I Think We Need a New Devil
As you may have already noticed, we only do three reviews this week. There isn’s a shortage of releases yet and we haven’t gotten lazy (well, lazier). It was brought to our attention that, compared to other podcasts, we tend to run a little on the long side. So, we are trying our hand at a more digestible show for you guys and what, in turn, becomes a less laborious task for us.
Want it even shorter? Want more content? Want certain segments back? Let us know in the comments!!!
Reviews:
Devil You Know – They Bleed Red (Nuclear Blast)
Arkaik – Lucid Dawn (Unique Leader)
Birds in Row – Personal War (Deathwish)
Devil You Know – They Bleed Red
Arkaik – Lucid Dawn
Birds in Row – Personal War
The Sideshow Podcast 
It’s that time of the year again: Decibel’s albums of the year list has been released. Where do I start to comment on their list? I’ll start with a confirmation of something I’ve said several times before: their music isn’t my music. As Nick pointed out, I tend to gravitate towards a handful of sub-genres, most notably tech death, power metal, prog, and “classic” metal (for lack of a better term for older, popular establish acts such as Lamb of God or Iron Maiden). The albums I enjoyed in 2015 certainly lean heavily towards the progressive side of things. There will probably only be one tech death and two power metal albums in my top 20 of 2015.
Even though I have come to recognize that Decibel has their niche of genres and types of bands that they like which differs from what I like, there was one album from 2015 that I thought would surely be on both mine and Decibel’s list that surprisingly isn’t on their list. That would be Mutoid Man. Doesn’t Mutoid Man seems like a “Decibel” band? Did they at Decibel find out that I like Mutoid Man so therefore they decided they don’t like Mutoid Man?
Of Decibel’s top 40 albums, probably only 3 will be in my top 20. I’ve only even listened to 6 of the albums in their top 40. I don’t doubt that I might enjoy a few of those other 34 albums that I haven’t listened to, but it shows that none of those albums made enough of a splash at the time of their release to grab my attention to make me want to listen to them.
How many of their top 40 did you guys even listen to? You review about 200 albums each year and I estimate you listened to maybe 12 of their top 40. Granted, a couple of albums are still to be reviewed by you, such as Intronaut, Swallow the Sun, and Baroness (I called it that Baroness would be high in their list despite not being released for another month).
One thing this list does is give you plenty of ideas for “shit you missed” segments or even just stuff to review in the next several weeks, including a certain old school album on their list that I think you should review that will certainly be in my top 5 albums of the year.
The full list is:
40. Cruciamentum – Charnel Passages
39. Author & Punisher – Melk En Honing
38. Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields
37. Enslaved – In Times
36. Cult Leader – Lightless Walk
35. Spectral Voice – Necrotic Doom
34. Ghost – Meliora
33. Prurient – Frozen Niagara Falls
32. Swallow the Sun – Songs from the North I, II & III
31. Crypt Sermon – Out of the Garden
30. Dead to a Dying World – Litany
29. With the Dead – With the Dead
28. Myrkur – M
27. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – The Nigh Creepr
26. Hate Eternal – Infernus
25. Napalm Death – Apex Predator – Easy Meat
24. Intronaut – The DIrection of Last Things
23. Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
22. Failure – The Heart Is A Monster
21. Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours
20. Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction
19. Deafheaven – New Bermuda
18. Noisem – Blossoming Decay
17. My Dying Bride – Feel the Misery
16. Leviathan – Scar Sighted
15. Refused – Freedom
14. Mgla – Exercises in Futility
13. False – Untitled
12. Satan – Atom by Atom
11. Sarpanitum – Blessed Be My Brothers..
10. Killing Joke – Pylon
9. Khemmis – Absolution
8. Panopticon – Autumn Eternal
7. Skepticism – Ordeal
6. Baroness – Purple
5. Lucifer – Lucifer I
4. High on Fire – Luminiferous
3. Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
2. Tribulation – The Children of the Night
1. Horrendous – Anareta