The Best Metal Song of 2011

Mastodon: "Curl of the Burl" (from The Hunter)



This song is ridiculously catchy. It's immediately accessible, yet I could listen to it a thousand times without tiring of it. It makes you want to sing along, and play air everything.

All 2011 List Week Posts:

- The 5 Worst Metal Albums
- Top 5 Rejected Names for New Korn Album
- Best Metal Album Cover
- The 3 Most Controversial Albums in Metal
- The Top 5 Ways Classic Bands Will Shit on Their Legacies in 2012
- The Top 3 Non-Metal Albums
- The Top 3 Metal EP's
- The Top 8 Blog Posts on Full Metal Attorney
- The 2 Biggest News Items in My Personal Life
- Promoter Exchange
- The Top 25 Metal Albums: 25-11
- The Top 10 Metal Albums

7 Children of the Grave

"Children of the Grave" is one of my favorite Black Sabbath tunes. I actually heard the White Zombie version first, on Nativity in Black, and thought it sounded like a White Zombie song. In a lot of ways, it still sounds that way to me. But it's been performed in a lot of interesting ways besides just the Zombie one. Here's are 7 different interpretations of the song.


Of course, nothing can beat the original.

Merrie Melodies: "The Wizard"

Dark Americana

 I've mentioned it a couple times now: I really love the dark Americana vibe of singer-songwriters/bands like Steve Von Till, Scott Kelly, Man's Gin, Dax Riggs, and Wino's most recent solo album. And it seems to be the music that best fits my mood when I think about 9/11.



This kind of music is tough to define, and that's why I can only call it a "vibe". Sometimes it's rock, other times country, and other times folk--but maybe it could be something else, too.

Dream Evil: "The Book of Heavy Metal"

After hearing it on the MetalCast, my 4-year-old has a new favorite song, the title track from Dream Evil's The Book of Heavy Metal. We sing along three times a day now.

Vivaldi: "Summer"

As some of the commenters noted on my list of the most metal classical compositions, I missed a few. Well, I had to narrow the field somehow. Anyway, the third movement of Vivaldi's "Summer" is metal as hell (much of "Summer" and "Winter" are metal)--and given the heat wave going through most of the country right now, it seems appropriate.

Exhumed: Iron Butterfly

Heavy

Iron Butterfly is easily the most well-known band I've covered in this series, but they're just too good to ignore. The California psychedelic rock band is one of the most important influences on early metal. Not only is "Iron" in their name, but they have an album called Heavy, and they are definitely that. The dude's voice is also one of the best and most under-appreciated in rock music, period. Everyone already knows "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", so here's something you might not know.

Exhumed: Leviathan

Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering.

Leviathan was a heavy prog rock band from Texas who released a single album in 1974. Aside from having a very metal moniker (shared by a black metal band today) and at least one metal song title ("Angel of Death"), they definitely had a very doom metal kind of mood to their music. With the mellotron, it sounds a lot like the retro doom metal bands of today.

Exhumed: Dust

Ash to Ash

Dust was an American hard rock band in the early 70's who released two albums before disbanding. They are of interest to metalheads as an early proto-metal band, before all the elements of the genre were fully formed. And that interest is not merely in the musical similarities. Their first, self-titled album featured skeletons on the cover, and Hard Attack features barbarians fighting with axes. It doesn't get much more metal than that. Lyrically, "Suicide" is pretty damn metal too.

Exhumed: Horse

And Hell Followed With Him

Horse was a psychedelic rock band from the UK with some seriously catchy tunes and head-bobbing rhythms. They're pretty tough to find due to their not-Google-friendly moniker, but their self-titled album (released 1971) is killer. They also have some metallic elements, not just in their dark album art but also in their music. Check out opener "The Sacrifice":

Exhumed: Message

Digging Up Graves

Message was a German/British band from the early 70's with a psychedelic/progressive/space rock kind of style. From Books and Dreams, released in 1973, shows some obvious kinship with metal. Just look at that skull on the cover, and all the references to sleep and dreams are pretty common among doom metal bands and early Sabbath. Not to mention some dark musical similarities. The riffs are cool--the bass is excellent--the compositions are sprawling but coherent, and they even use saxophone to great effect. Check out "Dreams and Nightmares (Dreams)":

Video: "Without a Doubt"

Tough guy metallic hardcore isn't exactly my cup of tea, and if you read this site regularly then it probably isn't yours either. But someone contacted me and thought I might be interested in Betrayal. As far as the style goes, it's not bad, so give it a listen if you're inclined. Maybe next time somebody will tip me off to something metal.

Midnight Madness: "Gateways to the Cemetery of Being"

I didn't discover Vasaeleth until recently. If they had, their incredible brand of old school, atmospheric death metal would have put Crypt Born & Tethered to Ruin on my year-end list. And "Gateways to the Cemetery of Being" crushes everything.

I was listening to this in the daylight. Completely inappropriate. Like a good domesticated animal, I bought groceries and loaded up in the car. I blasted it out in the parking lot, wilting lettuce, souring milk, and making widows weep. It belongs in the dark.

After-School Special: "Swarth"

I got to pick my son up from day care today. He selected Portal's Swarth as the "daddy music" for the ride home. After the first couple notes, his face lit up, and he exclaimed, "This is a good one!"



He has excellent taste.

Snow Day Selections: Volbeat and Immortal

I'm at home with my son for the second straight day, as my workplace has been closed due to "inclement weather". I've been there two and a half years, and in that time they've only closed it one day, until now. It started with about 10 hours of rain, all of which froze to the roads, and then followed with about 30 hours of snow along with epic winds. My son Lincoln picked Volbeat's excellent Rock the Rebel / Metal the Devil when I picked him up from day care on Monday, so enjoy.

I, personally, picked Immortal's incredible At the Heart of Winter for some of my snow shoveling time.

After-School Special: "Holy Tears"

I don't pick up my son from day care very often anymore, so the "Lincoln's Picks" section in the sidebar has been getting stale. So, instead, I'll soon be replacing it with something else. And to fill the void left, I'll try to post a song of his choosing.

Today when I picked him up, he chose to listen to Isis's In the Absence of Truth (2006). Enjoy the video for "Holy Tears":