Continuing last week’s exploration of shit we missed in 2014, we have four more choice cuts from various year end lists. The difference is that this week, everything is rated higher overall. Really, that’s good news for everybody involved…especially your hosts since we have to listen to it all. Rounding out the show, we have our first live review of 2015 – which leads to a discussion about live production – and we discuss albums that will/might/we want to come out this year.
Reviews:
Dead Congregation – Promulgation of the Fall (Martyrdom Productions/Profound Lore)
Inferi – The Path of Apotheosis (The Artisan Era)
Midnight – No Mercy for Mayhem (Hell’s Headbangers)
Svffer – Lies We Live (Per Koro Records/Vendetta)
Live Review: Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium, Winter Nights @ Gramercy Theatre in New York, NY on January 4, 2015
Inferi – The Path of Apotheosis
Midnight – No Mercy for Mayhem
Dead Congregation – Promulgation of the Fall
Svffer – Lies We Live
The Sideshow Podcast 
“Power metal, tech death, or music I don’t like.” I got a good chuckle out of that. Note that Sabaton released an album in 2014 and it didn’t make my top 25. I guess you can count Epica (my number 16 album of 2014) as power metal. But your statement does have validity if you substitute “music I don’t like” with “prog”. Obviously Opeth is prog, but Mastodon, Ne Obliviscaris, Devin Townsend, Cynic, and even BCI can be considered prog or at least “proggy” of which at least half of those you guys liked in 2014 as well.
Cool that you checked out Inferi. Nick hit on the songwriting on Inferi’s album The Path of Apotheosis, as I agree that is what sets them slightly apart from other closely rated albums by similar bands such as Archspire and Inanimate Existence, both of which just missed out on my top 20 but Inferi made it in at number 18. You played what is probably my second favorite song from Inferi’s The Path of Apotheosis. My favorite song is “Destroyer”.
So just like you guys, I’ve been listening to “shit I missed” from 2014 including some of what you listed and listened to recently. Those would be Castle and Gridlink. Castle is what I had expected based on what you described. It’s pretty much a Black Sabbath throwback band with a female vocalist. I’m enjoying their album Under Siege. I’m also enjoying Longhea by Gridlink. I think the “song” Thirst Watcher on Longhea makes the album. I put the word “song” in quotes because it is really just a little over 2 minutes of atmospheric guitar, but in the middle (or even near the beginning) of a grindcore album, this little bit of contrast works great and separates not only the constant wall of noise on this grindcore album, but also separates Longhea from most other grindcore albums in general. A little bit of contrast goes a long way for me.
Even though I am enjoying both Castle and Gridlink and am glad I bought them, neither would crack my top 25 of 2014. That statement seems to be a general theme for most of us at this time of the year. It seems rather rare when we find an album from other people’s year end list that we say “wow, this would crack my top 10 if I had listened to it before I made my list!” The only album I can think of in recent memory that I could have possibly made that case for is Circle by Amorphis. You guys ranked Circle fairly high last year and I hadn’t listened to it when it came out, so I listened to it in January. It certainly would have cracked my top 20 of 2013 if I had listened to it during that year.
Anticipated albums of 2015 for me: keeping with the opening statement of the sub-genres that I like, there’s a couple of highly anticipated tech death albums for me in 2015, which are Psycroptic and Gorod. There are also two anticipated power metal album for me in 2015: Blind Guardian and Nightwish. And a highly anticipated prog album (aka music you won’t like) is Steven Wilson. Oh, Periphery is prog is well. Another one you didn’t mention is Torche, but I’m not sure if they count as metal anymore.
There is the potential for all four Big 4 bands to release albums in 2015. But I’m not holding my breath for a new Metallica album. Don’t worry, if Slayer or Megadeth release a new album in 2015 I won’t ask you to review those. But if Metallica or Anthrax release new albums this year, I will ask you to review them because the last albums from both bands were great.
I also can completely relate to Nick about the grindcore versus powerviolence difference. As a general rule, I can’t stand grindcore. But there are always exceptions to every rule. Maybe I can put it this way: I like good music no matter what the genre/sub-genre it may be a part of. Nails received so much critical acclaim last year that it’s easy to agree that more people than just us think Nails is good. But any other grindcore band or album gets at best mixed reviews to the point where numerous people don’t like it. So maybe the answer is simply that I like grindcore/powerviolence only if everyone else likes it. And everyone else only likes it if it’s really good.
Since you said they played “What’s Opera, Doc” at the Looney Tunes concert, does that mean they played “Kill the Wabbit” with the “sword and magic helmet!”