Best of 2014 in Metal and Hard Rock – Part II

Counting down the top five albums of the year
By Peter Lindblad

Crowbar's 'Symmetry in Black' is
our pick as the best album of 2014

No where in the Farmer's Almanac did it forecast heavy landslides of sludge or days of darkened, apocalyptic skies portending doom.

Such conditions were prevalent in the world of heavy metal, however, what with the blackened, cataclysmic audio devastation wrought this year by the likes of Obituary, Yob, Goatwhore, Eyehategod, Wo Fat, Crowbar and Corrosion of Conformity.

Old reliable alternative-metal punishers Prong brought forth another blistering, hard-hitting screed on the ugly state of the world, while one of the band's former guitarists, a veteran sideman named Monte Pittman who's played with Madonna, of all people, released a solo album that not only showed off a diverse set of chops, but also had some solid songwriting to boot.

And then there were the '80s artists that somehow succeeded, against almost insurmountable odds, to recapture the magic of yesterday, like Winger, Tesla, Sebastian Bach, House of Lords, Rubicon Cross and their frontman C.J. Snare of Firehouse fame, and Red Dragon Cartel, featuring the long-exiled Jake E. Lee.

Whittling the best of 2014 down to a final five was no easy task. Without any more delay, here then are the top five albums of the year:

Tesla - Simplicity 2014

5. Tesla – Simplicity: Trends come and go. Tesla remained steadfast in its adherence to the basics on Simplicity, choosing good, solid songwriting and well-executed, tasteful musicianship over flashy playing and experimentation. Gnarled, passionate, blue-collar anthems for "Freedom Rock" holdouts mingled with heartfelt, torn-and-frayed ballads – cobbled together with a mix of electric and acoustic instrumentation – that soared made Simplicity a welcome throwback to their salad days, while the sunny Southern rock charm of "Cross My Heart" made it one of the best songs of the year. Keep it simple, Tesla.

Winger - Better Days Ahead 2014

4. Winger – Better Days Ahead: Nobody's laughing at Winger anymore, or at least they shouldn't be, not after striking musical gold on two strong LPs in a row. Building off the melodic complexity and surprisingly heaviness of Karma, Better Days Ahead showed even more diversity and maturity, positioning Winger as the most progressive and daring pop-metal band to survive the hair-sprayed glamour of the '80s. Time hasn't diminished their chops, and with Better Days Ahead, Winger combined power with precision on the rugged "Rat Race," while embracing funk on a bright, bouncy title track and swimming in the psychedelia of "Be Who You Are, Now." This is who they are, for better, not worse.

Goatwhore - Constricting Rage of the
Merciless 2014

3. Goatwhore – Constricting Rage of the Merciless: Ferocious death metal with undercurrents of Southern boogie grooves – Constricting Rage of the Merciless is a holy terror of an album, as comfortable riding blazing-fast, charred thrash metal as it is crawling through thick, tar-like sludge with an evil grin on its dirty face. Highly combustible, brutal riffs are the order of the day, and they look to brawl with anybody that crosses their path of destruction. And for those who have the stomach for it, Goatwhore paints in bloody language grim scenes of torturous violence and horrific end-of-life struggles. Their rage is contagious.

Mastodon - Once More 'Round
the Sun 2014

2. Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun: Conceptually speaking, this isn't Leviathan. Aiming for more accessible and immediate rewards, Mastodon tightened up its song structures considerably and crafted big, muscular hooks for the vibrant, yet still intricate and massive Once More 'Round the Sun. They took a lot of heat for its video for "The Motherload," what with all that twerking going on. And not everybody's onboard with the band's sound evolving to become increasingly more radio-friendly. All that aside, Mastodon is still Mastodon, their mighty riffs are still enormous and blustery, Brann Dailor's drumming remains astoundingly intricate and powerful, and their guitar architecture, as always, is awe-inspiring.

Crowbar - Symmetry in Black 2014

1. Crowbar – Symmetry in Black: Underestimate Crowbar at your peril. This chugging behemoth, once a bit of a one-trick pony, has expanded its sludge-metal repertoire, thrashing with fierce intensity while also constructing mammoth, churning riffs that build slowly and grow to enormous tsunamis of doom. Expertly plotted, intricate movements crawl like primordial creatures, before evolving into thick, crushingly heavy monsters. What's surprising is how listenable it is. Calling it "melodic" might be a stretch, but every track is compelling in some way, hiding brawny, slow-developing hooks within its deeply blackened, impenetrable great walls of sound. What symmetry, what balance, what provocative lyrics – Crowbar has brought forth its masterpiece. Now go ahead and crown them kings of 2014.

Short cuts: Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod, Wo Fat reviewed

CD Review: Wo Fat – The Conjuring

Small Stone

All Access Rating: A-

Wo Fat - The Conjuring 2014

If The Sword, Kyuss and the Meat Puppets all gathered together at some lonely desert crossroads to ingest peyote and summon the spirit of Robert Johnson, the resulting jam session might sound a little something like Wo Fat's The Conjuring. A crusty morass of monstrously heavy, churning riffage and fuzzy, swampy grooves lost in a howling storm of constantly mutating psychedelia, the fifth album from these Dallas, Texas, voodoo priests finds the band expanding and lengthening their stoner-metal instrumental forays into the deep backwoods of the soul on such tales of the strange and weird as the propulsive "Read the Omens," the hazy, menacing "Pale Rider from the Ice" and the dark, 17-minute opus "Dreamwalker."https://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords

CD Review: Eyehategod – Eyehategod

Housecore Records

All Access Rating: A-

Eyehategod - S/T 2014

"Sometimes I'm stuck together/sometimes I'm so unglued," rages Eyehategod vocalist Mike IX Williams in "Parish Motel Sickness," a trudging, Sabbath-like dirge off the legendary NOLA meat grinders' latest epistle of vitriolic sludge metal. And sometimes life gets almost unbearably tough, as it has for the infamous Eyehategod in recent years – culminating with the death of drummer Joey LaCaze. Eyehategod ends its long silence with this visceral, tortured self-titled release, surging so forcefully ahead with brutal, writhing riffs and bulldozing rhythms driving "Quitter's Offensive" and "Trying to Crack the Hard Dollar" and blasting through the hardcore intensity of "Agitation! Propaganda!" Though monolithic and lugubrious, Eyehategod never settles into predictable tempos, and when it downshifts or speeds up, the path they're on, however rocky and twisting it is, takes them exactly where they want to go. Every note is played with careful deliberation and delivered with a sledgehammer. http://www.thehousecorerecords.com/

CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity – IX

Candlelight Records

All Access Rating: B+

Corrosion of Conformity - IX 2014

Simply titled IX, Corrosion of Conformity's newest offering from Candlelight Records is a brilliant hot mess of heavy electric blues, doom-loaded sludge metal and trashy hardcore. Raw and utterly organic, the bludgeoning IX takes its cues from Blue Cheer, Black Flag, Black Sabbath and rebellious, anthemic Southern rock, throwing it all in a blender and pouring out this tasty gravy over a bed of grits and razor blades. With the power trio of bassist/vocalist Mike Dean, drummer/vocalist Reed Mullin and guitarist Woody Weatherman stretching out jams a little further than before, IX on rare occasions lacks focus, but they still know how to manufacture brawny, meaty riffs. Between the stomping blues of "Elphyn," the blustery punk of "Denmark Vesey," the catastrophic breakdowns and chugging insistence of "The Nectar" and the renegade tempos of "On Your Way," IX flies Corrosion of Conformity's freak flag with pride. http://candlelightrecordsusa.com/site/

CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye

CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye (reissue)

Candlelight Records

All Access Review: B+

Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye 2012

Eye for an Eye had been missing for so long that many Corrosion of Conformity followers had given up searching for it, fearing that it was lost forever. Released in 1983, the furious debut from these punk-metal crossover firebrands had been out of print quite possibly since the Reagan administration, it undoubtedly having burned out rather than faded away. Then, a funny thing happened.

The Animosity lineup of Corrosion of Conformity – perhaps the most combustible combination of rumbling, roiling hardcore and Sabbath-inspired riffage that underground metal has ever produced – returned with a vengeance in early 2012, their self-titled LP a satisfying contrast of sludge (“The Doom”), sinewy grooves (“The Moneychangers” and “What We Become”) and speed (“Leeches”) that shifts tempos easily and often and immerses itself in the thick, heavy psychedelia of the Soundgarden-like “Come Not Here.” Finding audiences hungry for COC’s meaty riffs, Candlelight Records thought that the time was right to revisit the thrashing, combative Eye for an Eye and tack on the Six Songs with Mike Singing EP for good measure.

Corrosion of Conformity - S/T 2012

Featuring the original COC lineup of singer Eric Eycke, Mike Dean on bass, guitarist Woody Weatherman, and drummer Reed Mullin, Eye for an Eye is … well, a bit misunderstood. Often characterized, and rightly so, as a high-velocity hardcore record that wraps itself in Henry Rollins’s Black Flag, Eye for an Eye is, indeed, that and bruising, frenzied tracks like “Broken Will,” “Rabid Dog,” “Coexist,” “Dark Thoughts” and “Excluded” – all checking in at under 2:50 – that race at a breakneck pace won’t disabuse anybody of that notion. It is a raw and reckless album, with playing that is fast and loose, and the violence of “What” and the growling viciousness of “Negative Outlook” – as angry as a badger protecting its home – are also punk as all get out. But, there are moments where this version of COC betrays its metal inclinations, and not just when they deliver a snarling, torn-and-frayed take on Judas Priest's cover of Peter Green's “Green Manalishi.”

Before “Indifferent” threatens to blow apart, as it does in the choruses, the verses crawl menacingly, quickly building in intensity until all hell breaks loose. Many of the song intros consist of trudging, brawny riffs wrenched into difficult, tortured shapes, the kind The Melvins might sculpt out of the twisted metal wreckage of a car crash. And on “L.S.” – a song that has all the wicked charm of a murderous hillbilly dragging a corpse out behind a shed – COC clearly reveals a fundamental, if still in its formative phase, understanding of metal dynamics and a taste for brutality, even more evident on the raging “Rednekkk.” Tweaking Southern-rock conventions, it’s an absolute nuclear meltdown of a song.

Eye for an Eye is a ragged record, the product of a band in its infancy that is just beginning to question its identity. The Six Songs with Mike Singing EP, originally released in 1989 and featuring very old tracks with Mike Dean on lead vocals for the only time in the history of COC, presents a cleaner, more developed vision of COC’s punk-metal hybrid, as fine specimens of early thrash-metal like “Center of the World,” “Citizen” and “Not for Me” burn white-hot and surge toward their fiery ends with hostility and ferocious guitars. Growing up as left-leaning political and social animals – always spoiling for a fight in lyrics that take on opposing points of view with a ferocious intelligence – in the land of Jesse Helms and other right-wing demagogues must have driven COC to madness. Thankfully, they’ve harnessed that wild, unpredictable energy of Eye for an Eye and exacted their revenge, expanding their scope of influences to include more soulful elements and constructing well-defined, varied song structures that could withstand earthquakes. They’re still a force to be reckoned with.

-            Peter Lindblad