Listapaloozamania Start Now!
It’s a week before Christmas and all through the podcast we were stirring, bitching, and moaning about making lists. I mean, we go through this every year, so you think we would just get over it. Anyway, as in years past, we have a few other short lists like Best Artwork (which you can see below), Most Disappointing, and Worst Albums. Enjoy these treats this week, and come back next week for the 2016 grand finale!
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The Sideshow Podcast 
Time for some worsts of 2016:
Worst album of the year: Wormed. I’m not sure that this is even music. I don’t need vocals to be intelligible, but these are too much for me to take.
Worst album artwork: Metallica. They had 8 years to come up with an album cover and that’s the best they could do? At least the music is good.
I can only spin that Wormed album once and a while, but that playing is so fast and intense, I can chalk the vocals up to being another instrument. It’s not an easy listen, for sure, but that shit is crazy.
And I’ll agree with the Metallica art. As bad as it is though, I wasn’t expediting much from them. Their art has pretty much been downhill since Justice.
A few more we agree on with my list of the 5 most disappointing albums of 2016. These are all from bands that I like (number 1 being the most disappointing):
1. Killswitch Engage – Incarnate
2. Deftones – Gore
3. Exmortus – Ride Forth
4. Hammers of Misfortune – Dead Revolution
5. Kvelertak – Nattesferd
I guess the Kvelertak album wasn’t disappointing to you guys because you didn’t care that much for their previous album. But it was a big disappointment for me.
For me, I guess I glossed over that even more than KsE! I totally forgot about that album! So, yeah, i agree it is a disappointment. – B
Lots of good stuff on this episode. We have some things we agree on and some we disagree on. I’ll start with a list that we have some overlap on:
Top 5 debut albums of 2016. The future of tech death looks bright.
1. Enthean – Priests of Annihilation
2. Deviant Process – Paroxysm
3. First Fragment – Dasein
4. Zenith Passage – Solipsist
5. Moon Tooth – Chromaparagon
Even though this gets a little long in the tooth (the second half isn’t all that memorable), the mix of prog and other unique stuff make the first half of this album interesting and enjoyable.
Top albums from The Sideshow podcast that aren’t on my lists (most of which I simply didn’t have a chance to listen to yet):
Mesheggah
Dark Tranquility
Car Bomb
Anciients
Dillinger
Every Time I Die
Trap Them
Norma Jean
Virvum
I dropped the ball on Virvum. I listened to your review of the album, bought the album, listened to it once, liked it, but never went back to it. I think I was too busy at that time listening to current releases from bands I was more familiar with. I’ve since gone back and listened to it more and can say that Illuminance would definitely crack my top 10 tech death album list.
Wow. That’s a hell of a list! You have your work cut out for you to catch up! Ha ha
Top 5 live performances of the year:
1. Between The Buried And Me at PlayStation Theater
2. Nails at the Marlin Room at Webster Hall
3. Ne Obliviscaris at Gramercy Theater
4. Amon Amarth at PlayStation Theater
5. Sabaton at Irving Plaza
Top 5 beers of the year:
1. Money – Barrier Brewing
2. Hopslam – Bell’s Brewery
3. Stacks On Stacks – Other Half Brewing
4. Lambo Door – Grimm Artisanal Ales
5. Tesseract – Grimm Artisanal Ales
I just realized that those are all IPAs. So here are the top 5 beers of the year that aren’t IPAs:
1. Dorothy (saison) – Hill Farmstead Brewery
2. Mexican Cupcake (stout) – Westbrook Brewing
3. Echoplex (sour) – Grimm Artisanal Ales
4. Short, Dark & Handsome (stout) – Other Half Brewing
5. Super Spruce (gose) – Grimm Artisanal Ales
Grimm dominated in 2016.