NeophobiA

Fantastic Negrito - Please Don't Be Dead (2018) Fantastic Negrito will never be short of material. In his tumultuous life, the man born Xavier Dphrepaulezz has survived near-death experiences with gunmen, a near-fatal car crash that put him in a coma and cost him the use of a hand, million-dollar record deals and million-dollar record disasters, and grand disillusionment with the Hollywood lifestyle. Thankfully, a unique background has made for a singular and spectacular multi-instrumentalist and singer. Please Don’t Be Dead's roots burrowed deeply into the rich earth of the blues, and was inspired largely by addressing Dphrepaulezz's fears for the world his children are set to grow up in. It melded the personal with the political, completely unconfined by genre or self-censorship. A Boy Named Andrew luxuriated in Middle Eastern vibes, Negrito’s characterful vocals dripping with soul; Dark Windows showcased the warm soul-baring of a master singer-songwriter; and the infectious and lingering closing track, Bullshit Anthem (‘Take that bullshit and turn it into good shit’) offered up an experience so insanely funky, you could imagine Prince looking down from his regal purple cloud and nodding in approval. Prince aside, there were no other comparisons for Fantastic Negrito. He continues to dance to the beat of his own drum, and it’s hard not to want to join him.

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct (2016) How do you cling on to your throne as the world’s biggest hard rock band for more than 25 years? Metallica have had a few wobbles over the decades: legal battles with fans, a few duff albums, bust-ups and fall-outs and ill-advised public therapy sessions. Their harshest critics would argue that in the process they have diluted thrash metal into safe family entertainment, mainstream enough to headline Glastonbury or pack cinemas with glossy IMAX concert films. And yet, even in 2016 a new Metallica album was still a cultural event in a way few other rock releases are. They may no longer be the loudest, fastest or most abrasive, but these former thrash metal overlords remain the gold standard of how unashamedly heavy music can still compete with the biggest blockbuster names in pop and rap. When Hardwired... dropped, eight years had elapsed since the multi-platinum Death Magnetic, the longest gap between studio albums in Metallica’s career. Initially they planned to work on Hardwired…To Self-Destruct with the same producer, the legendary Rick Rubin, but during the project’s long gestation studio engineer Greg Fidelman took over co-production with Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield. The two lead-off singles were deceptively compact belters. Hardwired, the last song written and recorded for the album, was an exhilarating, three-minute blast of machine-gun punk-metal, all squealing tyres, screeching hand-brake turns and percussive staccato chants: ‘We’re so fucked! Shit outta luck!’ Yay! Moth Into Flame was another exercise in pummelling brevity, its hurtling centrifugal energy nicely offset against chiming minor-key chords. Both were punchy, choppy and relatively poppy by modern Metallica standards. But as the album unfolded it expanded into six, seven and eight-minute epics. The apex of this billowing gigantism was Halo On Fire, a brooding power ballad framed by a widescreen vista that takes in mountainous crunch chords, fizzing geysers of super-fast guitar squiggle and towering volcanoes of fiery, Wagnerian excess; imagine a Game Of Thrones box set crammed into eight minutes of molten melodrama. And Am I Savage? was a gloriously ugly, scouring, relentless skull fucker with a lyric about bestial transformation and mighty Old Testament doom chords worthy of Black Sabbath. Zombie romance lasted forever in Now That We’re Dead, a louche, leering, lightly gothic love song in which Hetfield serenaded his corpse bride: ‘Now that we’re dead, my dear, we can be together.’ There were pleasing echoes of Kurt Cobain’s mordant wit within. The album ended on a high with Spit Out The Bone, a monumental Gormenghast of dystopian thrash nihilism with a lyric celebrating humanity’s extinction at the hands of genocidal machines. ‘Utopian solution!’ Hetfield barked, ‘finally cure the Earth of Man!’ Exhilaratingly noisy and steeped in gleefully negative punker attitude, it was a welcome reminder of Metallica at their uncompromising best. Unshackled from orthodox notions of good taste, with Hardwired..., Metallica proved they can still make a gloriously hideous racket.

Opeth - Pale Communion (2014) ’Twas a strange but beautiful thing – the sound of Swedish Beelzebub, and his fellow monsters of thinking-man’s metal, going ‘prog’. Following their conception on death metal terms, Opeth had been veering down increasingly progressive paths ever since. Spectacular works like My Arms, Your Hearse and Blackwater Park transformed the possibilities for fresh-from-Hell death vocals, teaming them with exquisite atmospherics and inventive shades of metal. 2011’s Heritage moved further away from the metal world (to mixed reception), and then Pale Communion soared right into prog land. Death vocals were gone. Majestic, contemporary, King Crimson-echoing prog took its place. A worthwhile venture? Oh yes. It may come as no surprise to learn that Steven Wilson mixed this album (he also mixed Heritage). He and Åkerfeldt had collaborated via Opeth, Porcupine Tree and their duo project Storm Corrosion, among other avenues. And the mutual influence they had exchanged over the years fully came to fruition on Pale Communion. But the delicacy and absent death vocals didn't leave Opeth without nuts. Nor did the orchestral strings, grandly but smoothly linking various points. Menacingly minor nu-prog progressions and mighty guitar chops added colour and weight to the likes of Moon Above, Sun Below. It all generated a brooding, lavish environment for the carefully crafted tunes present here – clearly something Åkerfeldt and co focused on. Probably the most enchanting aspect of Pale Communion was its mood shifts. Wilson had observed that prog rock is wonderful in its capacity to not fall into simple ‘happy song’ or ‘sad song’ categories. While every song here had a definite soul, the twists, turns, small swerves and sharp jolts they took us through were compelling. River, for instance, began as a prettily harmonised, unplugged piece, growing in stature via sublime classic rock guitar melodies, before jarring into a brooding prog-metal tangent. So yes, the new prog age of Opeth had cometh – and with 2016's Sorceress and 2019's In Cauda Venenum it only grew. Mourn their death metal farewell – but more importantly, relish the result of an intelligent, engaging act taking a new stand. Captivating stuff.

Clutch - Psychic Warfare (2015) Slowly but surely, this decade has seen the mainstream rock world beginning to cotton on to why Clutch have been so revered and adored within underground metal circles for the last 20 years or more. Perhaps it was 2013’s incisive Earth Rocker album that clinched the deal, it was a fearless and focused encapsulation of the Maryland quartet’s trademark sound that also saw their songwriting reach a new peak of efficacy. If not that, then maybe it was simply that current tastes have drifted far enough into raucous, bluesy territory that Clutch’s approach suddenly made perfect sense. Either way, Psychic Warfare was the perfect way for the band to consolidate their growing allure and to further cement their reputation for being one of the few unapologetic rock bands on the planet that could harness the genre’s past without being beholden to it. Seemingly content to be themselves and leave the wilful experimentation to bands that lacked such a strong core identity, Clutch now sounded entirely thrilled by their own sound and in total command of its incremental evolution. Tim Sult’s unmistakable riffs and the infectious swing of drummer Jean-Paul Gaster and bassist Dan Maines wrapped themselves around more inspired tales of weirdo America from an increasingly authoritative Neil Fallon. All sober analysis aside, the best thing about Clutch remained the same as ever: they’re insanely good fun, not to mention heavy enough to shake the walls and witty enough to coax a smile from the moodiest of burly beard-wearers. From the infectious rush of X-Ray Visions (‘Telekinetic prophetic dynamite!’ bellowed Fallon) and the blazing Firebirds, to the darkly comic Sucker For The Witch and the funky fidget of Your Love Is Incarceration, Psychic Warfare comprised a blur of gleaming hooks and unstoppable grooves, all topped with endless fresh examples of Fallon’s wonderfully idiosyncratic outlaw poetry. Clutch are still the greatest rock’n’roll band on planet Earth, and this was another classic.

The Wildhearts - Renaissance Men (2019) Although touted as featuring the ‘classic’ line-up of Ginger, CJ, Ritch Battersby and Danny McCormack, these four made only one album together – the original Fishing For Luckies in 1994. They tried again later that year, but CJ was gone after the initial sessions for what became p.h.u.q. CJ and Ginger smoothed things over in 2001, and Ritch has been back on the drum stool since 2005. So presumably it was the return of bassist Danny – on stage for the Britrock Must Be Destroyed dates a year prior even though recovering from the amputation of part of his right leg – that was the catalyst which brought this turbulent band full circle to how they sounded when he first joined in 1991. Ginger reckoned that previous album ¡Chutzpah! (2009, with Scott Sorry on bass) was poorly received, but that this one deserved a Champagne reception. Whereas ¡Chutzpah! was lyrically brighter and musically drifted into power-pop at times, Renaissance Men got darker and heavier again. It wasn’t gloomy, though. Far from it. The title track was joyous and triumphant: ‘Back in your face again, we’re the Renaissance Men... ARRIBA!/You need us around, you can’t keep a good band down…’ – plus a series of canny rhymes, including probably the first ever chorus to pair ‘DC-10’ with ‘men’. Not just that song, but the whole album took you back to the feeling you had the first time you heard Turning American; that impossible Beatles/Metallica, angry/funny nexus. It was the Wildhearts remembering what they do best – and just going for it. It started at full tilt with Dislocated – which in places sounded like Motörhead, until a prime-cut Ginger bridge gave it all away – then it crashed, via a howl of feedback, into Let ’Em Go in which a gang chorus sang about rivers of shit. Fine Art Of Deception celebrated lack of commitment with sinister yet customary honesty: ‘Don’t let my proximity mean what it may imply/I’m just working on a way to say goodbye.’ The centre-piece of the album was Diagnosis. The best and longest of the 10 tracks, it built slowly into a rant about mental health professionals and how they let people down. Ginger launched another brutal attack, this time on the pharmaceutical industry, in Emergency (Fentanyl Babylon), but he was funnier when referencing drugs in My Kinda Movie and closer Pilo Erection. So, was it as good as Earth Vs The Wildhearts? No. On a par with Fishing For Luckies and p.h.u.q.? Close – and easily the best thing since.

Faith No More - Sol Invictus (2015) It has been both amusing and embarrassing to observe entitled music fans stridently declaring what reformed ‘heritage’ rock bands should or should not be permitted to do with their own careers over the course of this decade – as if they, and not the musicians themselves, are the only true, trust-worthy custodians of these iconic brands. However, save for the inevitable try-hards crowing ‘No Jim Martin, No Faith No More’ – or indeed ‘No Chuck Mosley, No Faith No More’ – the revelation that the reunited Faith No More were working upon their first studio album in 18 years didn’t generate the same sort of anguished indignation which accompanied, for instance, the news of a new Pixies record, or the idea that Refused might have had the temerity to attempt to follow up The Shape Of Punk To Come. It might just be that FNM had earned that most valuable and rare commodity – trust – or simply that the quintet’s patient, slow-burning resurrection had been conducted without any recourse to self-aggrandising or hype. Perhaps the most instantly notable aspect of Sol Invictus was just how seamlessly the album followed on from its predecessor, 1997’s cockily-titled Album Of The Year. Recorded at a time when more than one member of the band seemed more interested in individual side projects than the collective whole, Album Of The Year assimilated FNM’s disparate influences – post-punk, metal, electronica, grindcore, soul, whatever - into arguably the most tightly-bound body of work in their canon Impressively, given how long these five musicians had been uncoupled, Sol Invictus went further, to even more potent, startling effect. While deep immersion in the album’s 10 tracks allowed the isolation of numerous wonderful individual ‘moments’ – the sweet melodica swells in Rise Of The Fall, Roddy Bottum’s earworm cyclical keyboard riff in Superhero, the utter contempt heard in Mike Patton’s voice on Black Friday – the overwhelming first impression was just how brilliantly Faith No More’s component parts interlocked and engaged. That these long-estranged collaborators could achieve such cohesion and momentum without dependence on nostalgia or familiar tropes was laudable, and at various points, utterly remarkable. This most impressive of comebacks ended in typically assured fashion, with From The Dead, a shimmering, summery meld of acoustic guitars, beatific stacked choral vocals, martial beats, Theremin wibbles and chiming bells, all of which made a mockery of Faith No More’s perceived status as an ‘alt- metal’ band. 'Welcome home my friend,' Patton sang at its climax, an apposite end to a 40-minute set which only served to underline and emphasise the quintet’s reputation as one of the most dazzlingly distinctive, inventive and sui generis rock bands of all time.

Anathema - The Optimist (2017) A thematic sequel to 2001’s A Fine Day To Exit, Anathema’s 11th studio album was every bit as beautiful and absorbing as fans had become accustomed to. Less experimental than 2014’s fractious and melancholy Distant Satellites, The Optimist showcased the blissful chemistry that existed within this particular line-up. There were still plenty of looped electronics and skittering beats lurking amid the sumptuous wash of multitracked guitars on the likes of Endless Ways and San Francisco, but there was also an urgency that highlighted what a great, straightforward rock band Anathema had become over their 27 years. Songs like opener Leaving It Behind and the fragile, forlorn Springfield were simply further examples of the Liverpudlians’ unerring ability to make grown men cry, those now trademark vast crescendos and moments of spectral calm still hitting the target with masterful precision. As with most of Anathema’s records, this was one that fans of Elbow and Radiohead would love every bit as much as fans of Opeth or Marillion. Back when it was first released, we though the trick would be to get people to listen to the fucking thing – turns out we were wrong, as its healthy ranking here adeptly proves.

David Bowie - The Next Day (2013) After a decade of studio silence, when single Where Are We Now? (complete with extraordinary vid) suddenly dropped seemingly from nowhere, confirming that this album – constructed over a couple of years behind a wall of absolute secrecy by David Bowie and his longest-serving collaborator, Tony Visconti – was primed and waiting in the wings, the buzz was deafening. Here was a somewhat battered legend – whose last few albums had been occasionally intriguing but only intermittently lit by any flashes of his old brilliance, a Great Rock Futurist responsible for so many Great Leaps Forward – who was now looking back into his own past; a seemingly-ageless Great Male Beauty appearing in his video looking unashamedly… old. Those presumed by the meejah to be somehow in the know were repeatedly asked: is Bowie dying? Well, he answered that particular question on the curtain-raising title track: ‘Here I am, not quite dying’. A line which grew in poignancy following Blackstar and his death in 2016 – but more on that later. At 66, Bowie had sensibly given a major swerve to any notion of being down wid da yooth. Instead he made an unmistakable David Bowie album which took the listener through a gallery of his favourite licks, riffs, grooves, mannerisms and stylistic devices from his own oeuvre, with its focus located loosely and non-exclusively in the period between 1977’s Heroes and 1980’s Scary Monsters. Thus various tracks were based on the Bowie Stomp Beat (think Fashion, Boys Keep Swinging), the neo-50s chord changes of Five Years or Drive-In Saturday, the reggae-funk bump of Ashes To Ashes or Under Pressure. The guitars (mostly played by Gerry Leonard, David Torn and Slick) referenced hallowed Bowie guitar luminaries like Robert Fripp and of course the sainted and much-missed Mick Ronson, and you could hear drum intros echoing Five Years or Iggy’s Lust For Life. In fact this album was probably the greatest spot-the-nick exercise since Oasis’s Be Here Now, the difference being that Bowie was mostly picking his own artistic pockets rather than other people’s. Best bits? Hard to select from an album so generously stuffed with good things. But seek out Dirty Boys (heavy thumb on the ‘dark and sinister’ button), with its hard, Iggoid vocal, tremolo guitar, honking baritone sax and evocations of childhood menace (‘I will buy a feather hat/I will steal a cricket bat… when the sun goes down, the die is cast’) or the searing anti-war lyric of I’d Rather Be High (‘I’d rather be dead or out of my head than training these guns on those men in the sand’). Bottom line: this was a vintage Bowie album for vintage Bowie people, of whom there were – and are – many; a reflection on his own journey and also on ours. It was a far, far better Bowie album than we had any right to expect – especially considering that we weren’t expecting another Bowie album in the first place.

Art you love:

Royal Thunder - Wick (2017) They met in a Christian cult, things got heavy, they escaped and formed a band, got married, then divorced… and after all that Royal Thunder’s founding duo (vocalist/bassist) Mlny Parsonz and (guitarist) Josh Weaver remained friends, still making music. You really couldn’t make it up. Perhaps you need this kind of weighty life experience to make the kind of intense rock that Royal Thunder manage so well. That powerfully moving, almost unsettling racket that’s at once painful as hell and extremely beautiful. They honed this recipe over two first-class LPs (One Day from Crooked Doors still makes us well up every time), but WICK was the peak of their career thus far – a rich, well-paced hybrid of heavy Led Zeppelin hoodoo, Fleetwood Mac romance (but harder and darker) and raw emotion. Sumptuous but gritty, intensely thoughtful but relatable, it was the sound of aggression (The Sinking Chair), psychedelic intrigue (April Showers), heartbreak (Plans) and determination (Anchor), channelled through one of modern rock’s most outstanding voices. When Mlny Parsonz sang “you ripped out my heart” you didn’t question it, and Weaver’s hard, melodious guitar accentuated her cries to powerful effect. And amid the fierce concentration and finessed chops there was still something appealingly wild about it all. If you wanted the real rock deal, circa 2017, this was it.

The Struts - Everybody Wants (2014) What a year 2014 was, eh? Ice bucket challenges. True Detective. Selfie-mania. Kim Kardashian’s arse (aka Kanye West). Sharknado 2. Blimey, it only seems like yesterday. It also happened to be the year that the Struts' debut album was first released, only to promptly vanish into thin air like a plane off the coast of Indonesia – the cruellest of fates given its outrageous flamboyance, untouchable swagger and unadulterated musical genius. Fast-forward two years and The Struts – four preening 20-something peacocks from the least glamorous town in the UK, a place known to its inhabitants as ‘Derby’ – were fished out of the dumpster, dusted off and thrust back into the glare of the spotlight, confidently brandishing a souped-up version of said debut. Everybody Wants was an unashamed old school rock’n’roll album, which, given mainstream culture’s decade-long disdain for guitars, made The Struts either the bravest or stupidest young band out there. Either way, you’ve gotta hand it to ’em for not giving the slightest of fucks. Where Everybody Wants truly romped home was on the sheer tuneage front. Unlike most of their young contemporaries, they proved themselves familiar with the lost art of writing a chorus. There were at least six potential hit singles on the album, which at the time was half-a-dozen more than most other rock bands of their fresh vintage. And they were smart enough to wrap it up in a slick 21st century production; this was no dusty museum piece or cheap facsimile of other bands’ past glories. Of course, there was no guarantee of anything going the way it should and history might well have repeated itself: The Struts could easily have wound up working the fryer in the Derby branch of Chicken Cottage.

Tool After a 13-year wait, Tool finally delivered on their promise of a new album. Clocking in at around 80 minutes, Fear Inoculum was full of familiar polyrhythms, poetic lyrics and high-level musicianship, but each element took time to unravel. “It’s just more of a proggy-vibed album, I suppose,” says Danny Carey. “That’s what happens when you work on things that long, you know? If we’d have knocked a record out in a year, it probably would have been more like four- or five-minute songs, but we’ve done that before, so it’s kind of nice to grow and change a little bit.” We approved.

Lingua Ignota A year ago, barely anyone had heard of Kristin Hayter and her solo project, Lingua Ignota. That changed with second album Caligula. Using elements of church and classical music, noise, industrial and extreme metal to deal with her experiences of domestic violence, it was an intense shock to the system. “I think that the moniker Lingua Ignota [‘Unknown Language’] has proven to be a fairly accurate description of how people digest my music,” she says. “Very often people do not have words or seem frustrated with themselves that they can’t describe what the music does to them.”

Swallow The Sun When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light is the darkest record Swallow The Sun have ever made. The Finnish doom-death metallers delivered eight atmospheric tracks that expressed the grief felt by guitarist/songwriter Juha Raivio, following the loss of girlfriend Aleah Stanbridge. Singer Mikko Kotamäki gave voice to his bandmate’s emotions, turning away from growling vocals to deliver emotional cleans. The result is breathtaking. “There’s no way to prepare yourself for this material, but it probably helps that we are really introverted Finnish guys and we’re not very outgoing personalities,” he says. “Life is always hard for Finnish people.”

Rotting Christ The Greek metallers Rotting Christ delivered their most grandiose album in 30 years, based on the words of history’s most enlightened thinkers. The Heretics celebrated figures such as Thomas Paine, Friedrich Nietzsche and Voltaire, whose views stood in defiance of contemporary norms. “We have the feeling that we are currently living in the free world, but things are quite different I’m afraid,” says frontman Sakis Tolis. “History makes circles and we are currently living in a middle ages, and those big words that were mentioned once from some really important individuals can give us a good lesson nowadays.”

The Wildhearts No-one expected a comeback album from the British rockers, which made Renaissance Men all the sweeter. Featuring the classic, mid-90s line-up of Ginger, guitarist and co-founder CJ, drummer Ritch Battersby and bassist Danny McCormack, it was their first record in 10 years and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with their landmark 90s classics, Earths Vs The Wildhearts and P.H.U.Q.. Danny had last played with the band in 2005, spending the interim period battling a heroin addiction that culminated in him having his leg amputated following a brain aneurysm in 2015. “The four of us, making this noise, that’s what this record is all about,” says Ginger.

Lacuna Coil Italian metallers Lacuna Coil's dramatic ninth album, Black Anima, was named for their native tongue's word for ‘soul’ and the darkest colour they could think of. It was made following a difficult time for singer Cristina Scabbia, as she lost both parents and came out of a longterm relationship with Slipknot’s Jim Root. “This is a healing record,” she says. “Through Black Anima, I learned to walk in the darkness and manage the darkness that appears in my life. I feel bulletproof.” It also featured new axeman Diego Cavallotti and drummer Richard Meiz, marking a new era for the band.

Twin Temple This gothic Californian couple invented a new genre: Satanic doo-wop. Husband and wife team Zachary and Alexandra James created music that was part Amy Winehouse and part Satanic ritual, and released a NSFW video for the song Sex Magick. The vibe was encapsulated by their debut album, helpfully titled Twin Temple Bring Your Their Signature Sound… Satanic Doo-Wop!. “We’re avid collectors of old, forgotten rock and occult records, so this is the record we were always hunting for – that really rare, deep soul doo-wop cut that makes you think, ‘What the hell, they worship the Devil, that’s amazing!” says Alexandra.

I know exactly what you mean, I'll try to put My hands on a few albums for You...

Gojira - Magma (2016) More than any other band to emerge in the 21st century, Gojira pursued a course of fervent individuality, turning revered tropes into something extraordinary. When Magma dropped, it was is another robust riposte to the notion that modern metal was running out of steam. Where L’Enfant Sauvage was rugged, vicious and taut, constrained by urbanity and yearning for escape, Magma was Gojira untethered and running wild. The band sounded exhilarated by the concept of limitless space and the freedom to roam. The lyrics reflected that refreshed, enhanced perspective, too: Joe Duplantier’s cry of ‘When you change yourself... you change the world’ could have seemed overly earnest delivered by anyone else, but the Frenchmen’s sincerity had long been a major selling point. Magma once again exuded heartfelt rage and a sense of genuine, if cautious, hope. It wouldn’t have been a Gojira album without massive riffs, however, and here they were, as strident and bludgeoning as ever. This time, though, there was clear blue sky bursting through chinks in the band’s previously impenetrable armoury and a sense of imperious calm beneath the intensity and noise. This was not wildly accessible music by any means, but it was hard to imagine any fan of heavy music hearing the lurching Only Pain or the prolonged squall of the title track without being forced to remark, “What the fuck is this?” Well, it was Gojira. One of the greatest metal bands on the planet who, on this evidence, had only just begun to blow our minds.

Iron Maiden - The Book Of Souls (2015) in the 2010s it seemed like the world all but turned its back on the album. But Britain’s biggest metal band proudly pushed against the grain, reminding us of a time when The Album was an immersive spiritual experience explored in darkness through headphones. That’s not to say it was some ponderous prog odyssey; it was still suffused with the fire and thrust of musicians who learnt their craft in sweaty 70s boozers, but it repeatedly demanded and rewarded your full attention, different songs and segments blossoming with every spin. Bruce Dickinson, writing alone in Iron Maiden for the first time since No Prayer For The Dying, topped and tailed the album with its most thrillingly outré moments. Elemental curtain-raiser If Eternity Should Fail opened The Book Of Souls with a space-age blues vocal and mystical synth fanfare, culminating with demonic pronouncements over a dark acoustic coda, while elegiac 18-minute closer Empire Of The Clouds took us aboard the 1930 R101 disaster, piano and violin augmenting the song’s poignant leitmotif, arrangements lurching and surging in sympathetic evocation of the doomed airship. Throughout and between these magnificent Dickinsonian bookends, the band proved themselves to be on the form of their reunited lives. Nicko attacked his kit with customary barefoot joie de vivre, imbuing even the smallest tom-roll with his personality. Steve Harris' bass sound was warmer and more integrated, with some of the most sensitive, creative playing of his career. Despite the dirty looseness of the strummed bass intro/outro of his sole solo credit The Red And The Black, the song was distinguished by its jubilant procession of infectious guitar lines. A couple of songs perhaps conformed too readily to Maiden’s post-reunion archetype, but this was as bold as music could get. In the five years since its release, we've happily assimilated this treasure chest of densely wrought heavy metal gold.

Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare (2010) Avenged Sevenfold’s courage couldn't be emphasised enough when they released Nightmare in 2010. It’s not a stretch to say that the band’s decision to soldier on through the adversity that befell them with the tragic passing of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan and to grab the bull by the horns and record and release a new album verged on the heroic. The first half of Nightmare saw the band reigniting the complex blood’n’ thunder feel of 2005 album City Of Evil. Welcome To The Family showcased A7X’s love for SoCal punk rock with a Metallica-sized stomp, Buried Alive was part ballad and part arena-ready metal anthem and the title track was a tour de force of quality riffs and unshakeable vocal lines. The second half of the album, including the near-11-minute closer, Save Me, was, understandably, a sombre affair. There was no way around it. The last three tracks were gruelling due to their intensity and melancholic feel, but the therapeutic effect this had on the band was something that came to be celebrated in the future. The lyrics throughout Nightmare were so soul-bearingly raw that at points it straight up made you uncomfortable. ‘This can’t be real, I’ve lost my power to feel’ M Shadows grieved on the soulful tones of Victim, while So Far Away saw Shadows wondering, ‘How do I live without the ones I love?’ It was when the emotion and lyrics collided like an uppercut to the throat that things really kicked up a notch. The piano breakdown in Danger Line genuinely sounded like Shadows could burst into tears at any second as he sang, ‘I never meant to leave this world alone/ I thought that we’d grow old’. That A7X continued as a band was reason enough to applaud them in 2010. That they managed to create a body of work that still kicked as much ass as they always had through those conditions, should've seen them rightfully recognised as one of the best bands of their generation. Nightmare was the ultimate tribute to a fallen friend.

Devin Townsend - Empath (2019) Devin Townsend made Empath because he needed to. The Devin Townsend Project dissolved in 2018, but he’d teased Empath since the start of 2017, promising the epitome of everything he’d done before, from the violence of his former industrial/death/whatever outfit Strapping Young Lad to DTP’s “lower mid-tier prog metal” and everything betwixt. That in mind, first song Castaway reintroduced Devin with ocean waves, steel drums, choirs and the sound of seagulls. Obviously. Genesis strayed into more familiar territory, Devin’s bombastic proclamation of ‘If you’re saying in your mind, you’re better off dead’, signalling six minutes of absolute nonsense. Less song than overture, it rattled through Empath’s touchstones: Meshuggah-esque heaviness, space-age fret-tapping, funky flights of fancy, clean interludes, electronic trickery, wall-of-sound production, hulking orchestration and, most importantly, hooks. Empath proved that yes, Devin had levelled up. It was everything but more. A holistic beast, packed with lyrical leitmotifs that demanded commitment. Because throughout his career, Devin always appealed to our basic human truths. Whether that be on previous classics Ocean Machine and Terria, SYL, his dark ambient tangents or DTP’s evolution, it all came back to love, loss, failure, hope. His fetish for Pro Tools and excessive multi-tracking didn’t change that, because Empath was Devin Townsend’s most comprehensive, overblown and emotionally accomplished work to date. In fact, it was his masterpiece.

Deftones - Diamond Eyes (2010) Diamond Eyes marked 15 years since Deftones’ 1995 debut, Adrenaline. In that time, the band had outgrown their reputation as the ‘thinking man’s nu metal band’ to be known more simply as one of the best and most respected metal bands of the 90s, as popular with Metallica fans as with Tool fans. While 1997’s Around The Fur and 2000’s White Pony took their popularity to new heights, 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist was tepidly received. Two years after that, bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a tragic accident and left in a semi-conscious state. The decision to shelve the work in progress (Eros), recruit former Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega and start work on a new album was doubtless no easy decision. It just so happened that what could have been a confused, disjointed and depressing record became their most gripping. The generally directionless meanderings of Saturday Night Wrist swere gone, leaving a collection of songs that were urgent and direct – each one a lean, mean, emotional and sonic explosion. Deftones, not least due to the versatility of Chino Moreno’s vocals, have always managed to emit a glorious ambiguity. You’ve Seen The Butcher, with its mass of increasingly frenetic percussion and Alice In Chains groove, Sextape and album highlight Beauty School were typical examples of such extremes here, the latter a writhing attack of sumptuous guitar tones, whirring bass and skippy beats. On the other end of the spectrum, CMND/CNTRL was a heavy anthem with stacks of bounce, accompanied by a luscious chorus of driving chords and intricate vocal play through pounding beats. Chino has always been evasive about what his songs mean. There were doubtless references to their fallen brother, and while specifics may have been obscured it was clear that the songs were brimming with meaning and alive with emotion. Deftones had not only created a fitting tribute but a career-defining album.

Opeth - Pale Communion (2014) Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first: lots of people argued when this record came out that it didn't really count as a metal record. It was, they said, a lovingly crafted hard rock album that harked back to times long gone. True, it was arguably more prog rock than death metal, but Pale Communion continued the journey begun on 2001’s Blackwater Park. And hey, we're not here to split hairs. Opeth will always be part of our world to us. And in terms of songwriting, Pale Communion stood head and shoulders above its predecessors. Musically, the tempo only really raised steam on the driving Cusp Of Eternity, with its twisting solo from Fredrik Åkesson, although the excellent, epic Moon Above, Sun Below and Voice Of Treason flexed serious muscle. But mostly, Pale Communion was about a stridently excellent vocal showing from leader Mikael Åkerfeldt, proving once again what a great singer he was, and the masterful implementation of Joakim Svalberg’s keyboards into the band’s sound. These two factors led the way throughout the album’s voyage. Faith In Others closed proceedings in a relatively low-key manner, perhaps a move to show that the journey was to carry on twisting and winding away from the band’s earliest sound. Maybe not music to everyone’s ears, but taking the musical path they have over the past quarter of a century or so, Opeth had arrived at a time when they were making profoundly excellent, beautiful music. Once, all albums were made this way. Opeth had never forgotten that. So yes, the new prog age of Opeth had cometh – and with 2016's Sorceress and 2019's In Cauda Venenum it only grew. Mourn their death metal farewell – but more importantly, relish the result of an intelligent, engaging act taking a new stand. Captivating stuff.