a picture of my bare arse along with the words, “This is my arse. Kiss it. And by the way, since I hold complete legal rights over that arse (as well as any and all images of it), each kiss will cost you £X.” (X being the same figure they had requested from me.) I thought they might see the funny side of this, realise they were being pricks, and waive all costs. But I never heard back from Sony, so I never quoted those particular lyrics in my book. EMI Germany, on the other hand, was far more accommodating. I had requested permission to quote a chunk of the lyric to Rocking Again, from the Saxon album Innocence Is No Excuse (originally released on the EMI Germany label). EMI replied quickly and helpfully, explaining that they didn’t own the legal rights to Saxon’s lyrics – Biff Byford did. They suggested that I contact Saxon’s (then) manager Leonard Loers and provided me with his e-mail address. I fired off a quick message to Leo, telling him the premise of the book, detailing exactly what lyrics I wanted to quote (a fairly big chunk), and assuring him that in the story every mention of Saxon is affectionate and born out of love for the band’s music. Moments later Leo sent me a reply that said, “I’ll phone Biff to ask.” A few minutes after that, another e-mail arrived from Leo. This one said, “Biff says yes! He’s excited about it.” No mention of money, no requests or demands for payment. None of that shit. Just a big beautiful excited yes. I felt the same magic I’d experienced as a kid of 10, when I first heard Saxon’s music. Over the next few months I sent Leo periodic updates on the book’s progress. When the novel was nearly finished, I received an e-mail from Leo saying, “Biff was wondering if he could have a signed copy of the book when it’s ready.” I replied, “Of course! I’d be honoured for him to have one.” A couple of days after that, another e-mail arrived from Leo: “Now the other guys in the band want signed copies too! They’re feeling left out. Could they have a signed copy each? Would that be possible?” I replied, “Yes! Of course. I’ll send ten signed copies: six named and signed copies – one for each of the band, and one for you – as well as four plain signed copies for wives/roadies/whomever else in the Saxon camp might want one.” So that was that – I sent the ten books to Leo in Germany, making sure the package arrived before Saxon set off on tour…because secretly I loved the idea of Biff and his bandmates reading my book in their bunks as the Saxon tour bus rolled through Europe. The very thought of that felt surreal and life-affirming. A few weeks later, at Saxon’s Glasgow gig, I met Biff and the band after the show. We talked about their tour and my book, which Biff told me he’d been reading on the bus in between shows. He quoted an incident from the story (from chapter 2, in which the 10-year-old Spark MacDubh first discovers heavy metal, in the form of the Saxon song Princess of the Night). As Biff and I stood in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street talking about my story, the karmic nature of the experience hit me: since I was a kid Saxon’s music had been playing a huge part in my life – changing it for the better, widening my horizons and opening new dimensions; now Biff and his Saxon compadres were enjoying something I’d created. That felt so good – and surreal – it made all the blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids I’d put into the book’s creation worthwhile. Before leaving to drive home that night, I asked the five members of Saxon (and Leo) to sign the same page of a fresh copy of Metallic Dreams. I loved the idea of having on my bookshelf a copy of my book signed by all of them. They thought it was a cracking idea and were happy to oblige. Since then, I’ve been put on the guest list for every Saxon show in Glasgow. They treat me like family because that’s the kind of human beings they are.

Now, to Biff’s solo album. Right from the outset of opening track Welcome to the Show, this record is magic. Most of the songs on School of Hard Knocks would fit right in on a Saxon album, but there are three delicate ballads that showcase a softer side to the Byford voice: (1) Throw Down the Sword; (2) Me and You; (3) a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair. The voice is still instantly recognisable as Biff’s, but it’s good to hear him occasionally ease back from his usual stratospherics in order to sing in a more relaxed fashion. There’s also a spoken-word track – Inquisitor – that’s too short to have much impact. (Biff has a perfect voice for spoken-word compositions – listen to Saxon’s Kingdom of the Cross to hear what I mean: it’s an immaculate track on which the Byford vocal delivery is spellbinding.) By comparison, Inquisitor is just a short filler between one song and another. It doesn’t hinder the album but doesn’t add much either. School of Hard Knocks is what I hoped it would be: a strong album that sounds a lot like Saxon most of the time but contains a few welcome surprises too. Best of both worlds. You can’t knock that.

8. Karg – Traktat

Often characterised as ‘depressive black metal’, Karg’s music is – to me – uplifting. It’s cathartic and angry, for sure, especially the vocals, and the musical backing has a lament quality (I nearly wrote ‘a lamentable quality’ there by accident!), but the overall emotional effect is, on me at least, absolutely positive. I find this to be true of much so-called depressive black metal and ambient black metal too. Partly it’s a cathartic thing. Hearing a musical artist who’s unafraid to bare his heart and soul – unafraid to channel his deepest pain and anguish into his music – is cathartic to hear because the listener senses it’s the sound of someone undergoing healing through music. It’s honest. And vulnerable. Pure too. Uncontrived. Those qualities are in short supply, which makes them all the more precious.

9. Katatonia – City Burials

One of the most consistently impressive bands, period. There’s never been a weak Katatonia track, let alone a weak album. The atmospherics are astonishing. Part of the genius of Katatonia is the way even their heaviest melodies are complemented by Jonas Renske’s hypnotic silk-smooth vocals. This creates a unique ambience. Many of their tracks are deceptively heavy – deceptive because Renske’s soaring voice can lull the listener into believing (s)he’s hearing something much lighter than it actually is. Then the listener notices a particular down-tuned riff that makes the walls shudder, or a guitar solo of savage intensity. This is the hallmark of Katatonia: blending velvet vocals and deceptively heavy music that’s memorable, catchy and overflowing with atmosphere. City Burials is a worthy successor to The Fall of Hearts and continues in the same musical vein.

10. AC/DC – Power Up

AC/DC studio albums don’t come around often these days. After the death of founding band member/rhythm guitarist/key songwriter/producer Malcolm Young, it didn’t seem likely that there would be another AC/DC album, particularly one that contained Malcolm’s imprint. In that respect, Power Up was a surprise. (In 2014 AC/DC recorded Rock or Bust without Malcolm, who wasn’t physically well enough to participate. It sounded like AC/DC by numbers – not bad, but lacking the special magic that’s present on so much of the band’s back catalogue.) I suppose Angus must’ve felt pressure to make Power Up a strong album, as it’s the first to come after Malcolm’s death. Angus stated that Power Up is dedicated to Malcolm in the same way Back in Black was dedicated to Bon Scott. Although recorded by the same lineup that created Rock or Bust – with Angus and Malcolm’s nephew Stevie once again filling in for Malcolm on rhythm guitar and backing vocals – Power Up has Malcolm’s presence all over it. Angus crafted some of the tracks out of previously unused musical ideas Malcolm had come up with, so the end result sounds very much like quintessential AC/DC. On this record Stevie Young sounds just like his uncle did. With Stevie’s flawless rhythm playing, Phil Rudd’s signature four-on-the-floor beat and the pounding bass of Cliff Williams laying down AC/DC’s trademark sonic foundation, lead guitarist Angus Young and singer Brian Johnson are free to run riot all over the tracks, which they do in style. They sound like they’re having fun too. The record doesn’t contain any songs that I consider all-time AC/DC classics, but there aren’t any fillers either. Power Up is full to the gunnels with bouncy anthems that get feet tapping, heads banging, voices chanting, and air guitarists abusing their instruments with gusto.

There were many other cracking albums released in 2020. Rather than turning this blog post into a novel-length thing (it’s already heading that way) by waxing lyrical about my top 20 (or 30, or 40, or more) albums of last year, I’ll offer my thoughts on only the top 10 but will list below, in no particular order, the other 2020 records that impressed me.

British Lion – The Burning

Revolution Saints – Rise

Thor – Rising

Ayreon – Transitus

Ensiferum – Thalassic

Missing Persons – Dreaming

Varg – Zeichen

Sojourner – Premonitions

Kvelertor – Splid

Ross the Boss – Born of Fire

Raven – Metal City

Winterfylleth – The Reckoning Dawn

Reb Beach – A View from the Inside

Heaven Shall Burn – Of Truth and Sacrifice

Faidra – Six Voices Inside

Mezcaleros – The Preacher

Neal Schon – Universe

Heathen – Empire of the Blind

Stone Temple Pilots – Perdida

Deftones – Ohms

Marco Hietala – Pyre of the Black Heart

The Night Flight Orchestra – Aeromantic

Secrets of the Moon – Black House

Trivium – What the Dead Men Say

Cirith Ungol – Forever Black

Deep Purple – Whoosh!

Belore – Journey Through Mountains and Valleys

Lionheart – The Reality of Miracles

Lucifer – Lucifer III

My Dying Bride – The Ghost of Orion

Napalm Death – Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism

Cloven Hoof – Age of Steel

Fish – Weltschmerz

FM – Synchronized

Midnight Odyssey – Ruins of a Celestial Fire

Conception – State of Deception

Bonfire – Fistful of Fire

Ludovico Einaudi – 12 Songs from Home

Moby – All Visible Objects

Tangerine Dream – Recurring Dreams

Testament – Titans of Creation

Ozric Tentacles – Space for the Earth

Lightracer – Across the Dark Sky

Dance with the Dead – Blackout

Snowy White and The White Flames – Something on Me

Ray Wylie Hubbard – Co-Starring

Neil Young – Homegrown

Sodom – Genesis XIX

Bruce Hornsby – Non-Secure Connection

That’s all for now. Happy listening. Till next time, keep your powder dry and your naughty bits wet.

Slàinte mhath!

My Top 25 Albums of 2019

1. Rotting Christ – The Heretics

In the same musical vein as its predecessor Rituals, this is epic, riff-laden metal driven by Sakis Tolis’s untamed growl, which would send the faint of heart scurrying for cover. Also like Rituals, there’s a strong religious theme (anti-religion is a religion in itself), with greater use made of choral backing vocals – like chants of the darkest Satanic monks. The command of melody is astonishing. It isn’t easy to combine extreme heaviness with inspired melody. Anyone can make a noise, but only Rotting Christ can do it like this. An immaculate conception.

2. Insomnium – Heart Like a Grave

Insomnium albums have topped my charts several times in previous years. Their 2006 recording Above the Weeping World is my equal-favourite LP of all time. The prospect of new music from the band always excites and worries me (worry that the new material might fall short of the exceedingly high bar set by their previous work). They’ve never disappointed. Heart Like a Grave is loaded with the cold wintry metal that Insomnium has pioneered for 20 years. No one else does it quite like them. Another phenomenal record from masters of their craft.

3. Finsterforst – Zerfall

Finsterforst’s music is the perfect sonic expression of their home turf: the Black Forest in Germany. It’s dark, sweeping, beautiful, loaded with atmosphere and full of surprises. And it’s heavy. Make that HEAVY. I’ve enjoyed all their albums since the band’s inception, but 2014’s Mach Dich Frei! was a quantum leap forward. Zerfall is every bit as good. The guitar work alternates between mellifluous Queensrӱchesque refrains and awe-inspiring riffs. Vocals are for the most part clean, although there’s plenty of guttural growling for good measure. Production values are astonishing. Another gesamtkunstwerk from one of the best and most underrated bands on the planet.

4. Blut Aus Nord – Hallucinogen

Since hearing Blut Aus Nord’s debut album, Ultima Thulée, I’ve been hooked on this band. BAN tracks don’t follow the usual intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-widdlyguitarsolo-chorus-end pattern. They don’t follow any prescribed pattern at all. To even call them tracks seems inadequate. They’re vast soundscapes of beautiful heaviness. Each one takes the listener’s mind on a journey to places (s)he didn’t know existed. Yet these places feel familiar. This French outfit isn’t comprised of mere musicians: they’re sorcerers of sound with a knack for discovering jaw-dropping combinations of melody, harmony, überheavy riffage and otherworldly vocals. Hallucinogen sees them on stunning form once again. Stunning in the literal sense as well as the metaphorical. Play this album on a good sound system, turn it up loud, and you will be stunned. The atmospherics of Haallucinählia, for example, flit between divine heaviness and spine-tingling delicate sections, all of which work perfectly. BAN describe themselves as “Theoricians of Insane Aestheticism, creators of a hallucinogenic universe, erasing all preconceived ideas of Black Metal – and extreme music in general. We redefine the rules…” Yes, they do. And holy shit, they do it well.

5. Borknagar – True North

I like Borknagar’s image as much as the music: cold, northern (I don’t mean pretend-northern like Newcastle – I mean real northern…Vikings from the icy wastes of Norway), and grown-up (you won’t find any songs about going to a party on a Saturday night, or motorcycles, or big-titted women with quick-release panties and flexible morals, or any other clichéd metal tropes). This is thinking people’s metal. It’s philosophical and soulful. Borknagar’s only peer in terms of musical style is Sweden’s Vintersorg (another of my favourite bands, whose Till fjälls album is a milestone in Scandinavian metal). Both Vintersorg’s and Borknagar’s music contains a hint of Bathory, but any metal band that isn’t influenced by Bathory deserves to be lined up and kicked vigorously in the bollocks. Harsh, perhaps, but there it is. The standout track on True North is also the quietest one: a meditative, trancelike vocal called Voices, which reaches into the soul and stirs up awe.

6. Jean-Michel Jarre – Snapshots from Eon

My thoughts of JMJ have been aired many times. I consider him a true genius. That’s not a word I use lightly. He’s the ultimate pioneer of electronica. Oxygène was the album that introduced me to Jarre, when as a kid I heard it at London Planetarium…and the entire Universe was in those melodies. Even now, decades later, that album sounds futuristic, its message to look after the planet more important than ever. Snapshots from Eon is another monumental recording from the master. Only 2,000 of them will ever be made. It’s a signed double-vinyl, 3CD, coffee-table-book combo. The music’s instantly recognisable as JMJ: glorious synth sounds and walls of bass, perfect percussion and inspired melodies. The Snapshots from Eon box set’s release coincided with the launch of Jarre’s Eon app for iPhone – a dynamic, constantly evolving suite of music he describes as, “Like an infinite album. Each time you play the music, it’s going to generate something special for you.” To Hell with iPhones, I say. They’re annoying and their sound quality’s shite. Jarre’s music deserves better. Playing SfE on a serious hi-fi setup – the only kind I touch – is an amazing, immersive experience.

7. Xentrix – Bury the Pain

The best British thrash band ever? As the folk at Carlsberg would say, probably. I’ve loved Xentrix’s music since they first emerged. Their insane rendition of Ghostbusters just might be the best cover version of all time. They’ve been gone a long time, though, so in early 2019, when I received an e-mail informing me there would be a brand-new Xentrix studio album coming soon, I felt the same mixture of excitement and trepidation I always feel when a band I love returns after a long time away. Excitement because I hope the new material will be as good as the back catalogue. Trepidation because I don’t want them to release something substandard and in doing so taint an otherwise-perfect legacy. Guess what? Bury the Pain is better than Xentrix’s previous albums. Decades away from studio recording didn’t dull their weapons. It had the opposite effect. The songwriting’s masterful, the musicianship’s amazing, the anger is present in spades, the production is crystal clear, and the band is tighter than a nun’s fanny (yes, I know there are slutty nuns, but I’m talking about the other ones). A welcome return from an ultra-talented and criminally underrated band.

8. The Hu – The Gereg

The Hu’s Mongolian folk rock (I won’t call it metal, because it definitely isn’t – if you want gung-ho berserk Mongolian folk metal, listen to Tengger Cavalry’s Blood Sacrifice Shaman, a mind-blowing record which topped my album-of-the-year list when it came out) is so rich in atmospherics, authenticity, musical quality and heart, listening to it on a good sound system is nothing short of a spiritual experience. Like Tengger Cavalry, The Hu chooses lyrical themes about homeland, nature, humanity, and of course Genghis Khan, or, to give him his proper Mongolian name, Chinggis Khaan. Some of the vocals are delivered in throat-singing style, which I find meditative to listen to. The band plays traditional Mongolian instruments as well as electrified western ones to deliver their blend of indigenous folk and rock. It works.

9. Thunderfuck and The Deadly Romantics – Dirty Sleazy Rock ‘n’ Roll

You know what you’re getting with The Deadlies – their music is like AC/DC, The Cult, Rose Tattoo, and Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction flung into a blender and set to stun. The band had called it a day and released a swansong album a couple of years ago, after founder member and vocalist Bruce Hotchkies relocated back to his native Canada (a polite way of saying “fled Scotland to avoid the law”), but you can’t keep a good man down. Soon he had reconnected with his original bandmates in The Deadly Romantics – a bunch of Canadian vagabonds whom you wouldn’t let near your daughter (or your auntie, or your mother…you get the point). Confused yet? The Deadly Romantics started in Canada an untold time ago, with Bruce at the helm. When he moved to Scotland, the rest of the band stayed in Canada. Bruce recruited new members – Scottish hooligans to a man – and The Deadly Romantics mark II was born. Then came some lineup changes and the addition of Thunderfuck to the official band name. Now that Bruce is back in Canada, the lineup has changed back to its original Canadian configuration. The music remains the same, though. As long as Bruce aka Thunderfuck is bellowing out the vocals and churning out tongue-in-cheek lyrics, a good time is guaranteed. It’s fantastic to have them back making new music, although I do miss hanging out with Bruce in Scotland, where we’d philosophise for tireless hours on end. One such occasion – the first time my wolfboy sidekick Shilo met Bruce’s Utonagan wolfgirl Sasha – turned into utter lunacy. Shilo walked straight into Bruce’s kitchen, drank Sasha’s water out of her bowl, ate her food out of its dish (while Sasha stood with a perplexed look on her face, clearly thinking, ‘Who the hell does this guy think he is, eating my snacks and drinking my water?’). She processed this thought for a while and then pounced on him. They wrestled and chased each other around for an hour solid, careering around the garden and every room of the house, growling, howling and running riot. Bruce and I sat outside drinking, chatting and watching the animals go berserk. When we walked indoors the kitchen looked like the scene of a massacre. There were blood trails across the tile floor and up the hall. A fairly comprehensive bloody redecorating had been done in the living room too. And upstairs. It turned out that Sasha had torn one of her dewclaws while wrestling, and all this blood had come from that one small injury. Shilo, meanwhile, had lashings of blood on his fur, making him look as though he was fresh from a hunt. Sasha wasn’t remotely bothered by the injury – she hadn’t even seemed to notice it. She was still trying to play with the wolfboy when Bruce wrestled her away to have her dewclaw checked out by a vet. She was fine, of course. Heck of a first date for the girl, though.

10. Can Bardd – The Last Rain

From Switzerland comes the atmospheric-folk-black-ambient-nature-metal outfit Can Bardd. Musically they’re reminiscent of Saor. While Saor expresses the landscapes and history of its home (Scotland) in gloriously heavy and sweeping fashion, Can Bardd does the same with Swiss vistas. Imagine Saor minus the Celtic flourishes, then add a hint of Fen and some eerie atmospherics, incorporate some dungeon synth and medieval harp for the quieter, more melodic interludes. That’s Can Bardd. It’s a heady mixture and I love it.

11. Alcest – Spiritual Instinct

Two Alcest albums (Shelter and Kodama) are, to my ears, pure sonic perfection. Spiritual Instinct had a lot to live up to. It’s a strong album but it seems a wee bit like Alcest by numbers: the tracks don’t send shivers through me, make my body hair stand up, and bring tears to my eyes the way La Nuit Marche avec Moi (from the album Shelter) does, or the way Kodama‘s title track does. The musical quality’s there, as always, but the tracks don’t resonate in my soul the same way some earlier Alcest soundscapes do. Which seems ironic, given the album’s title. It’s heavier than anything the band has done in a while, moving away from the shoegaze/ambient/post-rock territory that Neige had dived into at times, particularly on Shelter. Still, Spiritual Instinct is a worthy release from one of France’s greatest bands.

12. Symphony of Pain – Virology

Featuring my favourite bassist bar none, Mark Bloxsidge (whose work with power-prog trio Trilogy ranks among my all-time favourite music), Symphony of Pain blends Alice Cooperish theatricality with Queensrӱchesque (Chris DeGarmo era) guitar tone/melody, and song structures that remind me of Savatage. All of which is good. Keyboardist/pianist Pam Chowhan adds layers of gorgeous melody to the band’s sound. She also engages in occasional bouts of serious fiddling (musical, not sexual), such as on her violin solo during Darkling. Jonas Costa’s guitar work is fluid and polished throughout. Vocally, Traci Law often reminds me of Jon Oliva (a huge compliment coming from me: Oliva’s Savatage material ranks as some of my most beloved music). There’s also a dose of Alice Cooper, a pinch of Steve Hogarth, a smidgeon of Tobias Sammet and a hint of Wayne Hussey in that voice. Johanne James does a sterling job on drums. And Mark Bloxsidge is my favourite bassist for a reason…’nuff said. Virology is a concept album of sorts, but I won’t give the game away by delivering spoilers. Give it a whirl for yourself. It wears its influences on its sleeve, but there are enough original elements to make this a unique beast.

13. The Great Old Ones – Cosmicism

I was a wee bit underwhelmed by this band’s debut album Tekeli-Li. I wanted to love it, as French metal that’s avant-garde is usually my cup o’ tea, especially if the sound includes elements of ambient black metal (the hi-fidelity, well-produced, expansive stuff, which is worlds apart from the lo-fi screechy black-metal recordings of the early Scandinavian scene or the raw riffage of the original black-metal act, Venom, who coined the term ‘black metal’ on their album of that name), but, despite some truly immersive moments, it lost me in parts. Their next album, EOD: A Tale of Dark Legacy, was more consistently impressive. On Cosmicism they’ve finally come of age. It’s jaw-dropping. The album’s spacey keyboard intro Cosmic Depths lulls the listener into a transcendental reverie, then, as it segues into The Omniscient the band’s newfound command of dynamics is displayed in style, with an inspired chugging bass line paving the way for a gigantic wall of riffage that even Blut Aus Nord would be proud of. The musical calibre doesn’t drop throughout the rest of the album. Flawless.

14. The Young Gods – Data Mirage Tangram

A new offering from the Swiss visionaries who formed in 1985 and whose music (along with that of peers Front Line Assembly) ushered in the industrial-metal movement of the early ’90s. Their 1991 track Skinflowers made me prick up my ears and notice this band: it’s now one of my desert-island tunes – a song I couldn’t do without. In 1995 their Only Heaven album broke new musical ground with its blend of ultra-delicate dreamscapes interspersed with hypnotic vocals and vast riffs. Like most of The Young Gods’ recordings since then, Data Mirage Tangram is more about the dream sounds and not so much about the noise. The music’s still sublime and they still blast out the occasional wall of riffage (for example, on Tear Up the Red Sky) to add dynamic shade to their dreamy light. The track Figure Sans Noms is very much the sonic successor to Skinflowers, from the bouncy bass line to the riff that bides its time before bursting out to flex its muscles. Masterful, as always.

15. Rock Goddess – This Time

When I received a copy of this long-awaited new Rock Goddess album signed by all the girls in the band (technically they’re women now, but they’ll always be girls to me, just as I’ll always be a fourteen-year-old delinquent when I listen to their music), it was one of those life-affirming moments: as long as Julie and Jody are cranking out their catchy brand of anthemic metal, the world is OK. That sort of thing. This Time is heavy. The songs are still anthemic, accessible and singalong, but this is the heaviest Rock Goddess has ever sounded on record. It’s fantastic.

16. Holocaust – Elder Gods

Scotland’s premier NWoBHM band returns (they were never away, but you know what I mean) with another quality slice of metal that is instantly recognisable as Holocaust. Lyrically there’s more of a pagan theme than usual (no bad thing), but musically this is Holocaust as they’ve always sounded: raw, angry, heavy, minimalist and effective.

17. Swallow the Sun – When a Shadow Is Forced into the Light

One of Finland’s greatest bands (and that’s a huge statement, as Finland has more metal artists per capita than any other country – by far), Swallow the Sun has for a couple of decades been spearheading the Finnish melodic-death-metal movement (along with Wintersun, Amorphis, Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum). If I were sent to a desert island and could take only one musical genre with me, this one would be my top pick. It’s a sublime mix of light and darkness, heaviness and melody, clean vocals and guttural growls, all of it executed by some astonishingly talented musicians. When a Shadow is Forced into the Light isn’t my favourite StS record (that would be the triple-album masterpiece Songs from the North I, II and III), but it’s an excellent addition to their musical catalogue.

18. Diamond Head – The Coffin Train

Diamond Head without Sean Harris may seem like a strange beast in theory, but the band still sounds almost exactly like Diamond Head with Sean Harris…just a little less Led Zeppelinish. They copied what Judas Priest did during its two-album period without the Metal God Rob Halford on vocals: hired an audio-clone soundalike. In JP’s case that came in the form of Tim ‘Ripper’ Owen. Diamond Head did it first with the fantastically named Nick Tart from 2004-2014, then more recently with Rasmus Bom Andersen, whose voice is eerily reminiscent of original DH vocalist Harris. 2016’s self-titled album with Andersen at the mic was a welcome return to top form. The Coffin Train continues that inspired run of form, with founder member/guitarist/backing singer/main songwriter Brian Tatler once again a force to be reckoned with.

19. New Model Army – From Here

Get your clogs on…New Model Army is back with a new studio album! One of the (many) things I love about NMA is the band’s resistance to categorisation. They’re full-on punk sometimes, a bit metal on occasion, ballady when it suits them, folky here and there, rocky much of the time, angry most of the time, but impossible to pigeonhole. As all artists should be. I can’t help comparing NMA’s punkier tunes to Vengeance (which I consider the sonic blueprint for anger beautifully expressed), and sizing their lighter material up alongside Green and Grey (which is utter perfection). NMA main man Justin Sullivan is rightly considered by some (including me) to be a figure worthy of adoration, for his passion and artistic vision, for his refusal to compromise, for his steadfast sailing against the wind and giving not a single fuck about trends or external pressures. His vision has remained pure since day one. How many musical artists can say that? From Here is another flawless slice of sonic bliss from a band that has never, ever had an off day.

20. IQ – Resistance

I find it heartening that IQ (along with their early peers Marillion, Solstice and Pendragon) can still create new music that takes me by surprise, decades after I was first amazed by their sounds. Resistance is, I reckon, IQ’s strongest and best-produced album. Better, even, than their second LP The Wake, which is held up often as one of the definitive prog albums. 2019 IQ is heavier than ever before, musically and thematically. Mike Holmes’s gargantuan guitar tones are the crux of the whole sound, driving it forward in an unstoppable wave, with the unique vocals of Peter Nicholls the only hint that this is indeed IQ. It’s less proggy, the keyboards are lower in the mix than in the past (either that or they’re partially drowned out by Holmes’s monster riffage), Paul Cook’s on his best ever form on drums, and Tim Esau’s bass is a throbbing constant that further fleshes out the sound. The cumulative effect is a vast, immersive experience.

21. Tool – Fear Inoculum

To borrow a Faith No More-ism, this one came from out of nowhere. Last year’s long-awaited return from Maynard James Keenan’s other band, A Perfect Circle, was unexpected, but a return from his once-main project Tool came as an even bigger surprise. I wasn’t impressed when the album started out with an annoying sound I’d describe as a screechy ping. Then more of the irritating screechy ping. Then a cello-ish echo-chamber tone that improved things, but still with that horrible screechy ping at regular intervals. When Danny Carey’s familiar tribal percussion came in, however, followed by Maynard’s distinctive robotic vocals, I felt happier: this was Tool as I know and love them. They were back and they hadn’t fucked up their legacy with a whole album of screechy pings. A relief. If I were their manager I’d have had serious words with them about that intro, though. Imagine the scene: the four members of Tool are sitting in the studio with the newly cut record; I walk in and Maynard excitedly plays it for me; the music starts, my face goes all perplexed and I say, “You’ll need to get rid of that annoying sound glitch at the start.”; Maynard shakes his head and says, “That’s not a sound glitch. It’s meant to be there. That’s how we want the album to start.”; now it’s my turn to shake my head as I reply, “The band’s been away for thirteen years and this is how you want to return? With a screechy ping? Not on my watch.” Anyway, screechy pings aside, this is quintessential Tool. There’s a (deliberate?) tip o’ the hat to Metallica towards the end of the title track/opener Fear Inoculum, when Danny Carey rattles out rhythms that are almost identical to those in the most famous section of Metallica’s One. There’s more hat-tippage/ripping-offage (delete as befits your opinion) on short instrumental Litanie Contre la Peur, which borrows heavily from/steals (again, delete as appropriate) Rainbow’s keyboard intro to Tarot Woman. No one else seems to have commented on this, but there it is. Tool sticks to its tried-and-tested musical formula throughout the rest of the album: emotionally detached, robotic vocals; mathematically precise tribal percussion; glorious clean-toned guitar work; heavy, expansive bass; spacey keyboards. It’s a welcome return but it’s not my favourite Tool album (Lateralus gets that award). I’m not complaining, though. It’s good to have them back.

22. Darkthrone – Old Star

Fenriz has always been all about the music. When he formed Darkthrone this was the case. When fellow Norwegian black-metallists Mayhem were burying their trousers, sniffing dead birds and concentrating too hard on contriving a ridiculous image for themselves (instead of rehearsing, composing and bettering their abilities), Fenriz was crafting and recording music. As a result, even though Mayhem formed years before Darkthrone, the latter band released the first album of the Second Wave of Black Metal: A Blaze in the Northern Sky, which pioneered the feral screeching lo-fi sound that would come to define Scandinavian black metal through the ’90s and beyond. While members of Norway’s black metal inner circle were burning down churches, Darkthrone remained focused on composing, recording and releasing more genre-defining music. As those same inner-circle members were killing themselves and each other (and the occasional innocent park-walker), Darkthrone just kept making music. I admire Fenriz and his Darkthrone compadre Nocturno Culto for that: no matter what kind of chaos is going on around them, they shut it out and focus on crafting music. That’s why they’re two of Scandinavia’s most prolific musicians. In addition to the vast Darkthrone back catalogue, they’ve recorded music for solo projects as well as guesting on numerous other artists’ recordings. Another way they managed to achieve such a prolific output was by refusing to play live. While other bands were touring the world, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto remained hidden away in their Norwegian Bombshelter headquarters, always moving forwards with new music. A fanatical work ethic. Sonically, post-2010 Darkthrone is closer to Motörhead than it is to early Darkthrone (nothing wrong with that!). Old Star features seven new studio tracks, all of which are excellent. One even has a Scottish theme! The Hardship of the Scots kicks off with a blatantly ripped-off AC/DC riff (Let Me Put My Love into You), which is mangled and distorted somewhat…but a big fat rip-off nonetheless. Other than the ripping-offage of riffage, the track sounds about as far from AC/DC as it’s possible to be. I love that Fenriz decided to write a Scottish-themed track. The song contains no mention of whisky, sheep, kilts, shortbread, Robert Burns or The Skids, though, so one has to question its credibility. All things considered, Old Star is a gorgeously guttural growlfest underpinned by dirgelike slow riffs, off-kilter percussion, and some wild lead-guitar breaks. It even sounds produced! Not produced crystal clear like a Rush album or a Marillion album. Produced more like a morning bowel movement after a second helping of oats, bran and strong coffee: it’s dark, stinky and a little bit evil, but you can’t help taking some kind of perverse pleasure in it.

23. Opeth – In Cauda Venenum

Opeth’s Blackwater Park is a milestone in metal. It also marked the point at which prog sensibilities and really heavy extreme metal first blended in a seamless way. To this day, I find that album awe-inspiring. Like most Opeth recordings since then, In Cauda Venenum veers more into prog-metal territory, rarely bringing forth moments of extreme heaviness. That’s not a criticism; just an observation. They’re growing up and evolving, which is one sign of a true artist. The musicianship is as adept as ever. Production values and song compositions are still spellbinding. I got the 2CD version of In Cauda Venenum, One CD features the album tracks sung in English. The other features the songs sung in Opeth’s native Swedish. It’s amazing the difference this makes to the sound. I prefer the Swedish version.

24. Månegarm – Fornaldarsagor

Swedish band Månegarm blend folk sensibilities, Viking iconography and brutal black-metal delivery. They don’t cobble together disparate parts, but play from the heart and let their influences flow through in a unique, seamless sound. (The band’s name derives from a character in Norse mythology: Mánagarmr (Moon-Hound) – a human-hating wolf conceived when the enormous demon-wolf Fenrir shagged the giantess Angrboda – there’s a mental image for you!)  Fornaldarsagor contains the odd hint of Finntroll in the music, but never to the point of rip-off or parody. This is a serious band delivering serious music.

25. Arkona – Age of Capricorn

Not to be confused with the Russian folk-metal outfit of the same name, this (Polish) Arkona plays black metal that refreshes the parts most other corpsepainted nutjobs can’t reach. Age of Capricorn is an inspired blend of old-school black-metal heaviness/attitude/song structures and more modern, so-called post-black-metal production values and expansiveness of sound. I find it incredibly refreshing – an album to blow away the cobwebs of the mind.

 

That’s it! Those are my top 25 of the year. Other artists whose 2019 albums I enjoyed, but who didn’t quite make it into my list: Reuben Archer, Helheim, In Flames, Kampfar, Stilz, Tygers of Pan Tang, Moana, Rammstein, The Rods, D.A.D., Angel Witch, Lustre, Eluveitie, Gaahls Wyrd, Alfahanne, The Darkness, Heilung, Soen, Michael Schenker Fest, Ager Sonus, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons, Skyblood, Waste of Space Orchestra, The 69 Eyes, Abbath, Sodom, The Emerald Dawn, Avantasia, Orbital, Soilwork.

I’ll finish this not-so-little post by blatantly plugging the remastered version of my novel Metallic Dreams, which I spent a year reworking. It’s now better than ever – immeasurably so. Check it out. It’ll make you laugh, cry (sometimes both at the same time) and maybe even pee a little. It’ll also make you more interesting, enlightened, handsome/beautiful (delete as appropriate) and more fragrant too. Trust me. I’m a Scotsman.

The cover image below is a link to the definitive hardback edition of Metallic Dreams. If you fancy a copy, left-click on the picture and you’ll be transported to the page where you can purchase one. Paperback and Kindle e-book editions are available from Amazon, but the hardback is available exclusively from lulu (the booksellers, not the diminutive songstress from Glasgow).

Till next time, keep your powder dry and your metal heavy.

Top 20 Albums of 2018

1. Alrakis – Echoes from Eta Carinae

Alrakis albums are a long time in the making but they’re worth the wait. To even sum them up as albums seems woefully inadequate. These are soundscapes of infinity, eternity, love, loss, longing, agony. Play Echoes from Eta Carinae on a quality hi-fi, crank up the volume, lie back, close your eyes and see where it takes you. It’s like being propelled into the vastness of space, through incandescent nebulae and aeons of black solitude.  This is more than music.  It’s sonic sorcery of the highest order.  Utterly beautiful.

 

2. The Skids – Burning Cities

When my favourite punk band (whom I first heard as a child of 8, via my big brother’s vinyl) regrouped and released their first new studio album in 36 years, there were only two possible results: disaster or glory. Thankfully, the latter proved true. Burning Cities is vibrant, alive, bouncy and bristling with feral energy. There’s no gradual build-up or slow burn. The opening track comes bursting out of the speakers, a bold declaration of intent: This Is Our World. Jobson sounds like he means every word. Life-affirming stuff.  I saw The Skids live four times in 2018, twice in their home town of Dunfermline, where these tracks were even more visceral, with Jobson punching the air and dancing around like the maddest of lunatics, yet never hitting a wrong note. Other standout tracks are Up on the Moors (originally about murderers Brady and Hindley, but altered on the advice of producer Youth, who advised Jobson to abandon that dark subject matter and make the track a celebration of life and wilderness instead), One Last Chance,  World on Fire, and the album’s closer – the slow, cowboyesque stripped-down anthem Desert Dust. As always, the lyrics are politically and socially aware. Bruce Watson’s guitar work is impeccable, as is his son Jamie’s. The rhythm section is stronger than ever, the seasoned professionals Mike and Bill making it sound easy. It’s fantastic to have them back.

 

3. Jean-Michel Jarre – Equinoxe Infinity

Equinoxe Infinity is loaded with musical tips o’ the hat to the original Equinoxe.  Several of its sections would fit on Rendez-Vous without sounding out of place. Unlike certain other electronica artists (most notably Enigma), Jarre has the knack of being influenced by his previous work without ripping it off or copying chunks wholesale (Enigma has repeated the opening section of its astonishing debut album as a leitmotif in almost every successive release). This album sounds current and fresh, yet it’s very much connected to its 1970s roots. The production quality has to be heard on a serious system to be fully appreciated. When it comes to electronica, JMJ is as good as it gets.

 

4. Omnium Gatherum – The Burning Cold

Spearheading the vanguard of Finnish metal (along with Insomnium, Amorphis, Wintersun, Wolfheart, and Swallow the Sun), Omnium Gatherum continues to show the rest of the world how melodic death metal should be done. The most amazing aspect of this band is its ability to craft tunes that are dripping with melody yet heavy enough to crumble castle walls. They’re masterful musicians, tempering their brutality with spine-tingling atmospherics. This is the first OG album not to feature any epic-length tracks. By their standards these are short snappy tunes, all coming in at under 6 minutes. The musical formula is a familiar one to their fans – ferocious riffage, guttural vocals, blast-beat drums and some sublime lighter guitar moments. Eleven tracks and not a filler among them, with Markus Vanhala’s guitar work eye-wateringly good throughout.

 

5. Wolfheart – Constellation of the Black Light

Another ace from Finland. This album blew my Mordaunt-Short speakers, which had soldiered valiantly through years of savage riffs and blast-beat drums, but couldn’t handle opening track Everlasting Fall at maximum volume. Subsequent listens happened on my trusty old Celestion Ditton 44 speakers (which can handle any music at any volume). Wolfheart’s second album Shadow World is one of the pinnacles of metal, so I can’t help comparing subsequent releases to it. Constellation of the Black Light sounds a fraction less inspired than Shadow World but it’s a small fraction. There’s nothing on here as cold and perfect as Veri or as iconic in the riffage department as Abyss, but this is a seriously impressive collection of songs nonetheless. The soundtrack to eternal winter.

 

6. Zal Cleminson’s Sin’Dogs – Vol. 1

Every time I’ve seen Zal play live (with SAHB and also with Sin’Dogs) his performance has moved me. He has a superhuman ability on guitar. Not just an awe-inspiring heavy riffer, he is also a master of the tasteful refrain. This, the debut album from Sin’Dogs, is a perfect vehicle for those talents. The songwriting is of the highest calibre, with lyrics and attitude to match. Zal’s backing vocals were an important component of the SAHB sound. On Vol. 1 he proves that he’s also a powerful lead vocalist/frontman while once again reminding us exactly what he’s capable of with a guitar in his hands. His backing band is excellent. An amazing debut album. It’s good to have him back.

 

7. Ghost – Prequelle

The next step in the evolution of Ghost. Papa Emeritus I, II and III have all been killed and offered as sacrifices to the dark spirits. Cardinal Copia is now fronting the band. It’s no surprise that he sounds exactly like the Papas Emeritus. I find it strange that so many folk categorise Ghost as black metal. There’s darkness in the lyrics, but the music is way too light to be classified as black metal. Prequelle is loaded with the usual Ghost melodies and harmonics (like Blue Öyster Cult with a hint of Mercyful Fate). Some of the music is extremely delicate but the lyrics are always hard-hitting. Choral backing vocals are present in force, adding melodrama and menace to proceedings.

 

8. Greta Van Fleet – Anthem of the Peaceful Army

This debut album tapped into my psyche and felt familiar even on the first listen, as though the songs had been unearthed rather than created anew. It’s rare for music to make my jaw drop but the opening track Age of Man did.  Jaw actually dropped…way down low. Body hair pricked up in awe. It’s astonishing – a spring clean to the soul. On some tracks Greta Van Fleet couldn’t be more Led Zeppelin if they stuck lemons in their pants and squeezed them while preening, “Ooooh baby, call me Percy – I’m a Golden God.” At other times they sound a lot like Rush, right down to the nasal vocal delivery. They’ve clearly grown up on Led Zeppelin, Rush and Boston. Anthem of the Peaceful Army has that kind of timeless quality and mastery of melody. It’s anthemic, glorious, vast and loaded with energy. I love it.

 

9. UDO – Steelfactory

Classic metal that sounds indistinguishable from the early material by Udo Dirkschneider’s previous band, Accept. His voice is as recognisable as ever, and as strong. Steelfactory doesn’t break new musical ground. It’s the same quintessential Teutonic metal that Herr Dirkschneider defined with Accept, and continues to deliver with his UDO band. When the formula’s this good, he’d be mad to change it. My only disappointment with Steelfactory is a lyrical one. On the track Hungry and Angry I initially thought he was singing, “Read my lips – throw your chips.” This struck me as one of the all-time greatest lines in metal. When I checked the lyric sheet I was horrified to discover that the official words are, “Read my lips – sunken ships.” Nowhere near as good. I’m going to keep singing “throw your chips” because it’s a better line and it definitely sounds like that’s what Udo’s singing, plus it makes more sense. You’re angry so you throw your chips, then you realise you’re not just angry but also hungry…because you threw away your chips. Perfect logic.

 

10. The Night Flight Orchestra – Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough

The third studio album from Björn ‘Speed’ Strid’s side project (his main band being Swedish melodeath monsters Soilwork). Musically, the two outfits couldn’t be much further apart. TNFO delivers silky-smooth retro poppy proggy rock with electro layers and massive hooks. Catchy and beautifully produced. The band was originally conceived on a long US Soilwork tour, when Björn got fed up listening to generic rock tunes on the radio and so decided to start a band that would create the soundtrack to epic journeys. Job done.

 

11. Vreid – Lifehunger

This one took me by surprise. Not because I didn’t know what Vreid was capable of, but because the band had been quiet for so long that I’d almost given up on any new material from them seeing the light of day. Born out of the ashes of one of Norway’s most iconic metal bands (Windir, after the death of frontman Valfar), Vreid refreshes the parts most other music can’t reach. Windir, despite often being categorised as black metal, described their own music as Sognametal (‘dream metal’), a much more accurate term. Vreid continues that legacy, creating soundscapes that take the mind on mythic trips. Also like Windir, Vreid includes folk elements and sweeping instrumental interludes in their music. The result is glorious. Lifehunger was five years coming. Worth the wait.

 

12. Amorphis – Queen of Time

They’ve topped my album-of-the-year lists a few times, most notably with Silent Waters (which I consider one of the greatest albums ever). Queen of Time follows the same formula Amorphis has been using since Tomi Joutsen joined the band in 2006. Same style of songwriting, production, vocals, guitar tone, drum sound. There’s nothing wrong with that. They pioneered the sound and it’s impressive. The musicianship is amazing, as always. I’d have liked to hear them push the envelope as they did on Silent Waters, venturing into new musical ground and creating sounds that have never been heard before. I’m not complaining, though. A new Amorphis album is always welcome and Queen of Time is, like all the band’s material, pure quality.

 

13. Ihsahn – Ámr

I’m a huge fan of Ihsahn’s solo material, preferring it to the output of his former band (Norwegian black-metal pioneers Emperor). Ámr‘s predecessor, Arktis., is a colossal record – quintessential metal that takes its influence more from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal than from black metal. For the most part Ámr is a worthy successor, but in places it’s annoying. Ihsahn’s ventures into experimental sound and avant-garde noise sometimes add to the music, but just as often they detract from it. Case in point: the use of brass instruments on sections of this album. Brass instruments have no place in metal. That’s not me being closed-minded. It’s just fact. Never in the history of metal has some guy parping on a trumpet enhanced a song. Many times it has ruined an otherwise excellent track. Most of Ámr is amazing. Minus the parpy nonsense, it would have been a true classic.

 

14. A Perfect Circle – Eat the Elephant

A Perfect Circle seemed like a long-abandoned project, so Eat the Elephant was a welcome surprise. It’s a cracking comeback album, as arty and mathematical as you’d expect from Maynard James Keenan. The production quality is something special, so the album benefits from being listened to on a serious hi-fi system at a decent (loud) volume.

 

15. Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik – Hugsjá

After the monumental success of these two Norse stalwarts’ first full-length collaboration, Skuggsjá (a commissioned concert piece for the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian Constitution, later recorded/released as an album), a follow-up was almost inevitable. Better known as members of Enslaved and Gorgoroth/Wardruna respectively, Bjørnson and Selvik have a symbiotic relationship when they join forces. Hugsjá is, like its predecessor, a journey into the past, with the bulk of the music performed on traditional ancient instruments from Scandinavia. Hypnotic rhythms that touch the soul.

 

16. Sigh – Heir to Despair

Japan’s first black-metal band of renown, still sticking to their guns and producing music that’s uncompromising, ground-breaking, and equal parts beautiful/unnerving. Heir to Despair is, I reckon, their greatest studio album to date.

 

17.  Folket Bortafor Nordavinden – Sagnamadr

Although this outfit has been playing live for over two decades, this is the first recorded release. With that much practice under their belts, you’d expect them to sound polished and professional…and you’d be right. This is roots music that can be summed up using the words of The Shamen’s Mr C: shamanic and artistic archaic revival – activate the rhythm that has always been within. If that sounds like your cup o’ tea, give this a whirl.

 

18. Judas Priest – Firepower

Is this a classic Priest album? No. Does it contain some quintessential Priest moments? Yes. Never the Heroes, for example, features a barnstorming riff, an impeccable groove and an impassioned vocal from Halford. If the whole album sounded that inspired, it’d be way closer to the top of my list. There’s nothing bad on the record, but much of it sounds like Priest by numbers – musically faultless but lacking oomph.

 

19. Venom – Storm the Gates

Venom coined the term Black Metal on their album of the same name in 1982. In doing so they gave birth to a movement. They had already forged a sound of their own – a mixture of punk anger, metal heaviness, insane speed, lo-fi production and an anti-Christian ethic that would strike a chord in Norway over a decade later, bringing about the Second Wave of Black Metal, which spawned havoc in the form of church-burnings, infighting and murder. Venom still features original frontman Cronos, but his previous partners-in-crime Mantas and Abaddon have left the fold (they now have a band called Venom Inc. – an excellent outfit in its own right). Cronos’s 2018 Venom sounds less black metal and more traditional heavy-duty bastard metal. His vocals are more intelligible than in days of yore, the production is immeasurably better and the songs have more melody. The song titles/lyrical themes/album covers haven’t changed much. They’re still as blasphemous and subversive as ever.

 

20. Saxon – Thunderbolt

A workmanlike album by Saxon standards but with enough high points to merit repeated listens. I doubt any of the tracks will remain in the band’s setlist after the Thunderbolt tour. With musical execution, vocal delivery and production values of this calibre, however, the album is enjoyable if uninspired.

 

That’s it – my top albums of 2018. There’s one more release I want to mention before I fook off to make a pot of tea. It’s the untitled swansong disc by my friends Thunderfuck and The Deadly Romantics – a barnstorming collection of revamped classics, new songs, cover versions and live material. There’s only one reason it’s not listed in my top 20: it’s not commercially available. The band created a small amount of them (double figures) as a thank-you to their closest friends and supporters who’ve stood by them (and occasionally on them) over the years. I’m grateful to be among that number. I hear that they might be allowed out of Canada next year to play some gigs in the UK. If that happens I’ll be along for the ride, offering moral support and verbal abuse.

What’s going to be top of my 2019 list, you wonder? I know but I’m not telling yet. You’ll just have to wait. Speaking of waiting, isn’t there a sequel I’m meant to be finishing? I better get back to that. It’s coming…

The Albums of 2015

Music gained much in 2015, but there was also monumental loss. Motörhead founder Lemmy died just weeks after his pal Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor, drummer on classic ‘head albums. A world without Lem and Phil is a strange place. Lemmy was more than just the godfather of heavy metal. He was integrity personified. An original. A one-off. Whether singing or speaking, his gruff voice was instantly recognisable as the sound of gravel-throated truth. I was lucky enough to meet Lem and experience his wisdom, humour and warmth. Some people walk into a room without making a noticeable change to its energy. Not Lemmy. He had presence. One didn’t have to see or hear him to be aware of that presence. It could be felt when he was near. I know. I felt it.

Rewind eleven years. My journalist friend Mike and I are backstage at Glasgow Barrowlands after a barnstorming Motörhead show. Smiling drummer/vortex of wild energy Mikkey Dee greets us with handshakes and bear hugs. Guitarist Phil Campbell is reclined on a sofa, immersed in his thoughts. Behind him, stuck to a wall, a piece of A4 paper features the scrawled words ALL CIDER BELONGS TO PHIL CAMPBELL. A bulbous glass container like a crystal cauldron has been filled with miniature Cadbury’s confectionery. Lingerie-clad women relax with drinks. Lem is nowhere to be seen. The ebullient Dutchman Mikkey invites Mike and me to help ourselves to whatever we want. “Everything is fair game,” he tells us, gesticulating wildly around the room, “except the cider. Best not to touch the cider.” Glancing over at Phil Campbell, Mikkey explains, “Phil can be…volatile…if anyone else drinks the cider.” In addition to Phil’s supply of alcoholic apple juice, there are gallons of vodka, whisky and lager. I’m driving, so no booze for me. Here in Glasgow, city of my birth – in Barrowlands Ballroom, where my maternal grandmother and grandfather used to dance on Saturday nights before World War 2 – I find myself in a surreal scene backstage with Motörhead and entourage, drinking Evian water and eating ‘fun-size’ Dairy Milks, Fudges and Twirls while the ever-smiling Mikkey Dee regales Mike and me with stories. I’m enjoying the conversation with Mikkey, whose powerhouse drumming I’ve enjoyed since way back in his days with King Diamond, but I can’t help wondering where Lem is. Then I sense something behind me. I feel it. The energy in the room has changed and I know he is there. I turn round and that face is looking back at me. Lemmy has arrived. He looks every bit as iconic in the flesh as he does on record covers and the pages of music magazines. Words tumble out of my mouth. “Hello, Sir. That was a phenomenal gig tonight. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” growls Lem. “We do our best.” He extends his right hand for a shake. As I grasp it we look each other in the eyes. I sense that I’m being weighed up. This continues for a couple of seconds, then Lem smiles. Over the rest of the night we chat about life on and off the road. Mike – who is reviewing the gig for a national newspaper – hasn’t arranged an interview, but that doesn’t stop him from going into journalist mode. This is a chance for him to dig dirt on other musicians – exclusive insider information, straight from the Motörhorse’s mouth. Lem is no mudslinger, though. He has nothing bad to say about any of his peers. So Mike gravitates towards his drum hero Mikkey, to see if he has any juicy gossip to share. Over by the Cadbury’s confectionery cauldron, Mikey and Mikkey laugh and joke like the pair of nutters they are, pulling preposterous poses for photos. I stay with Lemmy. When I ask about the early Motörhead tours with Saxon, his face lights up. He speaks of Graham Oliver and Biff Byford with huge affection. I mention that a few weeks ago Blackmore’s Night cancelled their Edinburgh gig an hour before it was meant to start. Venue staff turned away ticketholders, claiming that Candice Night had last-minute concerns about her throat. This left Mike, me and thousands of other concertgoers (many of whom had turned up in medieval garb) disappointed and out of pocket. As a comparison, I recount events at a recent Saxon show in Glasgow, where after the gig Biff apologised for his voice, explaining that he was loaded with the flu. This apology surprised the audience, as Biff’s vocal delivery had been perfect.

“Most singers are delicate creatures,” says Lem, “but not Biff. He’s a big strong brute who’ll go onstage even when he’s so sick that anyone else in his position would cancel the show. He’s a professional. And he never has an off-night.”

I tell Lem that I started listening to Motörhead when I was little more than a toddler, growing up on their music as well as being heavily influenced by their image and attitude. “Raised on Motörhead,” he muses. “What a horrible thought. That must make me your bastard godfather.”

“Aye,” I agree, liking the idea, “Ah suppose it does.” Lem smiles. I smile back. In that moment all is right with the Universe.

I tell Lem the story of when, at age ten, I approached my mother and asked her to buy me a denim jacket so I could rip off its arms then cover its body in studs and band patches, only for her to reply, “Forget it. You’d look like one o’ those degenerates in Motörhead. You can have a nice bodywarmer instead.”

Lem roars with laughter. When he recovers enough to talk he says, “She sounds like a good woman, your mum. You wouldn’t wanna look like those degenerates in Motörhead!”

That night was one of warmth, friendship, camaraderie, stories, laughter and a palpable sense of heavy-metal family. Mikkey and Lem were a joy to be around. Afterwards Mike described them as thoroughly lovely chaps. Perhaps those aren’t the words you’d expect associated with the mighty Motörhead, purveyors of thunderous sounds laden with wartime imagery. But Mike’s words were bang on.

Not all Lem’s trips to Glasgow went as smoothly as that one. A few years earlier he and Fast Eddie Clarke, then-guitarist of Motörhead, arrived at Radio Clyde for an interview the station had requested. An hour after the interview was due to start, Lem and Ed were still waiting in the foyer. No one had offered them an explanation for the delay. This annoyed them, as they were generous with their time but didn’t appreciate it being wasted. Lemmy grumbled to Ed that the DJ must think his time more important than theirs. Spotting a retractable fire hose in a wall cavity, Fast Eddie nodded towards it and said, “Let’s do ‘im!” Ed unrolled the fire hose, pointed its nozzle into the offending DJ’s booth, switched it on, then he and Lemmy calmly walked out of the building. Had that DJ been professional enough to be on time, or else explained that he was running late rather than leaving Lem and Ed sitting stranded in a radio station for an hour, he could have avoided having his office turned into a swimming pool. As Lem often said, manners cost nothing.

Lem, you were one of the good guys, walking life as you talked it, unflinching in your honesty. I learned a lot from you. Integrity is in short supply but you had it in spades. You had all the good stuff in spades, my beautiful bastard godfather. You were, are and always will be the Ace in the pack.

Lem and me

 

Now to my albums of 2015.

1= Moonspell – Extinct

A masterpiece of Gothic metal from Portugal’s finest export. Their musical influences are obvious: The Sisters of Mercy, Depeche Mode, Type O Negative, The Cult, Front 242, Front Line Assembly. There’s also a healthy dose of originality and a willingness to experiment. String sections and eastern melodies provide a counterpoint to eviscerating riffs. The light/shade duality is present throughout, with Fernando Ribeiro’s vocals alternating between a deep baritone croon (à la Dave Gahan) and a roar that would make most death-metal vocalists soil their pants and go running to their mothers. Back in the ‘90s Ribeiro was one of the first to alternate between clean vocals on a verse and a growled chorus (or vice versa), a technique that many bands have since adopted (Fear Factory’s Burton C. Bell does it beautifully, while in Finnish melodic-death metal it has become the norm, with Insomnium, Amorphis, Omnium Gatherum and others using the technique to great effect). Lyrically, musically and atmospherically, Extinct is perfect. A gesamtkunstwerk.

Favourite track: Breathe (Until We Are No More).

1= Wolfheart – Shadow World

When Tuomas Saukkonen announced in 2013 that he was disbanding his five musical projects Black Sun Aeon, Before the Dawn, The Final Harvest, RoutaSielu, and Dawn of Solace, in order to focus on one new project – Wolfheart – I was concerned. Losing five excellent Finnish bands and gaining one unproven one didn’t seem like a good deal. I kept an open mind and hoped that Tuomas would manage to distil the strengths of his five previous bands into Wolfheart. The 2013 debut Winterborn didn’t quite achieve this but Shadow World is a different prospect altogether. It is magnificent, epic, spellbinding. Turning it up loud is like letting a storm into your body. And holy fuck, does that feel good.

Favourite track: Abyss – only in the icy north could this be born.

1= Tengger Cavalry – Blood Sacrifice Shaman

Mongolian Folk Metaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal! When a band dedicates an album to wolf, eagle, horse, Genghis Khan and the blue sky Tengger, you know they’re not fannying about. This was my biggest musical surprise of 2015. It became my most played album during the first half of the year. Mesmerising Mongolian throat singing accompanies savage riffs, blast-beat drums and nomadic folk melodies on traditional instruments. These components aren’t flung together in a haphazard fashion. They’re expertly arranged to create passages of delicacy then brutality, sorrow then rage. Astounding.

Favourite track: Tengger Cavalry.

1= Ghost – Meliora

My most listened-to album of 2015. The CD went into my car stereo and remained there for months. On long drives I played it on repeat, never tiring of its sublime harmonies. Shilo the wolfboy loves it too. Ghost’s music puts him into a blissed-out reverie (which is appropriate, as several times we’ve met folk who pointed excitedly at him and shouted, “It’s Ghost from Game of Thrones!”). As on previous Ghost recordings, there’s a strong choral sound accompanied by gorgeously subversive lyrics. The harmonies are still reminiscent of Blue Öyster Cult, while the heavier riffs have hints of Mercyful Fate with an occasional soupçon of Slayer. Eminently listenable, deep, clever and loaded with meaning.

Favourite track: He Is.

1= Killing Joke – Pylon

Another surprise. For decades I’ve recognised the greatness of Killing Joke. I hear their influence in myriad other bands, most notably The Cult, Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, Front Line Assembly, and Fear Factory. Despite that, I wasn’t expecting KJ’s strongest album to date to appear in 2015. It did, though. Killing Joke are masters of their craft who don’t do anything by accident. Every detail of their sound is meticulously planned and executed. Turn this album up loud and you’ll experience a whole new dimension opening up. That’s not me overselling the band: it’s truth. Pylon is astonishing.

Favourite track: Big Buzz – pure sonic bliss.

1= Paradise Lost – The Plague Within

Paradise Lost’s elemental riffs build into dirges that are both gloomy and uplifting: a technique PL have mastered over the last couple of decades.  Their 2015 offering shows that they’re once again at the top of their game.

Favourite track: No Hope in Sight.

1= Amorphis – Under the Red Cloud

Amorphis redefined metal with Silent Waters in 2007 (my album of that year by a country mile, and my equal-favourite album of all time). Since then they’ve continued to create epic music. Thematically, their songs are rooted in Finnish mythology. Each album is like a musical chapter of The Kalevala. On Under the Red Cloud they continue that tradition. The textures are vast and sweeping. Melodies flit between subtle folkiness and crushing heaviness. Tomi Joutsen’s vocals alternate between a glorious soar and a brutal roar. Masterful.

Favourite track: The Four Wise Ones.

1= Children of Bodom – I Worship Chaos

Alexi Laiho has the respect of his guitarist peers not just in his native Finland, but across the globe, thanks to his lightning-fast, super-accurate sweep picking, his unique shredding style, and his neo-classical riffage, which has become CoB’s sonic trademark. Vocally, Alexi is Mr Marmite. His singing style isn’t everyone’s cup o’ tea (he sounds like he’s just had his throat cut and is gargling his own blood) but I like it. It suits the music. Despite prodigious compositional skills, technical excellence and no-holds-barred delivery, CoB had never (until now) created an album that scorched from start to finish. I Worship Chaos is that album. The balance of heaviness and melody is skilful, the delivery phenomenal. The standout tracks on the deluxe edition are Morrigan (with its awe-inspiring Everytime I Die-ish riff), Mistress of Taboo (a cover of The Plasmatics’ tune – the CoB version sounds like Scorpions’ Another Piece of Meat flung into a blender with Alice Cooper and turned up to high speed), My Bodom (I Am the Only One), and Prayer for the Afflicted. With every listen I hear something new but it’s never a weak moment – there isn’t one.

Favourite track: Prayer for the Afflicted.

1= Finsterforst – Mach Dich Frei

In 2004 a rag-tag collection of heathens formed a band in southwest Germany’s Black Forest. Their goal was to create a sonic expression of the mystical landscape around them. Collectively known as Finsterforst, they’ve gone from strength to strength, fusing various styles of metal (black, thrash, classic, folk) into a seamless whole. Mach Dich Frei is their finest album to date – an immaculate blend of ethereal instrumentals and anthemic metal. To Finsterforst’s credit, they’re the only metal band to successfully integrate the accordion in a way that’s unobtrusive and adds to their sound rather than watering it down. This says much about their classical sensibilities – they’re mindful composers, not just riff merchants who fling in the odd burst on traditional instruments and hope for the best. This band knows when an instrument should be heard and when it should be silent. They understand resonance and atmospherics. I’ve listened to Mach Dich Frei a lot. It improves with every listen. A masterpiece.

Favourite track: Mach Dich Frei – a glorious twin-guitar opening (rhythm riffs reminiscent of Megadeth’s In My Darkest Hour, and a lead refrain with the tonality of Chris DeGarmo circa classic Queensrÿche) evolves into a darker, heavier, more complex composition driven by anthemic vocals and a sense of majesty.

1. Fear Factory – Genexus

Fear Factory’s Demanufacture redefined metal in 1995. Frontrunners of the industrial-metal movement, then inventors of cyber metal, they create soundscapes imbued with a futuristic dreamlike quality. FF’s music is the soundtrack to a future world in which humans co-evolve with machines, to the point where the distinction between one and the other becomes blurred. Genexus is FF firing on all cylinders: blast-beat drumming, huge riffs, eviscerating bass, machinistic rhythms alongside Burton C. Bell’s distinctive clean vocals (like the chants of a robot monk at worship) and his angry growls (like a bear who’s been kicked in the balls). Burt switches between singing styles with ease, instinctively knowing what works best with the music. The adage you can’t judge a book by its cover doesn’t apply to Genexus. One glance at the artwork tells the savvy metallist exactly what can be found inside: supreme cyber metal from the ones who do it best.

Favourite track: Regenerate – as a kid I dreamed that one day metal would sound like this. A futuristic blend of passion, power, precision, originality, melody, heaviness and confidence. Utter perfection.

1= Jean Michel Jarre – Electronica 1: The Time Machine

Ever since I first heard Jarre’s music (as a young child at the London Planetarium, where holographic stars and planets floated past my face as the otherworldly melody of Oxygène IV filled the air), I’ve been spellbound by it. Ever the visionary, Jarre decided to make his 2015 release different to its predecessors by composing and recording an album of collaborations. The result is refreshing and original. The pairing of Pete Townshend and JMJ looks odd on paper but in practice it works (perhaps because of Pete’s longtime love of synths, most famously heard on The Who’s milestone Baba O’Riley). A more logical union is that of Tangerine Dream with Jarre. Musically and culturally, those two entities are mirrors of each other, with Jarre’s symphonies rich in French joie de vivre while TD’s compositions possess a colder, more Germanic feel. The collaboration between these two legends culminated in Zero Gravity, a masterclass in electronica. Tangerine Dream founder/main man Edgar Froese died soon afterwards, leaving Zero Gravity as his last recording. As a mark of respect, JMJ dedicated the album to Froese.

Favourite track: Immortals by JMJ with Fuck Buttons.

1= Ghost Bath – Moonlover

You might imagine that a North Dakotan band pretending to be Chinese musicians living in China (as Ghost Bath did to secure a deal with Chinese label Pest Records) would be a major controversy. In the strange arena of black metal, such behaviour didn’t even make the top 50 most controversial moments. (In case you’re wondering what one would have to do to score high on the scale, current top place is held by Varg Vikernes, aka Count Grishnackh, who, as the Second Wave of Black Metal was beginning in ’90s Norway, slaughtered his former friend Oystein Aarseth – aka Euronymous, founding member of the band Mayhem, founder of the mysterious Black Metal Inner Circle, and owner of influential Oslo record store Helvete – in between burning down several historic churches). So by black-metal standards – with suicide, murder, arson, assault, self-mutilation, sacrifice and blood-drinking all popular pastimes – Ghost Bath’s pretending-to-be-Chinese stunt didn’t raise many eyebrows. They were more like the cat who pretends to be your pal because he thinks there might be food in it for him (Chinese food, on this occasion). Their prank was victimless: they were devious for their own gain, but Pest Records did well out of them, too. Ghost Bath’s debut album Funeral was released to critical acclaim. By the time they were rumbled as non-Chinese the band had amassed a legion of fans who didn’t give a shit where the members were from, just as long as they continued making music. Pest Records was less forgiving, though (a surreal mirror of the Seinfeld episode The Chinese Woman, in which George Costanza’s mother takes phone advice from a woman she thinks is Chinese, then, upon meeting the woman and seeing that she’s not oriental, shouts, “I thought I was getting advice from a Chinese woman. I’m not taking advice from some woman from Long Island!”). Ghost Bath’s ethics may be up their arse but their music is amazing. Second album Moonlover was released by German label Northern Silence Productions (to my knowledge, the band hasn’t claimed to be German…yet). Moonlover is an accomplished piece of work. The vocals are inspired by Norway’s Second Wave of Black Metal (in other words, they’re the tortured howls of the damned), but the instrumentation – rather than being discordant and screechy in the lo-fi vein of much black metal – is sublimely melodic and crystal clear. Uplifting guitar melodies combine with wails of pain to deliver a sensory experience that I find exhilarating. The band claims to be all about playing from the heart and creating something beautiful. Job done.

Favourite track: Golden Number.

2. Swallow the Sun – Songs from the North I, II and III

An epic triple-CD (or quintuple-vinyl) album from the band who – along with fellow Finns Amorphis, Insomnium, Wintersun, and Omnium Gatherum (as well as Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates from Sweden) – have spearheaded the melodic-death-metal movement over the past two and a bit decades. The compositions are complex, the lyrical themes mythic, the production flawless, the musical execution breathtaking, and the emotional impact profound. Songs from the North I, II and III is dedicated to StS founder/guitarist Juho’s late father. Each of the three discs has a mood of its own. Songs from the North I: giant walls of riffage, powerful vocals and a rhythm-section rumble that could crumble walls. Songs from the North II: delicate wintry melodies set against softly sung lyrics of melancholy. Songs from the North III: sonic-doom funereal dirges with occasional glimpses of light in the form of quiet interludes and female vocal harmonies. As a tribute to a father this is beautiful. As a musical achievement it is monumental.

Favourite track: The Heart of a Cold White Land.

“These skies of the winter stars

Arise to the frozen night

And the light of summer that never dies

In these songs from the North.”

3= Joe Satriani – Shockwave Supernova

Another stunning collection of guitar wizardry from a supreme musician. Wonderfully diverse, Shockwave Supernova is another sonic smorgasbord of Satriani’s unique talent. When your instrumentals are this well composed and this perfectly executed, you don’t need vocals.

Favourite track: Goodbye Supernova.

3= Myrkur – M

M is the first full-length album from one-woman black-metal project Myrkur, brainchild of Denmark’s Amalie Bruun. Having signed a deal with Relapse Records on the strength of her debut EP, Bruun was in a perfect position to further her vision of Myrkur. Despite Bruun’s insistence on referring to Myrkur as a black-metal project (the album cover couldn’t be more black metal if it tried: monochrome photo; grim grey skies; title in Viking runes; dark trees silhouetted beside a spectral female on the edge of a lake at night), her music has as much in common with Enya as it does with Venom, Hellhammer or Burzum. That’s not a complaint – just an observation. There’s also an obvious Wardruna influence (always a good thing), with lighter ethereal soundscapes flowing naturally into heavier Darkthronesque swathes. The components are blended with skill, precision and an ear for what works. I wonder what the second full-length album will bring. Will it be more black metal meets Enya for a jig in the forest? Or will it be all-guns-blazing, take-no-prisoners, burn-down-all-churches blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack metaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhhhhlllllll? I’d bet on the former, but either way I’ll be checking it out with interest.

Favourite track: Onde børn (which translates as Evil Children).

4. John Carpenter – Lost Themes

John Carpenter’s work revolves around film. A renowned producer, director, screenwriter, editor and composer, he’s best known for the 1978 horror classic Halloween (which he wrote and directed, as well as composing/performing its legendary musical score). Carpenter has a long string of films and soundtracks behind him but it wasn’t until 2015 that he released his first real solo album (as opposed to a movie soundtrack with his name attached to it, of which there are many). Lost Themes is a diverse array of dark electronica, all beautifully moody and steeped in Carpenter’s trademark ominous sound.

Favourite track: Vortex.

5. Michael Monroe – Blackout States

Like most of Mikey’s stuff with Hanoi Rocks and as a solo artist, his 2015 album Blackout States is a slice of no-frills, gung-ho rock ‘n’ roll.  Without this man blazing the trail, there would have been no Guns ‘n’ Roses or LA Guns (either that or those bands would have taken radically different forms to the ones we know). The glam-metal boom of the ‘80s would probably never have happened were it not for Hanoi Rocks. Glam rock may have Marc Bolan, Bowie, and The Sweet to thank for its existence, but glam metal stemmed from Hanoi Rocks, both in sound and sleazy image. That influence can still be heard today, especially in Monroe’s native Scandinavia, where modern metal glamsters like Hardcore Superstar, Reckless Love and CRASHDÏET proudly tread the path Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy paved. It feels reassuring to know that Monroe himself is still cranking out quality new material, still touring, still looking and sounding as good as ever. Hail to him.

Favourite track: This Ain’t No Love Song – a track so good it makes me want to overlook the shite grammar (double negative) in the title.

6. Dave Brock – Brockworld

Lemmy’s former Hawkwind bandmate Dave Brock, the inventor of space rock, has long been recognised as a visionary who plays by his own rules, creating sweeping soundscapes with the help of hallucinogens and psychedelic drugs. While Hawkwind’s material is hit or miss to me, Brockworld is a different proposition. Inspired cosmic melodies fuse with epic vocal harmonies in a symphony of space-fuelled bliss. Turn it up loud and experience a revelation.

Favourite track: Life Without Passion.

7. Ludovico Einaudi – Elements

Genius. There’s nothing I can say about Einaudi’s inspired instrumental compositions that the music can’t say better. Piano and strings in perfect harmony. Buy everything he has ever recorded. Listen to it often. Life improved, just like that.

Favourite track: Night, performed by Ludovico Einaudi with Amsterdam Sinfionetta.

8. Saxon – Battering Ram

Metal legends Saxon released their debut album back in 1979. Since then they have unleashed consistently high-calibre music, crafting an unfeasible amount of iconic riffs, hooks and melodies with apparent ease. Battering Ram is another mighty album from true metal pioneers.

Favourite track: Kingdom of the Cross – the spiritual successor to Broken Heroes. Biff’s spoken-word delivery is spine-tingling.

9. Motörhead – Bad Magic

I was tempted to place this at number 1, all alone, for sentimental reasons more than musical ones (although it breaks my heart to say it, this is the last Motörhead studio album the world will ever see). The songs are quintessential Motörhead – loud, heavy, distorted, raw, bass-heavy anthems. When Bad Magic first arrived I was discussing it with my German author/artist/musician friend Frank, a fellow ‘head fanatic. Lem was still alive at that point, but looking frail and cancelling concerts due to ill health. Frank said he was loving the album, but at the same time experiencing a bad feeling when he listened to it…the feeling that it would be the last album from the mighty Motörhead. He was right. A few months later Lem died. As swan songs go, Bad Magic is an impressive one, especially when one takes into account that Lemmy was seriously ill while composing and recording it. That makes the achievement all the more profound and Lem’s performance all the more brave. This will always be the most difficult Motörhead album for me to listen to, not for musical reasons but sentimental ones. Listen to it I will, though, often, even though it hurts. Thank you, Lem, for everything.

Favourite track: Till the End.

“Don’t tell me what to do, my friend.

You’ll break more hearts than you can mend.

I know myself like no one else – nothing to defend.

My life is full of good advice

And you don’t have to tell me twice.

Living here in paradise,

No rules that I should bend.

In my years my life has changed.

I can’t turn back the time.

I can’t tell you just what made me change.

All I know is who I am – I’ll never let you down.

The last one you can trust until the end.”

10. Toto – XIV

This album is more than a return to form for Toto. It is a regenesis. They have long been a respected band, especially in AOR circles. Africa was one of the first singles I ever bought on vinyl. To this day that chorus still gives me chills. So I know how good Toto can be when the chemistry’s right, but I wasn’t expecting them to release an album this good in 2015, seemingly out of the blue. The obvious standout tracks are Burn and Orphan. My gig of 2015 was Toto at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, my first time seeing them with new singer Joseph Williams (son of John Williams – composer of the soundtracks to Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and many more). Joseph’s vocals on XIV (and live) are breathtaking.

Favourite track: Burn.

11. Hearts of Black Science – Signal

This duo’s sound has elements of electronica, darkwave, shoegaze, goth, ambient, and occasionally rock (the opening of Faces – first song on Signals – is reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Run Like Hell). Daniel Änghede’s vocals sometimes resemble those of fellow Swede Morten Harket (singer in A-Ha). Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld might say. If you like dark and brooding electronica, give this a whirl.

Favourite track: Faces.

 12. The Prodigy – The Day Is My Enemy

This was my most listened-to album during training sessions in 2015. The walls of my Muay Thai gym shook to the rhythms of The Prodigy’s newest batch of adrenaline-fuelled anthems. Like only a couple of their previous albums (The Fat of the Land and Invaders Must Die), The Day Is My Enemy is consistently strong throughout. A wall-shaker.

Favourite track: Wild Frontier.

13. Leftfield – Alternative Light Source

About time! A welcome return from one of the only bands who take longer than Guns ‘n’ Roses in between albums (there were 16 years between Leftfield’s second studio album and this, their third, while the Gunners took a mere 15 years to create Chinese Democracy). Was Alternative Light Source worth the wait? Yes and no. Yes because it’s a strong chunk of electronica with some inspired moments. No because any album that takes 16 years to create ought to be a work of immaculate genius. I’m happy to have another Leftfield album to listen to, though. Seeing them perform it live on tour was a joy.

Favourite track: Universal Everything.

14. Soilwork – The Ride Majestic

Close friends of In Flames (who along with Dark Tranquillity defined Sweden’s ‘Gothenburg sound’: the blueprint for melodic death metal), Soilwork play it like they mean it. To my ears, The Ride Majestic isn’t quite as strong as its predecessor, The Living Infinite (a monster of an album), but it’s no slouch either. The riffage is still jaw-droppingly perfect, Dirk Verbeuren’s drumming is still outrageously fast and precise, vocalist Björn ‘Speed’ Strid still nails every note, and the melodies are still – no pun intended – to die for.

Favourite track: Death in General.

15. Michael Schenker’s Temple of Rock – Spirit on a Mission

I can’t get enough of Schenker’s guitar work. Whenever I walk into a music shop and pick up a guitar, it isn’t Stairway to Heaven or (Don’t Fear) The Reaper I play to put the instrument through its paces and annoy the staff: it’s Doctor Doctor from Metal Mickey’s time in UFO. This MSToR lineup sees Schenker joined by two of his former Scorpions bandmates – Francis Buchholz on bass, and Herman ‘Ze German’ Rarebell on drums. Doogie White (a Scotsman!) handles full-time vocal duties for the second time on a Temple of Rock release. I witnessed Doogie out Spinal Tapping Spinal Tap at MSToR’s Edinburgh show in 2015, at which he said, deadpan, “This is a song about good times. It’s called Good Times.” I fell apart laughing – out-of-control, thigh-slapping, tears-running-down-the-cheeks laughter. Thanks, Doog. Spirit on a Mission is exactly what you’d hope for from three Scorpions, a Scottish powerhouse vocalist, and musical prodigy Wayne Findlay.

Favourite track: Let the Devil Scream.

16. Queensrÿche – Condition Hüman

The ‘rÿche ranks have been infused with new energy and purpose since Todd La Torre replaced Geoff Tate on vocals. The two singers sound alike, but the infighting that had long dragged the band down and curbed their creativity is now gone. As a result, the band’s two albums with La Torre have seen a return to the urgency and inspired songwriting of ‘rÿche classics Rage for Order and Operation: Mindcrime.

Favourite track: Toxic Remedy.

17. Lucifer – Lucifer I

I bought this debut album on a whim because it’s on Lee Dorrian’s Rise Above label. So I figured it would be dark, doomy, heavy and – like everything Dorrian touches – Sabbathesque. I was right about the music but the vocals were a surprise. Female singer Johanna Sadonis gives the doomy metal a haunting edge. Also, she has the look and gravitas of a siren from a 1970s Hammer horror film – a definite bonus for a woman fronting a doom band. And with ex-members of Cathedral and Angel Witch in the ranks, this is doom metal with a pedigree.

Favourite track: Izrael.

18. Trivium – Silence in the Snow

In April 2016 I witnessed Trivium frontman Matt Heafy letting loose the Spinal Tapworthy line, “It’s great to be here in Kilmarnock, the most metal city in the world!” Unlike Doogie White when he made his top Tap statement a few months earlier in Edinburgh, Heafy seemed to have tongue firmly in cheek. He knew Kilmarnock was neither a city nor a hub of heavy-metal debauchery but said the line anyway, because that, when faced with a metal crowd, is always the thing to do. As long as you get the location right, you can’t really go wrong (unlike David Lee Roth, whom I’d witnessed in Glasgow shouting, “It’s so naaaaaaahce to be bayyyyyyyck in…where the fuck are we?”) Anyway, back to Trivium. They released their first album when they were in their teens, starting out as wannabe Metallica clones who then grew up, found their own sound and refined it into something majestic. They can still thrash with a vengeance, but it’s when they slow things down that their music sounds really impressive (a prime example is the intro to Down from the Sky, from the excellent Shogun album – THAT is a riff). There are several such tunes on this album (the title track, as well as Dead and Gone, The Ghost That’s Haunting You, Pull Me from the Void, and Beneath the Sun).

Favourite track: The Ghost That’s Haunting You.

19. Venom – From the Very Depths

An angry bastard of an album from the inventors of black metal. Every time it seems that Cronos has quit music, he bounces back with another surprise. The tracks on this album lack the frenetic pace of Venom’s early material, but they’re better off for it. In fact, some of these songs are tuneful! Who’d have thought it? Yet there it is: Venom in 2015=tuneful. The standout track – Smoke – should be played to aspiring metal musicians over and over again, so they can mentally file it under ‘How It’s Done’.

Favourite track: Smoke – a gargantuan riff, glorious heavy groove and gorgeously guttural vocals. Classic.

20. Hardcore Superstar – HCSS

Hardcore Superstar’s 2009 release Beg for It is one of my all-time favourite albums, so I can’t help comparing the band’s subsequent releases to it. I want everything they record to be that good. They have a gift for coming up with catchy hooks and chantalong choruses. Over the last couple of albums, however, the band has moved increasingly back to its sleaze-metal roots: slower tempo, muddier production and looser songs. They are still eminently listenable, but I wish they’d return to the sonics of Beg for It: precise metal with massive hooks and soaring vocals. HCSS isn’t a tight album. It doesn’t try to be. Rather, it ambles along with a raw, easy swagger. Still a great band on record. Still one of the greatest live bands on the planet. I just wish they’d ditch the loose sound and get back to writing metal that’s tighter than the proverbial nun’s fanny. (What is a proverbial nun anyway? Have you ever seen one?)

Favourite track: Touch the Sky – rocky psychedelia with a vibe reminiscent of fellow Swedes The Electric Boys, coupled with a vocal that sounds like Police-era Sting.

21. Steve Hackett – Wolflight

I’ve never been a Genesis fan, yet I love Steve Hackett’s solo material. His guitar work is sublime. He doesn’t go for the frenetic fretboard widdling favoured by so many rock guitarists. Hackett’s goal is to play exactly the right note in exactly the right tone at exactly the right time. He has mastered this. Wolflight sees Steve exploring a variety of musical styles, including medieval, rock, eastern, choral, classical and more, all handled with a deft touch. The album cover – featuring a dark and moody Steve surrounded by his wolf pack in front of a crumbling castle wall under a Full Moon – is an instant classic. Perhaps the album will come to be regarded as a classic, too. Time will tell.

Favourite track: Corycian Fire.

22. Riverside – Love, Fear and the Time Machine

Polish prog in the vein of Marillion, especially the Rotheryesque guitar refrains, which are subtle, heart-tugging and deep. The Riverside sound is undeniably proggy, yet it never veers off into self-indulgent musical wankland. How many other prog bands can say that? Beautiful songs. Gorgeous vocals. Another impressive album from the Poles.

Favourite track: Caterpillar and the Barbed Wire.

23. Europe – War of Kings

These Swedes are seasoned professionals with a masterful command of their craft. Also, they have the dubious honour of being the only iconic metal band whose definitive riff was not cranked out on a guitar, but parped out on a keyboard! These days Joey Tempest’s vocals are as smooth as ever but the band is less ballady, having morphed into a heavier monster over the years, particularly in a live setting. Seeing Europe on the Start from the Dark tour a few years ago, I was astonished by the heaviness of their performance. The melody was still present, but the guitar riffage and rhythm-section artillery would have drowned out many extreme metal acts. Even the parptastic The Final Countdown was heavied up and tuned down, so much so that it nearly blew the roof off the venue. So to 2015 and War of Kings. It’s quintessential Europe – a blend of heavy melodies, bluesy Deep Purplesque refrains, effortless soaring vocals, big hooks and anthemic choruses.

Favourite track: The Second Day.

24. The Darkness – Last of Our Kind

The Darkness started out straddling the line between performance and parody. That garnered them much attention in the beginning but then left them in a strange position. They enjoyed their work and had fun with it, composing some classic tongue-in-cheek lyrics, and infusing promo videos and live gigs with their infectious brand of nonsense. This confused a lot of people. Was this a comedy act like Bad News, or was it the real deal like Thin Lizzy? I was never in any doubt. When I saw them live in Glasgow just after the release of their debut album, it was clear that this was a British equivalent of early Van Halen – a band with a flair for exhibitionism, humour, fun and fabulousness. Last of Our Kind is a serious album by Darkness standards. The effervescent energy is still present, as are the huge hooks. The music is bouncy, crunchy, punchy and in parts perfect. It’s good to have them back.

Favourite track: Last of Our Kind, with its sublime Who/Queen/Ace Frehley vibe.

25. Helloween – My God-Given Right

My favourite incarnation of Helloween was the one that recorded Keeper of the Seven Keys Part One – a seminal album that raised the bar for thrash excellence. Despite that lineup splitting decades ago, I’ve kept up with Helloween releases ever since. When Andi Deris joined Helloween in the ’90s, the band adapted to suit his vocals, favouring a more mainstream metal sound. They’re consummate musicians, energetic live performers, talented composers, and still flying the flag for Teutonic metal. And they’re as crazy as Basil Brush on magic mushrooms.

Favourite track: Stay Crazy, a metal classic bursting with powerful riffs, excited vocals and lunatic lyrics such as “We wanna stay crazy, as fresh as a daisy.”

26. Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls

I never thought I’d see the day when an Iron Maiden album didn’t make it into my top 3 albums of the year, never mind missing out on the top 25. The Book of Souls is by no means a bad album, but it sounds like Maiden by numbers: it lacks the vital spark of inspiration. I bought the limited Book Edition. Its artwork (by longtime Maiden collaborator Derek Riggs) inside and out is spectacular, as usual. The musical execution on the album is beyond criticism but missing are the iconic riffs, big hooks and passion on which this band built its reputation. The songs sound sterile, with not a classic among them.

Favourite track: The Red and the Black.

27. Sorcerer – In the Shadow of the Inverted Cross

This sounds like Dio mixed with Black Sabbath circa Headless Cross. There are Tarot similarities at points, too. If that sounds like your cup o’ tea, give it a whirl. Sorcerer’s musical pedigree is audible throughout, but some tracks suffer from the same symptoms as Maiden’s 2015 effort: a theatrical metal-by-numbers sound which gives those songs a generic feel. The more inspired songs, however, are doomy metal worthy of repeated listens.

Favourite track: The Gates of Hell.

28. Def Leppard – Def Leppard

Sheffield’s favourite musical sons, having reinvented themselves several times over their mega-platinum career, return to the formula that brought their biggest commercial success: the Hysteria blueprint. (Hysteria has sold over 20 million copies…and counting.) I’m not going to judge them for that, as I love the bouncy energy of Hysteria’s hook-laden tunes – a perfect blend of power ballads, pop-rockers and polished metal anthems. In 1986 Hysteria broke new ground in terms of multi-layered songs and production (courtesy of Mutt Lange). If they were determined to emulate the sound of a previous recording, I’d have preferred it to be Pyromania (epic heavy metal rather than the pop-rock-metal-lite of Hysteria). I’m not complaining, though. A new album from the Lepps is always welcome.

Favourite track: Let’s Go – a quintessential Leppard track that shamelessly recycles the Pour Some Sugar on Me riff. (If you had come up with a riff that iconic, would you be able to resist recycling it? Some other bands make careers out of recycling the same few chords over and over.)

29. UFO – A Conspiracy of Stars

UFO is one of Britain’s longest established and most influential rock bands. Although Glenn Hughes refers to himself as the voice of rock, I’d argue that UFO’s Phil Mogg has a stronger claim to that title. But what about UFO’s current incarnation and its 2015 album? With a different vocalist this collection of tunes might sound average, but Moggy makes them better than that. My main criticism of A Conspiracy of Stars is that UFO has a real guitar wizard in Vinnie Moore, yet on this album he’s plodding along in second gear most of the time, rarely allowed to flourish. That seems criminal, given the remarkable ability he has. I’m not suggesting UFO go all Yngwie Malmsteen and rattle out widdly histrionic musical wankfests with ten million notes squeezed into each song. That would be preposterous. Vinnie would never do that anyway, as he’s a tasteful player as well as being technically exceptional. But he could have been allowed to shine more often on A Conspiracy of Stars. It’s an enjoyable album nonetheless, but not quintessential UFO.

Favourite track: Sugar Cane – a beautiful Paul Raymond keyboard intro leads into some bluestastic riffs from the Moore man (and his best solo on the album), while Moggy’s unmistakable voice puts the UFO stamp on the whole thing.

30. Scorpions – Return to Forever

Another solid album from one of metal’s longest-running (51 years!) bands. Scorpions can always be relied upon to produce quality music. They can also be relied on to fling a great big poofy ballad or three onto every album (not, once again, that there’s anything wrong with that). In terms of influence, Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine are to German metal what Mick and Keith are to British rock ‘n’ roll. For good reason.

Favourite track: Rock ‘n’ Roll Band (even though it steals its main riff from Deep Purple’s Burn).

That concludes my roundup of 2015’s finest albums. Here at Horned Helmet the Metallic Dreams sequel continues to grow into something epic. Also, a collection of my short works (entitled Heathen Howff) is now available. With zero promotion it reached #4 on Amazon’s world literature sales rankings within 48 hours of release, then plummeted thousands of places in the following week. The Icarus of unpromoted literature! So now, even though promoting feels unnatural to me, it’s time to plug the book. A grown-up Scottish answer to Aesop’s Fables (which I loved as a child and still love every bit as much), Heathen Howff contains non-fiction, fiction, poetry and philosophy, all held together by the common factor that each piece has a moral. The book can be bought for Kindle here or in paperback here. Give it a whirl. If you don’t like it I’ll eat my hat…and my hat’s a horned helmet!

Until next time, slàinte mhath.

Mark

Man, Mountain

Mountains clear my mind. They provide solace and solitude, asking nothing in return. I give them offerings, though: blood and sweat. My respect for wilderness is infinite, as is my love for the beasts who inhabit it.

Big Tony and I have scaled Scotland’s highest peaks together. His son Cal first accompanied us on a climb when he was eight. Cal summited two snow-topped Munros that day, in sub-zero conditions, without a single complaint. The wind was relentless but so was Cal’s resolve. On a knife-edge ridge between two peaks he learned something important about himself: rather than feeling afraid of the exposure or the height, he felt purified by them. They brought him to a state of clarity. He found Home in high places. In the twelve years since then, mountains have played their part in transforming Cal from eager boychild into a man of Zen nature. A mountain man. Like me. Like his father.

Coffee Break on the Loch

Tony missed our first climb of 2015. Cal and I set off early to beat the traffic. We stopped beside Loch Lomond for coffee, as has become tradition on our trips north. As we sat in silence watching puffs of cloud blow across the cobalt sky, a heavily muscled dog with orange and black tiger stripes padded across to us. I offered him my hand. He sniffed it and showed his approval with a lick. I scratched his head. He rolled onto his back. I rubbed his belly. Back legs twitched as he let out grunts of enjoyment. Cal took over the dog-pampering while I spoke to the dog’s keeper – an Essex man called Rob – about the creature’s unusual markings. He explained that a mixture of Bullmastiff and Staffordshire bull terrier were responsible for the muscular physique. The markings and colouring were an enigma. When Rob strolled back to his Winnebago motorhome, the dog made no attempt to follow. Happy with his two new pals, he had decided to stay put. Rob shouted on the dog, who steadfastly ignored him. Irritated, the Essex man walked over to our table, grabbed the animal by his collar, and pulled him back to the Winnebago. The dog growled all the way there. Cal and I were sad to see the tigerdog go. He was a magnificent beast and our time together had been too short.

We continued north on the A82, skirting Loch Lomond’s shoreline as familiar mountains came into view, their contours as familiar to us as those of our own faces. It was a quintessential Scottish spring morning – endless blue sky and blazing sunshine: the sort of day that looks warm in pictures but in reality chills the flesh. I find those days invigorating. Many Scots don’t agree. They’re highly suspicious that the yellow sphere in the sky is taunting them, like a celestial exhibitionist saying, “Behold my naked splendour. Every day I will reveal myself to you, making you long to feel the warmth of my touch. But I will leave you waiting in frozen yearning until summer. Then, when at last my rays warm your skin, they will feel like long-lost friends.”

Cal and I stopped in Crianlarich for the customary cup of tea that should always precede a climb. The locals were dressed for the weather, with thermal layers covering all but their faces. I was in shorts, T-shirt, hiking socks and climbing boots. A long day of exertion lay ahead, so I had dressed for ease of movement and maximum cooling. As I walked into a shop, the woman behind the counter looked me up and down, then up and down again – more slowly – as if sure her eyes had deceived her the first time. Pointing at my bare arms, she said, “Is someone feelin’ the cold?” Her sarcasm stirred up the appropriate response from me. (“Shut it. Is someone makin’ me a cup o’ tea?”) Giggling, she led me to the back of the shop, where she invited me to make my own tea while she located a waterproof climber’s map of the area. As I prepared tea, the woman said, “OS maps don’t have enough detail for these mountains. And they fall apart in the rain. My waterproof climbin’ maps have much more detail and they’ll stand up to the wildest storm. Come back here after your climb. Maybe I’ll make you a cup o’ tea then.”

Cal and I drank our tea outside. The sky was a deep unbroken blue. A good sign. With any luck we would scale Cruach Ardrain – our chosen mountain for the day – then descend in clear weather conditions. The forecast was good on all climbing websites and the sky seemed to be in agreement.

On the edge of a forest near Crianlarich, we pulled on rucksacks loaded with maps, compasses, camera equipment, water, fruit juice, coffee and nuts. No sooner had we embarked than a grisly sight met us: a mountain sheep had been ripped apart by some predator. Her picked-clean bones were scattered like jigsaw pieces that would never fit together again.

Bones

A cold sensation shot through me. I said to Cal, “Ah hope this isnae an omen for the day.” He nodded. Shaking off the jitters, I said, “Superstition’s for the weak. We make oor own luck. Let’s climb.” Again, Cal nodded.

The walk-in to the base of Cruach Ardrain was long and muddy. We kept to stony ground, as that allowed quicker progress than wading through marsh. The stream to our right was a mass of frogspawn, which spilled over onto the banks. We stopped upstream for a spell, to watch frogs swim in a crystal-clear pool. An hour later, as we neared the base of Cruach Ardrain, a sky-spanning stormcloud blew in and engulfed the mountaintop. It settled there as if held by magnetic attraction. Looking up into the storm, I willed it to blow over. The stubborn bastard stayed put.

Cal crossed the River Falloch by leaping onto stones that jutted above the water’s surface. We began parallel climbs, one on each side of the river. My ascent brought me to a young ewe who had fallen down the mountain and bashed her head on a rock. She was dead, freshly so. Bloodtrails from her mouth and eyes hadn’t yet congealed. Cal looked on helplessly from the far side of the water while I stood equally helpless next to the beautiful animal. Her fleece was thick and brilliant white, her face black with delicate features: one of the Scottish Blackface breed, also known as the Mountain Sheep. These surefooted beasts are excellent climbers, yet one lay dead at my feet – a reminder that in the high places one wrong step can have severe consequences. With an aching heart I spoke to the ewe. “Sorry Ah wasnae here tae catch you when you fell, little one.” Tears pricked my eyes. The bad-omen jitters returned. I pushed onwards.

As Cal and I continued our parallel ascent, we saw a mountain sheep in the river. Drowned. Powerful currents had swept her downstream, bouncing her off rocks until she became trapped between two stones. Fast-flowing water surged over the ewe, causing her head to bob as if nodding in time to nature’s symphony. But there was no life left in her. Body broken, head caved in, she gazed unseeingly through dead eyes. Three dead mountain sheep in as many hours. In hundreds of climbs, I had never experienced that. It felt wrong. With each dead animal I encountered, my unease grew. I carried on, though.

An hour later both Cal and I were on the right of the river. The temperature dropped, so we covered our top halves with additional layers. Just beneath the storm shelf that concealed Cruach Ardrain’s summit, we spotted another ewe in the river. This one was alive. Exhausted, terrified, in shock, and up to her neck in numbingly cold water, but alive. Cal reckoned she’d injured her front legs, which repeatedly buckled under her as she struggled to stand upright. She was near the opposite bank, with a steep slope to her left and thundering waters to her right. Too exhausted or injured to scramble back onto dry land, and aware of the danger just a few inches away, she was in a state of panic. She’d had a lucky landing in a sheep-sized pool of relatively still water. Had she fallen higher or lower, she’d have been dashed on rocks. If the fall had taken her farther horizontally, she’d have been swept away by fast-moving torrents. The coming of spring, longer days and increasing temperatures had resulted in vast snowmelt on Cruach Ardrain’s higher slopes, turning the river into a falling flood of ice-cold water. The ewe could have been in the water for hours already – scared, freezing, circulation dwindling, shock setting in, exhaustion taking over, muscles failing. I’d encountered three dead ewes that day and had felt the bite of helplessness each time. I was too late to save those fallen animals but I’d arrived in time to help this one. And nothing in this Universe could have stopped me from doing exactly that.

Cal and I exchanged looks that conveyed the urgency of the situation. We spoke the same words at the same moment: “We cannae leave her.” (Like me, Cal is an animal lover whom wild things instinctively trust. During our last climb of 2014, we crested a lowland mountain peak and found ourselves face to face with feral mountain goats. These solitary beasts usually keep their distance from humans, and wisely so, but they were different with us. When we saw the goats, Cal and I stood completely still, barely even breathing, our body language a silent acknowledgement that this was their domain. The goats dipped their heads, long horns pointed skywards, and spent a minute gazing at us: getting the measure of us. Then, satisfied with what they had perceived, they went back to their grazing. Cal and I walked among those amazing beasts, our horned kindred spirits, and they didn’t flinch. They’d seen into our souls and were happy with what they’d found there. This is the way of it with wild things. They know only truth.)

We needed to help the ewe immediately. This presented a quandary. By drawing closer we might startle her, causing her to move into the torrent and be swept downriver, but if we didn’t act quickly she would die from exhaustion, shock, hypothermia or drowning – a situation that was becoming more likely with each subsequent collapse of her legs. My brain went into emergency mode. In my mind’s eye I saw the only way of making a sure save. There was no room for error. I would go into the river below the ewe. That way I could catch her if the torrent took her. Cal would go up the right bank then close in from above, staying on dry land, while I approached from the water below. If I didn’t counterbalance the river’s movement I’d be swept away. An image flashed into my mind: rushing waters toppling the sheep, me catching her and the momentum bowling me over, sending both of us hurtling downriver, pinballing off rocks until the waters ran red. I let go of that image, refusing to accept it as a possibility. No harm could come to this ewe. I wouldn’t let it. Couldn’t let it.

On entering the water I barely noticed its chill, thanks to the adrenaline that my body was pumping out. I achieved a state of equilibrium by leaning against the river’s flow. Equilibrium was a start, but to reach the ewe I’d have to move upriver, pushing against the water’s elemental force then finding a new state of balance after every step. Each upwards step was accomplished through brute force and will. As soon as I was within reach of the ewe, I grabbed her horns and did a handstand of sorts, flinging my feet out of the river and landing upside down with toes dug into the mountainside as anchors. Cal sprinted towards the river’s right bank and launched himself into the air. He landed with immaculate balance on a rock behind the sheep. An exquisite jump. A perfect landing. As I lifted the ewe by her horns, Cal pushed her hindquarters. An instant later she was on dry land beside me. I lay there, heart pounding, relief infinite, maintaining eye contact with the sheep as I stroked her fleece and spoke words of comfort to her. The way she looked at me is something words can’t adequately describe. Her gaze transmitted waves of trust, gratitude, friendship, love and more. It transcended words. Cal climbed up to join us. He spoke his own words of comfort to the sheep. He, too, received that look.

I checked the ewe’s legs and determined that she had no injuries. The unsteadiness we’d witnessed must have been caused by exhaustion and numbness from the icy water. We couldn’t leave her on that river bank. The gradient was dangerously steep and she had already fallen once. Cal asked what I was going to do. I told him there was only one thing to do. Eyes wide, he said, “You cannae carry her up the slope!”

“Ah have tae. It’s too dangerous for her here.” Wrapping my arms around the ewe’s body, I picked her up and ascended the mountainside. (Sheep are heavier than they look, especially when they have a full fleece which has just been submerged in a river. Waterlogged climbing boots and sodden clothes didn’t make my load any lighter.) I lost my footing a few times but made sure my knees – not the sheep in my arms – took each impact against the mountain. Upon reaching a flattish clearing of bracken, I laid the ewe down and collapsed beside her. Cal sat on her other side. As he stroked her head and spoke more words of comfort into her ear, I dried her fleece. Her pulse was weak and her temperature worryingly low, so I used a technique I’d learned from a Reiki master to channel energy through my palms and into the ewe. I kept this up until her pulse was booming and her body temperature toasty.

Transferring Energy

Cal and I rose to head up the mountain. Panicking, the ewe scrambled to her feet and tried to follow us. “We cannae go yet,” I said. “She isnae ready.”

Cal looked up at the dark stormcloud. A frown appeared on his brow. “If we don’t go noo we might no’ make the summit and back before dark.”

“The mountain isnae goin’ anywhere, Cal. It’ll be here another day. This gorgeous creature might not be if we leave too early. We have tae stay wi’ her.”

Cal looked at the ewe. She gazed back at him. “Aye,” he said. “We stay wi’ her until she lets us go. When she’s ready.”

Happy Mountain Beasts

And so it was that in the first days of April 2015, on the icy slopes of Cruach Ardrain, two climbers flanked a mountain sheep who had melted their hearts. The ewe gazed at her new friends with such pure affection – such love – that they felt no desire to ever leave that place. They gazed back with admiration for her hardiness, and also, yes, with love.

Cal and I did leave that place. Eventually. But only when the ewe let us go.

Storm over Cruach Ardrain

Under the Stormcloud

Above us the storm shelf loomed, turning the ground below into a land of shadow. We ascended into the storm. From that moment on, our climb became a semi-blind journey through a realm of ice, snow and biting wind. On reaching the upper peaks, we didn’t hang about as we usually do at summits. No drinking coffee from flasks or munching high-calorie snacks to replace spent energy. No sitting at the cairn to enjoy the view. There was no view – just a whiteout. Wind chill dragged the temperature far below zero. Soaked from the river, my clothes began to freeze. Boots became blocks of ice. My beard froze solid, bringing on a bastard of a headache. Extremities turned numb. Due to lack of visibility, our usual rapid descent wasn’t possible. We knew what could happen if a foot is put wrong in the mountains. We’d seen brutal reminders of it just hours earlier. So our movements remained measured and meticulous.

Despite unbroken focus, we found out first hand how easy it is to fall when conditions take a turn for the worse. Traversing a vertical snowbank, Cal lost his grip and dropped like a stone. Heart in mouth, I watched as he vanished into the mist. He could have been shattered on rock, but he landed on a bed of bouncy heather. Lucky.

My ice-encased feet became numb. When they could no longer feel the ground beneath them, I plummeted off a ledge and fell head first through cloud. A rock column shot up towards me. I reached out to break my fall. My left palm took most of the impact, splitting open and spraying nearby snow crimson. The palm had what looked like a flesh catflap on it. Pulling open the skin, I plunged my hands into snow to clean the wound and stem the bleeding. My hands-first landing could have been a head-on collision. Lucky.

When Cal and I emerged from the base of the storm, a welcome vista opened up. On the horizon sunbeams streamed through a hole in the clouds and flickered over the countryside below like celestial fingers massaging the land. Keeping our eyes fixed on the jostling columns of light, we breezed down the mountain.

The Way Back

Soon we were back on the lower slopes where thousands of frogs were fornicating, frolicking, jumping, swimming and croaking with the pure joy of being alive. We knew how they felt.

The day’s last shafts of sunlight danced over lush green land. With those golden beacons lighting our way, Cal and I lit cigars for the walk-out. Relaxing more with every step, we agreed that our experiences in the storm had been some of the least enjoyable ever. We also agreed that the real reason we were there – unknown at the outset but obvious with hindsight – was to save one spectacular sheep. That lucky ewe had passed on some of her luck to us. Luck be a lady, some say. I disagree. Luck is a brave mountain ewe who inhabits the wild landscape of Cruach Ardrain. I love her.

My Albums of 2014

It was a year of extremes.  I experienced pure bliss as well as soul-shattering loss.  So I spent the end of 2014 and the first chunk of 2015 on my ancestral isles, mourning, feeling, being, surrounded by beauty and purity, far from the wickedness in the world.  There, strange forces held me together when my whole being was falling apart.  Perhaps it was the Fae magick of my clan.  Maybe it was my own inner strength, heightened by connection to Viking roots.  It might have been a combination of both.  I know better than to question those things.  I accept them with gratitude.

To borrow a phrase from Judas Priest (more about them later), 2014 delivered the goods, musically speaking.  At the start of 2014 I predicted the year’s top four albums (although I didn’t attempt to forecast my order of preference).  I predicted correctly.  The great Hillhouse Seer Tam the Bammus would be impressed (if that reference went over your head, read my short(ish) story Revelation Was Wrong and you’ll be illuminated). For the first time, there’s a tie for my album of the year.  In each previous year one release stood head and shoulders above the others.  This year there were two.

1= Nimbatus – Realm of Darkness Nimbatus instrumentals transcend metal’s usual formulaic blueprint.  These compositions are more than mere tracks: they’re vast swathes of sound – crunching heavy riffs juxtaposed with sublime lead-guitar refrains, sweeping keyboard melodies and laser-precise drum beats.  Flourishes of strings and piano add poignance to melodies that are already loaded with emotion.  Unlike most metal instrumentalists, Nimbatus never veers into musical widdling/wanking/noodling territory.  Nothing is superfluous.  Each note carries emotion.  Not a moment is wasted.  Every detail of Realm of Darkness – composition, musical execution, guitar tones, track titles, production quality – is flawless.  Nimbatus’s mission statement is to create instrumental songs that translate darkness and sadness into music.  Job done.  And the results sound beautiful. Don’t go looking for Nimbatus music on Amazon or at your local high-street record shop.  You won’t find it there.  Go to bandcamp or reverbnation websites and you’ll find all the Nimbatus releases.  And do yourself a favour – download the tunes in FLAC format for listening to in the house, either streamed or burned onto disc.  That way you’ll hear the music in all its brilliance.  Mp3 files are handy for listening to on the move, but they’re low quality and a third of the overall sound is missing.  This music deserves to be heard properly.  Play loud.

Favourite track: it’s almost impossible to pick one, as they’re all ridiculously good.  At a push, I choose Nocturnal Ride.  Like my favourite Nimbatus track of all (Tales of the Ageless, from debut album Cyclus One), Nocturnal Ride delivers what I’ve come to know as the Nimbatus surprise: just when it seems that the track is about to finish, a new melody soars from out of nowhere, taking the tune to heights so awe-inspiring that my body hair stands up in salute.

1= Insomnium – Shadows of the Dying Sun

For most of 2014 this was my album of the year.  (Insomnium released Shadows of the Dying Sun when the year had just begun, while Nimbatus sneaked out Realm of Darkness as 2014 drew to a close.)  Insomnium albums have twice before topped my annual chart (Above the Weeping World in 2006 and One for Sorrow in 2011), so I had high hopes for Shadows of the Dying Sun.  It didn’t disappoint.  Building on the Finnish melodic-death-metal sound that Insomnium created and honed, the album explores new territory.  Ville Friman makes more use of clean vocals than on previous albums, and to great effect (the clean vocals are often sung simultaneously with Niilo Sevänen’s trademark growled words – an effect that adds a new dimension to Insomnium’s sound).  Some tracks remind the listener that Insomnium can still be – when they choose – the heaviest band on the planet (check out The Gale – intro to the Above the Weeping World album – for historical evidence of this…and turn it up loud).  As on other Insomnium recordings, the band never sacrifices melody for bluster.  Even when Markus Hirvonen’s blast-beat drumming borders on inhuman, Niilo’s bass rumbles like the bowels of Satan after a dodgy curry, and the twin guitars of Ville Friman and Markus Vanhala rip holes in the egos of many other axemen, the overall sound is always richly melodic.  Delicacy is as prevalent as crushing heaviness.  This is the soundtrack to ice, cold, solitude, fortitude and inner strength: breathtaking compositions by innovators who have forged a sound truly their own.

Favourite track: opener The Primeval Dark, both an intro and a song in its own right, delivers a slow-building melody – eerie and ominous – that builds into a wave of astonishingly resonant riffage.  Huge.

3. Agalloch – The Serpent and the Sphere

One of the most underrated acts around, Agalloch is also one of the few non-Scandinavian bands to dabble in black metal without being discounted by their European counterparts, who invented and pioneered the genre.  Agalloch doesn’t restrict its music to any one style, though.  Nowhere (with the exception of 2008’s The White EP, inspired by classic 1973 Scottish horror film The Wicker Man, and incorporating much piano, acoustic guitar and movie snippets) is this more evident than on The Serpent and the Sphere.  I love the multi-layered depth of this album.  It’s the evolution that was hinted at on all the band’s previous full-length recordings.  John Haughm and his cohorts have matured into a musical force to be reckoned with.

Favourite track: Dark Matter Gods.

4. Anathema – Distant Satellites I’ve loved Anathema’s music since their first EP, back when the band was a doom-metal outfit.  Most bands find a style that works for them, then stick with it.  Not so Anathema.  More than any other band that started as an extreme-metal outfit, they have matured.  As testament to this, their last three albums have more in common musically with Pink Floyd than with their doom-metal roots.  Most bands would be afraid to change so radically, for fear of losing fans as a result.  Vincent and Daniel Cavanagh write from the heart, though, not for sales figures.  They express their vision so effectively – through music from the heart and lyrics deep in meaning – that its honesty resonates as much as its musical beauty.  The Cavanagh brothers have grown as human beings.  This is reflected in their music.  Distant Satellites is my second-favourite Anathema album (after 2010’s We’re Here Because We’re Here – my top album of that year).  The lyrical themes are profound (awakening, recognition, love, separation, loss), the music rich in heartfelt melody.

Favourite track: Ariel – one of the most beautiful compositions ever recorded.

5. Pink Floyd – The Endless River

Forget the pish written about this album by broadsheet journalists who don’t know their arses from their elbows when it comes to music.  Most of them jumped straight onto the ‘this is a bunch of outtakes rather than a proper album’ bandwagon.  I wish so-called writers would listen to music with open ears and minds, ignoring the opinions of others, in order to form their own unbiased opinions.  That’s how folk with integrity operate.  So here’s my opinion as a longtime Floyd aficionado with integrity and an open mind.  I don’t care if the recordings on The Endless River weren’t originally intended to be put together onto one release.  Most albums – with the exception of concept albums – are a jumbled assortment of tracks that don’t have any relevance to each other but often work well as a collection of individual pieces.  The Endless River works well as such a collection, yet it has been arranged to flow together beautifully.  The album is a tribute to Floyd’s fallen band member Richard Wright, whose keyboards are high in the mix throughout.  This is fitting.  It reminds the listener that while Wright may not be walking the world anymore, his sounds are left behind, eternally resonating.  It’s difficult to listen to The Endless River without becoming acutely aware of this.  The songs are subtle, thematic, richly layered and gorgeously melodic, close to The Division Bell’s compositions in terms of structure.  Seasoned Floyd listeners will recognise tips o’ the hat to several older PF songs.  The album is a wall (pun intended) of ambient melodies and perfectly executed instrumentation.

Favourite track: Louder Than Words: the only track to feature a David Gilmour vocal.  Lyrics explore the much-publicised animosity within the group, concluding that the end result of their arguments – the music they create – is worth suffering for.  “We bitch and we fight, diss each other on sight, but this thing we do…These times together, rain or shine or stormy weather, this thing we do…it’s louder than words, this thing that we do, louder than words, the way it unfurls.  It’s louder than words, the sum of our parts.  The beat of our hearts is louder than words.”  Truth.  From somewhere, Richard Wright is looking down and smiling.  Thank you for the music, sir.  I miss you.

6. Within Temptation – Hydra

I’ve recognised Within Temptation’s talent since their earliest incarnation but until Hydra their albums were patchy affairs that contained moments of brilliance alongside uninspired music-by-numbers compositions.  There was never a problem with the band’s musical or vocal ability.  They are all accomplished musicians and Sharon den Adel’s voice has always been phenomenal.  She even achieved what I’d thought impossible (covering a Kate Bush song and improving it).  Hydra is the first Within Temptation album to live up to the band’s immense potential.  About time.  It was worth the wait.  A masterpiece.

Favourite track: Let Us Burn – symphonic metal at its most anthemic.

7. Arch Enemy – War Eternal

Michael Amott rarely makes mistakes in music.  A consummate musician with immaculate taste, his various bands ooze quality and originality.  I worried when Angela Gossow left Arch Enemy, as her growled vocals – which put most male death-metal vocalists to shame – were an integral part of the band’s sound.  Amott followed Nightwish’s example (when operatically trained vocalist Tarja Turunen left Nightwish, they replaced her with a female whose vocal style was considerably different, surprising those who expected the band to employ another opera diva as a Turunen clone).  In the case of Arch Enemy, the new female vocalist was Alissa White-Gluz, formerly of The Agonist.  She has neon-blue hair.  That’s a good start.  What about her vocals, though?  Alissa’s voice is less demonic than that of predecessor Angela Gossow, but her rasp gels perfectly with Arch Enemy’s music.  Alissa is more girly than Angela (although in the arena of melodic death metal, girliness is a subjective term).  Angela Gossow looks like she’d ride you all night long, tearing your flesh open with her nails before throwing your bleeding body out the window in the morning.  Alissa White-Gluz looks like she’d beg you to ride her all night long, then she’d make you toast and a cup o’ tea in the morning.  Different styles, both good.  Anyway, back to the music.  War Eternal is a heck of an album.  Amott’s compositions are, as usual, inspired.  At several points Amott’s more sedate playing is reminiscent of The Scorpions’ Rudolf Schenker.  Instrumental Not Long for This World is even crafted around the tune of Scorps ballad Still Loving You.  Amott’s speedier shredding could be mistaken for Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho.  This is very much a guitar-driven album, but the other musicians leave their mark on these tunes too.  Like Nightwish, Arch Enemy lost an iconic figurehead and replaced her with someone stylistically different.  Also like Nightwish, Arch Enemy has evolved into a new – yet equally impressive – animal.

Favourite track: War Eternal – a perfect mix of tasteful riffage and fierce vocals.

8. Triptykon – Melana Chasmata Tom G. Warrior’s influence in metal is enormous.  The seminal Hellhammer was – along with England’s Venom and Sweden’s Bathory – responsible for spawning black metal and later ushering in the Second Wave of Black Metal in Norway.  Second wave bands’ extracurricular activities – violence, murder and church-burning – brought black metal to the attention of the world’s media, but while Warrior may have inadvertently co-created a genre, his violence was limited to lyrics: he was all about the music.  Warrior’s next band, Celtic Frost, influenced the thrash movement in immeasurable ways.  The early Celtic Frost albums (along with those of Germany’s Kreator) are the most original recordings of that ilk.  Triptykon is the logical progression of Celtic Frost, containing some of the same members.  Their second album, Melana Chasmata, eschews the restraints of genre in favour of communicating Warrior’s musical vision in the purest way possible.  It’s a dark album which, like Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemonium, balances brutally heavy passages with ambient sections that feature ethereal female vocals.  Cover art is the 1975 piece Mordor VII by H.R. Giger (the third time Giger has collaborated with Warrior: he provided cover art for Triptykon’s debut album Eparistera Daimones and Celtic Frost’s classic To Mega Therion).

Favourite track: Boleskine House.  (Situated on the shores of Loch Ness, Boleskine House was home to Aleister Crowley, ‘the wickedest man in the world’, who carried out countless esoteric magickal rituals there.  Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, lured in by the house’s dark past, bought it after Crowley’s death.)

9. In Flames – Siren Charms

In Flames pioneered the much-copied ‘Gothenburg sound’.  On Siren Charms the Swedes stay true to the musical blueprint they created – immense energy levels, eviscerating riffs, wall-crumbling bass, precision drumming, and Anders Fridén’s superb vocals, which alternate between low growls and soaring clean tones.  Siren Charms blends heaviness and melody, delicacy and blunt-force attack.

Favourite track: Rusted Nail.

10. Accept – Blind Rage

Many longtime metal fans have written off Accept time after time, first when Udo Dirkschneider left the band, then when he returned, then when he left again, and so on.  I’ve never done so.  I always recognised the musical excellence of the others in the band, particularly Wolf Hoffman, whose ability to compose metal anthems is rivalled by his talent for dishing them out on guitar.  Having delivered one of metal’s greatest comeback albums in 2010 (Blood of the Nations, the first Accept recording to feature vocalist Mark Tornillo) and another barnstorming release in 2012 (Stalingrad), Accept continued their upsurge with Blind Rage in 2014.  Classic metal from start to finish – anthemic, catchy and loaded with hooks.

Favourite track: From the Ashes We Rise – quintessential Accept.

11. Judas Priest – Redeemer of Souls Judas Priest is one of the bands that delivered the metal goods to me back when I was barely out of nappies.  They changed my life for the better.  To many, Judas Priest is the definitive metal band.  Certainly, and inarguably, they are responsible for the studs-and-leather image that came to be metal’s hallmark.  (Little do most folk know that this came about because JP’s vocalist, Rob Halford, bought clothes and accoutrements from gay boutiques…but that’s another story.)  Redeemer of Souls had the same impact on me as its two immediate predecessors, Angel of Retribution and Nostradamus: some tracks came across as timeless and inspired, while others sounded (and I hate to use this term to describe anything by a band as special as JP, but it’s my honest opinion) a bit generic.  Because JP recorded iconic albums such as Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders of the Faith and British Steel, which are perfect from start to finish, I expect a lot of this band.  I expect perfection.  I know they’re capable of it.  I’ve been hearing them deliver musical perfection (and watching them do so live) since I was a wayward child.  So while Redeemer of Souls is an excellent album, it’s not a classic Priest album.  This band has a monumental legacy to live up to with any new recording.  The album’s high points, and there are several, make it an essential possession for any JP fan.  Halford’s voice is astonishing, as always.  Not for nothing is he known as The Metal God.  Richie Faulkner took on the enormous task of filling KK Downing’s shoes as Glen Tipton’s fellow Priest axeman.  He has done so with confidence and excellence, both on this recording and in the live arena.

Favourite track: Cold Blooded.

Life Imitating Art

Life and art borrow from each other. I’ve written some characters whose personalities and idiosyncrasies were based on real people. Art often imitates life but recently I experienced the converse in a way that was nothing short of spooky.

While working on a story that revolves around witchcraft in Scotland and the horrific fates once dealt to alleged witches here, I created a character in the image of one of my primary-school teachers. I’ll abbreviate his name to Mr C. He was an excellent educator: a perfect combination of wisdom, savvy, knowledge, compassion and inspiration, all rounded off by a temper that could, when necessary, explode with enough ferocity to bring transgressions under control. Also, he had a ridiculous amount of coolness for a teacher. Aged ten, when I became immersed in rock and metal music, I scrawled intricate band logos on the covers of my school jotters. Rather than making a fuss about this, Mr C gave me leads to follow, such as, “I see you have an ELP logo on there. If you don’t have their Tarkus album, save up your pocket money and buy it. You won’t be disappointed.” My respect for Mr C grew as he nodded his approval of my rock artwork and I gave him my feedback on the music he had recommended. The only time he ever seemed worried by my direction was when, for one art project, I created a bust of Motörhead’s Lemmy with cigarette hanging from his mouth and Ace-of-Spades-shaped badge (featuring the words With Dope You Hope, With Booze You Lose) on his jacket. Mr C took me aside and said, “You haven’t started smoking dope, have you?” I explained that I’d seen the slogan graffitied on a wall and thought it possessed a certain je ne sais quoi, adding that I’d never dabbled in dope. Happy with my explanation, Mr C nodded.

A few years later Mr C left his job without warning, apparently under a cloud. He left town and wasn’t heard from again. There were rumours, but I never paid attention to the Chinese-whispered gossip. I looked for definitive evidence of his whereabouts. Nothing. Not so much as a whiff. Like Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects, Mr C seemed to have disappeared into thin air. With the advent of the Internet, I looked for details of the disappearing man. Nada. Not a phone-book entry, employment history or link of any kind.

The mystery of Mr C had long troubled me, which explains how his alter ego found his way into my fiction. I created that character to highlight the fragility of the human psyche. In the story a teacher is fired from his job. Devastated by the loss of the career he found so rewarding, the man shuts himself off from the outside world and drinks himself into oblivion, pissing away self-worth and lifeforce. In real life Mr C had enjoyed a drink but hadn’t been an alcoholic (unless he was a functional alky whose daytime activities didn’t suffer as a result). In my story of Scottish witchcraft, his character’s self-destructive arc was something I felt. So I wrote it. This proved to be a double-edged sword: my intuition had sensed the answer to a nagging question, but this made me all the more determined to find out what had really happened to Mr C. He was impulsive and had been known to wade into dangerous situations with questionable people, but he was also streetwise enough to have extricated himself from those scenarios before things went south. Although the mystery remained officially unsolved, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had tapped into some universal consciousness and that Mr C was, somewhere, drinking himself senseless.

Then, after an archery session in 2012, I went to a pub called The Crooked Lum with my coach and a fellow archer. As I stepped into the interior’s warmth I saw him. Mr C. He was seated alone, back to the wall, eyes glazed, staring over his pint of Guinness. If this had been a cartoon I’d have balled my fists and rubbed my eyes in astonishment, sure they were deceiving me. I stood rooted to the spot. My coach said, “What’s the matter? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Unable to tear my gaze away from Mr C, I replied, “Ah did. Ah still am. You two go and get your drinks. There’s somethin’ Ah have tae do.”

I approached Mr C’s table. He appeared not to have aged. Pickled, perhaps. Preserved by alcohol? His chestnut hair was brushed in the same wavy side shed I remembered from childhood. The granite jaw looked as resolute as ever, his expression drunken but determined. He looked up at me through dark eyes which – despite being coated with the glassy sheen of inebriation – sparkled with intelligence. My presence seemed to make him uneasy. I addressed him by his full name. That put him even more on edge. I didn’t understand why. Then I realised that I’d changed substantially since the last time he’d seen me: bigger, hairier, some would say scarier. He asked, “Who are you?” His body language told that he was ready to dash for the door.

When I replied, “Mark Rice,” the tension left Mr C’s body. Eyes like polished onyx gazed at me, seeing beyond my unshaven face and unkempt hair. I saw recognition in those eyes as they identified the boy within the man.

What Mr C said next was light years away from what I’d have predicted. “Mark Rice – you used to live on beans.” It seemed as though I’d wandered into a Douglas Adams novel, such was the preposterous nature of the proclamation. Then memories came flooding back. My father used to buy certain foods in bulk. Baked beans were one such commodity. I had developed a bean fetish (not a sexual one, I should stress), devouring them tirelessly, sometimes even running home to make beans on toast straight after eating lunch in school. Mr C had once paired off the children in his class and set us the task of making clay sculptures. I convinced my art partner Iain that we should create a sculpture of beans on toast. We threw ourselves into the task. Sculpting toast out of clay was easy but rolling individual beans was a fiddly job. Nevertheless, we hurtled onwards with our intricate project as if possessed, pouring thick orange paint over the finished article. It was a masterpiece. We thought so. Mr C thought so. The headmaster thought so too, so much so that he put our sculpture in a glass cabinet just inside the school’s main entrance. When visitors came to the school, the headmaster’s sweeping hand gestures would draw their attention to the cabinets full of gleaming sports trophies and…beans on toast. There was a wonderful eccentricity about my primary school. I loved the way teachers there encouraged creativity and free thinking, even wildly lateral thinking. Meanwhile in The Crooked Lum I experienced a chain reaction of memories, taking me back to a time when every day felt profound. As if sensing my temporal trip, Mr C said, “You were a great kid – a joy to teach.”

“You were an excellent teacher.”

“Really?”

“Aye, really. Surely you know that? You had the perfect blend o’ characteristics for someone whose job was tae teach a bunch o’ savages like me and ma classmates. You were intelligent enough tae gain oor admiration, compassionate enough tae earn oor trust, and terrifyin’ enough tae stop us from runnin’ riot in the classroom.”

“I’ve often wondered if I made any difference at all,” he said. “It’s good to hear that I did. I’m happy to see you wearing a Rush T-shirt. Do you remember who introduced you to Rush?”

“Of course. You did. Ah listened tae Rush more than any other band while Ah was writin’ ma first novel. How’s that for you makin’ a difference?”

Mr C tilted his head, weighing up what he’d just heard. “I knew you’d write a book. That was always going to happen. Let me guess – it’s full of otherworldly fantasy, heavy metal, women and beans?”

“Pretty close. Beans don’t feature in it, though.”

“Oh? Are you saving them for the sequel?”

I chuckled at Mr C’s quick wit. My archery coach brought over a mug of coffee then left me and my erstwhile teacher to our conversation.

Then things turned eerie. Mr C told me he was back in East Kilbride to visit his father, who was at death’s door. In between sups of Guinness, he revealed that his own health was in almost as bad a state as his dad’s. He had drunk his way to severe liver cirrhosis. Sitting across the table from this man I so admired, and looking into his mirror-reflective eyes, I felt the hair rise on my arms and neck. Pressure built in my eyes until tears pooled. I wondered what I had tapped into while writing my story about the witches. The infinite energy latticework known as the Zero Point Field? Jung’s Collective Unconscious? Or had I picked up a psychic distress call from this man who had been ever supportive of my childhood endeavours? A few months earlier I’d created a character based on Mr C and written about how he drank himself into oblivion. Now the real man sat before me, one step away from the oblivion I’d described. He didn’t seem sad or worried. In fact, his attitude was upbeat. He asked more questions about the years when he’d taught me. Do you think I made a difference to other children too? Have you carried any of my lessons with you into the world? What are your favourite memories of those years? Then more questions. Which is your favourite Rush album? What gigs have you attended since your first (Iron Maiden, Glasgow Apollo, the same year I was in Mr C’s primary-six class)? That one took a long time to answer. What’s the summarised plot of your novel? I guzzled coffee after coffee, answering every question Mr C threw at me, feeling that somehow my presence was providing him with a temporary lifeline to a time when he was an unshakable force of nature. Yet that momentary silver lining seemed destined to be engulfed by dark clouds. So I stayed longer, hoping to reinforce in Mr C that he had every reason to feel a sense of self-worth. I had to let him know he wasn’t just admired and respected as a teacher…he was loved.

His right hand began fiddling with a mobile phone while his left gripped a pint of Guinness as if it were a lifebuoy keeping him afloat at sea. “May I take your photo?” he asked. “I forget things sometimes. If I take your picture I’ll know this wasn’t a dream.”

Pondering the idea, I saw a hole in its logic and so suggested a better alternative. “You didnae recognise me at first tonight. If you wake up tomorrow and this whole night’s a blank, you might see a photo o’ me on your phone and wonder, ‘Who’s that hairy basturt and what’s he doin’ on ma phone?’ Tell me your number. Ah’ll send you a text that leaves no room for confusion.” The text I sent said that Mr C was a great teacher and an inspiration. It went on to say how happy I was to once again meet the man who had played such a pivotal role in my early development: the teacher whose belief in me had been unflinching. I put my name at the end of the message.

At closing time, as pub patrons filtered out into the darkness, a feeling of helplessness flooded into me. I wanted to take this man – who would have faced Hell for me all those years ago – under a protective wing to heal his hurt. The demon on my left shoulder growled, “You fuckin’ did this. You wrote it and it’s unfoldin’ as you described. Happy?” Perched on my opposite shoulder, a kilted Faerie chieftain said, “Don’t listen tae that infernal fuckwit’s far-fetched fiction. This has been happenin’ for decades. Your mind simply tuned in tae your teacher’s frequency and sensed what he was goin’ through.” I believed the Faerie warrior, as I always do, yet I couldn’t help feeling unnerved on a monumental scale.

Mr C and I shook hands under the night’s blue-black blanket of weeping clouds. My last words to him: “You were an amazin’ teacher. You still are a great man. Remember that.” As we parted, my heart boomed a collision of past, present and future. I felt in my soul the ripples that every action sends out into the world and wider Universe. An epiphany? That’d be an understatement. It was what Zen monks call a moment of satori. Even in his drunken state and on a seemingly inexorable journey of self-destruction, Mr C was still leading me to greater understanding. For that, and for every moment I was blessed to spend with this man, I feel gratitude.

Mr C, you were loved. You still are. You always will be. The difference you made will ripple forever.