I’m not ready to publish my top 10 albums yet – I have to torture myself over this for a little while yet, plus there’s some bits and pieces that I’ve not heard yet that I wish to hear before making my choice.

These are my favourite tracks recorded this year as they stand right now. I have no doubt that this will change within minutes of me hitting publish, but I’ve got to stick a stake in the ground somewhere. They are in no particular order, as attempting to do so would certainly prove too much for my fragile musical sensibilities.

Here we go:

• Pelican – Glimmer (What We All Come To Need) – A gorgeous instrumental slow burner
• Om – Thebes (God is Good) – Hypnotic, epic, looooong
• Alice in Chains – Looking in View (Black Gives Way to Blue) – Like being sat on by a house
• The Devil’s Blood – The Anti-Kosmic Magik (The Time of No Time Evermore) – A guitar duel to die for
• The Devin Townsend Project – Heaven Send (Ki) – Wacky, but in a mature way
• Griftegard – Charles Taze Russell (Solemn Sacred Severe) – The album title pretty much describes this perfectly
• Photonic – Customer Loyalty (Recorded Contact) – Randomness from New Zealand
• Mastodon – The Czar (Crack in the Skye) – Epic, schizophrenic, progressive and loud
• Middle Class Rut – I Guess You Could Say (25 Years EP) – It’s shallow but cheerful
• No Made Sense – The Epillanic Chorigi (The Epillanic Chorigi) – Neurosis style progressive heaviness

Notable omissions:

Various other tracks from both Black Gives Way to Blue, Recorded Contact and Crack in the Skye could have made it in there, but I didn’t want to clutter it with multiple tracks from a single band. Baroness’s Blue Record deserves a mention – as a whole it’s a brilliant album, but individually none of the tracks stood out enough to warrant inclusion. Other top tracks include:

Lamb of God – Reclamation
Extreme – Run
Pixie Lott – Boys and Girls
Dycian Maze – The Hand Inside
TrippyWicked – Movin On

This is all very nice, but the fact is, I’ve had a year of musical discovery, so much of the stuff that I’ve loved this year wasn’t recorded this year, which is why I don’t feel very satisfied with this list…but I’ll save those for another post.

Norway’s Virus are described on their Wikipedia entry as “avant-garde jazz rock”, a lofty description, and I will say this, they don’t sound much like the British thrash band of the same name.

On the surface, Virus’ guitars sound like Mastodon’s: heavy but not overly distorted, doom laden, frequent use of resonating open strings, obscure scales, but here comparisons end. Virus tread a more gothic path, and tend towards slower tempos and more subtle song structures. Virus are progressive in the true sense of the term rather than the generic.

The Joy Division/Interpol inflected vocals cut through any metallic tendencies, giving the music an alternative feel. The melodies and musical structure are where they really shine though. Wilfully obscure, this is definitely rock music, and you can hear the jazz influence, but these intricate musical threads weave a much more complex and indistinct tapestry than many of their peers. So dense are these tracks that it’s easy to get lost in them, and sometimes hard to find your way out again – this combined with a sustained oppressive tone sometimes makes it a uncomfortable listen.

It’s difficult to know where Virus fits in the grand music scheme, but their place at the bleeding edge of heavy music is assured.

Listen to Virus on Myspace

iPhone - making people seem smaller the world over (in this case, Alice in Chains)

I wasn’t sure whether I’d bother going to Sonisphere, it all looked too commercial to me, like V festival. It was also ridiculously expensive. However, since I couldn’t get to Download or Bloodstock I decided to give it a whirl. The line-up on the Sunday was also hard to resist.

The sun had mad an appearance for the first time in weeks and not even the police with sniffer dogs arresting skunk-laden youths and the ridiculously long wait for the festival bus could dampen genial my mood.

Walking past the campsite, was an eerie experience. It was like a ghost town. You usually expect to hoards of youths wallowing in beer cans and piss sodden dirt attempting to dampen their hangover with stale beer. Not here. It even looked fairly tidy!

I turned just in time to catch Lamb of God (7/10). LoG are heavy hitters in the modern metal arena. With over a decade of experience behind them, and some highly acclaimed albums, they should be pretty good at their art by now. The ferocity of their music translates well to the festival environment, and their performance is tight. Randy Blythe has real presence, but his incessant intra-song posturing wears thin after a while. Yes we know you are real metal and your music stimulates circle pits. Yes, the idiots at the front will continue to beat each-other up for your gratification. Shut up and get on with the music!

No sooner had LoG finished than Mastodon (9/10) lumbered onto the other stage. Now, I recently threw my toys in this post about Mastodon’s performance at Islington Academy. I was expecting an abridged version of Crack in the Skye, so I wasn’t particularly looking forward to their set or surprised when they kicked off with album opener Oblivion. I’d also resolved not to be such a cancerous old git this time, so I stuck around. What we were actually treated to was a spirited set that, although was largely derived from Crack in the Skye, also contained some classics from previous albums (although Blood Mountain was entirely absent). Flying through Megalodon and Blood and Thunder, we were then treated to a note perfect performance of this year’s best metal track The Czar: Usurper/Escape/Martyr/Spiral – the whole bloody thing. Crack in the Skye’s title track was an absolute pleasure, followed by the brutal Iron Tusk and March of the Fire Ants from Remission.

Mastodon are on flying form. I saw them a few years ago at Wembley arena supporting Tool and they really seemed like they felt out of place in such a large venue. The band I witnessed on Sunday seemed like they owned the place. Not only are Mastodon recording some of the most original and high quality music in any genre, but they are one of the coolest bands around – these guys a really starting to look like rock stars.

That left me with a smile on my face and wondering if anyone could top such a gargantuan performance.

Metal fans amuse themselves by making themselves dizzy while Machine Head play

The crowd now meandered back to the main stage – the subject of everyone’s conversation: who are the mystery “Special Guests”. The subject of much media speculation since Machine Head acrimoniously pulled out of the festival when (infinitely more successful) Limp Bizkit usurped them out of their original slot in the line-up. Randy Blithe had previously let the cat out of the bag but obviously no-one was listening as they all seemed surprised when Machine Head (5/10) took the stage. Confusing? The word you’re looking for is demeaning. The Brits, never known for their likelihood to forsake a little ironic taunting, were chanting ‘Limp Bizkit’ while MH vocalist gave his speech about “doing it for the fans”. Also, the boasting about the 28 circle pits, or whatever, formed by obviously bored fans during their set, made him sound like a ego bruised 12 year old.

MH’s set was uninspired at best. They never sound good live. Their set was punctuated by long, uncomfortable silences and self-aggrandising rhetoric. Robb Flynn has since been demeaning himself further online by continuing this one-sided war of words, while (somewhat ironically) Limp Bizkit remain commendably reticent. This isn’t David and Goliath, it’s Goliath and some irritating little fly that needs swatting.

Feeder were up next so I wondered off and bought an Alice in Chains t-shirt and got increasingly drunk while I waited for them to finish. The only tracks I saw them play were an ill-advised cover of Nirvana’s Breed, and a rendition of their only good song Just a Day, which was very enjoyable in the sun with a pint of cider.

Next up were the mighty Alice in Chains (9/10). Here’s an occasion that was making many folk nervous. The legendary Layne Staley replaced by some unknown bloke with an afro? You better be sure about this Mr. Cantrell!

Going straight for the nuts with Angry Chair merging into Man in the Box the crowd’s tension dissipates. AIC sound massive – heavy and assured. New guy William Duval gives his own spin to these classics. He’s no Staley, but then who is? He sings the tunes faithful to the originals but doesn’t try and ape his distinctive predecessor. He’s got a strong voice and is very much his own man. He still lacks a little of the stage presence needed to really command a festival stage, but he’s strutting his stuff with the best of them.

4th track in and Duval broaches the subject of the new album before launching into Looking in View. Several folks around me (who clearly hadn’t heard this new track) were audibly nervous about hearing new AIC tracks, but were blown away by the tracks slow, heavy doom genius. AIC are really back!

The band saunter effortlessly through Dirt‘s Them Bones and Dam That River and the crowd are getting really animated. We’re then treated to a second new track, the much jauntier Check My Brain. Like a perkier Again, this track has a really memorable chorus.

The closing salvo of crowd pleaser Would? and the haunting Rooster has the crowd singing at the top of their voices as the sun sets. Perfect.

So, fired up and raring for more top grade metal, the crowd once again makes the merry trek up to the main stage for Nine Inch Nails (3/10). This supposedly NIN’s last ever tour. They’ve had a long and distinguished career, and countless, memorable tracks that the majority of the crowd would surely know. So did they rattle of a greatest hits set for this rapturous audience? No, like the petulant and self indulgent tosser he is, Trent Reznor ‘treated’ us all to a set comprised of mostly ambient and barely audible arty numbers. I can’t even be bothered to track down what was actually played. Every time a track finished (it was kind of difficult to tell one track from the next) you could hear an audible intake of breath from the crowd hoping that the next sound would be the first few notes from Closer.

They closed the set with a note for note version of their (now) best known track Hurt. This seems entirely out of place as the crowd mumble along dispiritedly with the Jonny Cash version in their heads.

I’m a big fan of NIN, but this display was nothing short of offensive. Not appropriate or impressive, just shit.

I’d like to tell you all about Avenged Sevenfold, but they’re shit, so I didn’t watch them. I got through about 3 songs of Metallica’s set before James Hetfield, clearly taking notes from Robb Flynn’s earlier waffle, decided to indulge in some sycophantic crowd wooing. I saw then live, and much closer, a few months back, and I had a long journey home ahead of me. There was no way they would top AIC and Mastodon, so I left Hetfield wittering on and went home.

Mastodon are a great band, so when folks started muttering about Baroness in the same context I should have taken notice. Generally I thought “here’s another stoner band with added Mastodon widdly bits” and filed on my stuff-to-listen-to-at-some-point list somewhere in the middle. This is why it has taken me so woefully long to get with the programme. To paraphrase in the vernacular – EPIC FAIL!

Yes, they do sound a bit like Mastodon – a driving flux of complex psychedelic guitar and complex arrangements. The bands also share a doom/prog lineage. But Baroness cast a mood that’s fundamentally different – although comparatively cerebral, Baroness effect a stoner slouch and southern groove which allows them a brightness that is nonexistent in their fellow Georgians’ music, and place them along side popier counterparts Torche.

The Red Album is bookended with 2 atmospheric instrumental sections. The opening ambient chimes of Rays on Pinion slow-builds into a glorious upbeat, up-tempo stomp before morphing into a part stoner, part punk bruiser. The sun sets on The Red Album with Grad, an azure and brooding post-rocker which recalls Earth, were they ever to have acquired delusions of grandeur.

What happens in between is a purposeful melange of vignettes and slabs of fully formed modern metal. Repeating motif’s subtly weave this ragtag mix into a primal tapestry.

The Birthing, with its southern stylings and dramatic midsection, is heavy and complex, while the stately Isak plods its chiming course through the stoner wasteland. The foreboding space rock of Wailing Wintery Wind is fancifully chased up by the storm-in-a-teacup fingerpicked acoustic Cockroach En Fleur – the first of a suite of elaborate but essential instrumental accessories completed by the post-rock doom of Aleph and Teeth of a Cogwheel, which is like a 70’s soundtrack for a movie about cowboys in space.

With Wunderlust, we’re are presented with the most Mastodon like moment, with guitars dual guitars picking through angular open stringed harmonies butted with shouted discordant vocals and a narrative instrumental mid section that Mastodon would surely have been proud of.

Baroness will need to step out from under Mastodon’s shadow to truly become a powerful musical force. It would be a travesty if they are relegated to a footnote in another bands musical history. The Red Album is as good as (and in many cases better than) anything that Mastodon have recorded.

Who knew that writing a concept album around Herman Melville’s turgid aquatic masterwork Moby-Dick could be cool? It was a little weak willed of Mastodon not to include tracks that mirror the extended chapters of cetalogical musings on whale species – that would be impressive.

Leviathan is as murky and unsettling as its literary counterpart, this doom-laden epic is intricate and perfectly conceived. Hearts Alive is its 13 minute epic culmination and centre-piece. Slow-building and creepy, it finally explodes into a stunning instrumental crescendo as monomaniac Captain Ahab finally takes battle with his quarry – the white whale.

Whereas most of the guitar solos mentioned thus far stray further into the “technically impressive” category, this falls squarely in the “Exactly exactly where it should be doing precisely what it should” category. Seemingly bubbling from the depths in an arpeggio maelstrom, this majestic piece of stringsmithery smashes through the tension built through the album making for an exhilarating conclusion to the saga.

If I had to sum up my thoughts on last night’s Mastodon gig at the O2 Islington Academy in less than 5 words, they would be “It is not cool”. Allow me to elaborate.

Mastodon't

When Iron Maiden, touring to promote their (admittedly excellent) album A Matter of Life and Death they played the whole album, note for note, in its entirety from the beginning of the gig. That was not cool. However, in the fullness of time we forgave the Maiden their misdemeanor as, as they rightly put it, they had earned the right, after 2 and a half decades, to play their prized and critically acclaimed new album from start to finish live, should they so wish. Or to put it another way “we are Iron Maiden, and we can do what we want, so f*ck off!”. Fair enough as they did conclude the gig with some time honoured classics, but it still spoilt my enjoyment of the gig.

When The Mars Volta did the same thing, on their debut tour, celebrating their debut album, it was also not cool. But in fullness of time we learned to forgive them as, at that point it was the only material that they had ever recorded. They could have jumbled up the order a bit to make things a bit more exciting, but Deloused in the Comatorium was a concept album which threads a narrative, so playing it out of order would have seemed a little strange.  Fair enough, and the quivering afros did enhance the entertainment value somewhat.

When Metallica chose to perform their seminal album Master Of Puppets (1986) while on tour in 2008, this was cool. This album had earned its right to be performed in its entirety live. I would have killed to have seen that.

When, last night, Mastodon decided it would be appropriate to perform their (admittedly excellent) album Crack in the Skye in its entirety (I can only assume as I left half way through track 6) IT WAS NOT COOL! It still is NOT COOL. Neither band nor album had earned that right, and they had plenty of other astounding musical ditties to choose from.

You see, live music is all about spontaneity. If I want to listen to an album I can stick it on my iPod anytime and listen to it. I can even jumble up the order so I don’t know what’s coming next. I don’t need to spend 15 quid to breath in other people’s sweat and queue at the bar for overpriced beer – I just put my headphones on. Unpredictability cannot, and should not be taken for granted. Part of the mystique of the live experience hoping, nay praying that they play your most prized track, watching the clock thinking closing time is drawing uncomfortably near. Will it come as part of the encore? Will there be explosions or and extended space jam (thank you for this many times Queens of the Stone Age)?  Sculpting a set list is a different discpline than putting together an album’s running order. Knowing the setlist of AC/DC’s phenomenal gig at the O2 arena earlier this year actually detracted from my enjoyment of it, despite the fact that they always play the same stuff.

Hear me now Mastodon (or should that be Mastodon’t), it is NOT cool!

I can only thank Valient Thorr, last night’s support, for an electrifying and highly amusing performance in which the songs were in a random order and from multiple albums. Your beards are truly inspirational. Valient Thorr, that IS cool.

(1.5)