End of Year List Zess' Best Album Picks of 2011

[Zeus 7997]

Zess' Best Album Picks of 2011

In no specific order are the albums of 2011 which I still find myself listening to now that we're approaching 2012. Even though it seems like I put every album that I listened to this year on my list, I can attest to you that this doesn't even begin to cover it. This list makes no distinction between Japanese and non-Japanese music because it's all got the Zess' stamp of approval so you're going to have to do a little digging yourself if you want to find out where they come from .

Although really I could go on for a lot longer if anyone's really interested (although I am certain this isn't the case).

Demetori - BEGIERDE DES ZAUBERER

Song: リジットパラダイス ～ Dawn of the Dead

The main question on most Demetori fans' minds are: does this beat Nada Upasana Pundarika? The answer is no. Then again, BEGIERDE DES ZAUBERER is better off for it. It's what feels like a logical progression from their last two albums, combining the crushing precision and polyrhythm breakdowns of Pundarika with the speed metal antics of Il Mondo dove e finito il Tempo. It's a little more organic than Pundarika without the laggy moments that could be found in Offering to the Sukhavati and every track hits you with the force of a truck. Most manage to find a way to work in the theme without the sprightly nature of the Touhou theme source throwing off the dynamic of the track (Which is arguably where half of the heavy metal arrangers fail). It's not a monster collection of nine Crazy Xenomorph clones coming one after another but it doesn't need to be. The Slayer, Symphony X, and Meshuggah influences are obvious between the snippets of loli music if you listen close enough and while the production isn't as bombastic as the last two albums, the nature of the tracks makes it work in it's favor. For an album that I waited two years for, BEGIERDE DES ZAUBERER satisfies.

Terra Tenebrosa - The Tunnels

Song: Through the Eyes of the Maninkari

The Tunnels is one of the most ambitious releases that I've heard in 2011. Terra Tenebrosa literally came out of nowhere, plucking it's members from the disbanded outfit Breach, got together in a dingy, molded, rotting basement and put out this six-track album of masterful insanity. It's as atmospheric as it is suffocating, as challenging to sit through as it is rewarding. Terra Tenebrosa did to post-metal what Isis did to metal: warping and reforming our perceptions and conventions of what the genre is and what it's capable of. If there's one thing anyone walked away from this post with, it would be knowing that 2011 isn't complete without giving this album a spot in your collection. Get it now.

Fugenn & The White Elephants - an4rm

Song: S_K

Yet another top contender from 2011 that I wasn't expecting to win me over as much as it did. I'm no IDM fan but Fugenn might cause me to rethink that. I played the song "By Stander" for my friend Hannah and she said that the intensity of the track made her feel like "she was in another room". Such intensity can only be offset with tracks as sublime as Narcissus, creating for an album that explores both highs and lows in a way no other album on my list managed to do this year. If you think you're ready for it, an4rm is waiting for you.

Ilaria Graziano - Cyber Bicci

Song: velveteen

I am in love with this woman's angelic voice. If you cannot appreciate Ilaria's voice, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that you have no soul.

Nah, I jest, I jest (but not really). It is really hard to not fall in love with her voice and when paired with Yoko Kanno this album just soars. I like to call the sound on this album "distant mechanical futuristic", which really describes a lot of the anime that these songs were culled from. A lot of these songs were recorded over the span of a few years so this would be a sort of collection album, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Lantlôs - AGAPE

Song: Bliss

AGAPE is a little lacking both around the middle and in overall length but the ambience and atmosphere of this record is nothing short of overwhelming. Neige and his black metal yodels are here again and they add a great deal to the album, but I'm more interested about the progression from their previous effort .neon. They said it would be bulky, ugly, and feed off the listener. It's not long enough to do that but I like this direction. If they release their next album in this vein, it can potentially top .neon.

101A - 4

Song: moon

Melancholic and meditative with a haunting soundscape, 4 is everything that I wanted from the sucessor to Lethe. This album is so good it set the bar just that high for what I expected out of the rest of 2011, which sadly couldn't churn out much to match this. 4 avoids all of the common pitfalls that 101A albums fall into and followed it up with more mature composition and much improved vocals from noah. Perfect length, perfect flow. It's quite the indie record but if you're into more experimental and adventurous areas of post-rock, 4 is an album you do not want to miss. Definitely recommended!

Dark Castle - Surrender to All Life Beyond Form

Song: Seeing Through Time

This is DUM SPIRO SPERO if that album were actually half-way coherent. Think of a track taking an aimless, meandering trip through a nightmare whilst an angry woman growls at you at every turn. Add in a fuzzed out ethnic sounding baritone guitar, some chanting, a healthy amount of doom influence, the lack of any bass instrument and electronic buzzing here and there and you basically have this album. Whilst it's not perfect and the formula can be refined, independent band Dark Castle has shown that you can throw away conventional ways of composition and come out with a great slice of sludge. Move over Dir en grey, Dark Castle is here to show you how to sludge.

sgt. - BIRTHDAY

Song: アラベスク

Along with 4, BIRTHDAY took care of all of my post-rock needs for the year. BIRTHDAY is one intense album and once the beginning piano keys and guitar jangles of Cosgoda grab you, it's hard to stop listening. sgt.'s jazz-tinged approach to post-rock is quite uncommon and their method of revisiting certain passages and slightly modifying it with an delayed note here or another instrument there contrasts greatly with the bands that stick to the "sprawling epics". By using repetition to their advantage, they're able to give their songs a lasting impression without the need for cliche buildup and predictable climaxes. If you're a fan of post-rock, relaxing instrumental music or cute girls that can play a mean violin, I cannot recommend this enough.

Russian Circles - EMPROS

Song: Batu

After listening to almost all of Russian Circles' output, I can say that Empros is their heaviest and best album to date. Russian Circles weeded out a lot of the technical limitations they imposed upon themselves with past records that were incorporated for the sole purpose of fitting into the post-rock/post-metal genre. These elements - usually found amongst meandering, mellow, aimless passages - are almost nowhere to be found on Empros, which leaves the album with a great deal of hard hitting songs. Slower moments can be found but these slower moments have purpose. If you're looking to get into some fine post-metal, this is definitely something you should try.

lynch. - I BELIEVE IN ME

Song: LIE

Quite possibly my favorite VK release of the year, although I am unsure of whether lynch. should be considered visual anymore. lynch. did the transition to major very well, changing absolutely nothing about their core sound but incorporating a good handful of pop and alternative metal influences into a solid rock album. Newcomer Akinori also shows his chops on the bass and more than adequately fills in for the bass position that Hazuki/Junji held before. Definitely tops SHADOWS for me and it's probably my favorite lynch. release thus far.

Zess' Good Album Picks of 2011

Here I'll include a section for albums which I thought were good but not "AOTY" material. Most of these were great releases but they just weren't "OMG GOOD ENOUGH" to put above. A few are here because they had good ideas with questionable execution. Without further ado:

BLANKFIELD - This Is The Dead, And I've Reached The Deathless

Song: This Is The Dead, And I've Reached The Deathless

Off-putting blast beats? Interrupted keyboard/synth breakdowns? Meshuggah-like riffing? This is all BLANKFIELD and their take on djent and MDM has been unmatched since their release of Fast Forward to Far End of East. While it's still a mini, it's the most experimental I've seen warinside get since their first release. The synth being used in tasteful amounts without overpowering the music is another plus! Hell, BLANKFIELD is so good at doing arranges other starting bands cover their covers! This mini is yet another solid entry in BLANKFIELD's discography despite a few flaws (questionable rhythm changes, a little on the short side even for a mini, and two of the tracks fade out) but if you are any type of fan of experimentation in your metalcore/deathcore and you can't stand bad vocals in your music, BLANKFIELD may be just what you didn't know you needed. Get this!

Thousand Leaves - GOD FORSAKEN

Song: Bright red season

WIth three albums out this year and two of them making the list, doujin arranger Bach's Thousand Leaves dominated 2011. God Forsaken has a much better flow and a more prominent bass drum line than it's predecessor End of Endless Night but it's still lacking when compared to previous albums Dead Night Blind and especially Blind Night Sorrow. I also can't neglect to mention Abecky's vocals, which are the best they've been since the aforementioned album and the guitar leads are scorching hot in every single song. This is a solid mixture of melodeath with some power metal influences and if you're a fan of either, you owe it to yourself to listen to this album.

Thousand Leaves - END OF ENDLESS NIGHT

Song: Wings of Destiny

END OF ENDLESS NIGHT is mostly instrumental - whilst I like my Touhou instrumental and normally this is the preferred choice for me, Thousand Leaves has an ace in the hole with Abecky. They're one of the few doujin circles that can actually pull off vocals in their music and arguably do it better than they do instrumental tracks. They only have two tracks featuring Abecky on this release. The drums aren't as clicky on this release and Abecky's harsh vocals are in prime form but I personally love the source themes on God Forsaken much better. I do love the arrange of Wind God Girl though. Just because I like this one less doesn't mean it's not good. It just means God Forsaken is that much better.

Hellion Sounds - Chaotic Labyrinth

Song: 戦場 戦慄 　from　 世界樹の迷宮II

Hellion Sounds came back IN FORM with this album. Their Y's arranges were great but Crimson Nightmare didn't win me over too much. All their little nuances that ticked me off while listening to that album were rectified with this album and this is their most cohesive album to date. It also helps that they've picked an arrange field I don't hear too often so a lot of these were fresh takes. My only complaint is that a few of the arranges are repetitive and stick a little too close to the original theme. It's an arrange album - nothing more, nothing less - but they did it with such flair and great production that it's hard to ignore. With it's shortcomings, I don't feel right including it above. Definitely NOT to be looked over if you're a fan of video game music in any regard.

黒夜葬 - 眞紅ノ眷屬ハ圓環スル螺旋ヲ嘆ズル

Song: 獄彩ト散ル硝子ノ華

I had my reservations concerning this album when 刹那 announced that it was going to feature Rib;y(uhki) from Imperial Circus Dead Decadence and VAGUEDGE DIES FOR DIES IRAE on vocals. After getting a glimpse of what this album would sound like with The Reincarnation of Faith (which was probably the worst rendition of The Venerable Ancient Battlefield I've ever heard) and having a friend call the demo they distributed laughable, I was ready to chuck this one out. 眞紅ノ眷屬ハ圓環スル螺旋ヲ嘆ズル surprised me in many ways, most of which were positive. This may be a Rib;y(uhki) album through and through as he is on every track but 刹那 managed to keep 黒夜葬 in the direction he's been intending for it to go in since the release of Catharsis. In some ways, this is the best 黒夜葬 album out of them all because it manages to seamlessly integrate both harsh and clean vocals in a chaotic atmosphere whilst stepping up the ante on the neo-classical elements that he's been slowly introducing album after album. The mastering also deserves a mention - it's head and shoulders above the clipping nightmare that was APOCALYPSE -Mundus cult decipi, ergo decapitur-. 刹那's shown a bit more restraint with the elements he's been incorporating, choosing taste over quantity and keeping a fair bit along with the kitchen sink. The album is a little too chaotic at some points and the EQ levels chosen for some of the instruments aren't the best. The biggest detractor for this album is that Rib;y(uhki) hits some questionable notes but since he's drowned in the avalanche of layers that's been incorporated here, a lot of them go unnoticed. Overall this album is pretty solid. Not album of the year good but it deserves attention from one of the more oft-overlooked circles.

Boris - New Album

Song: Party Boy

Boris released four albums this year but in my opinion each successive album appealed to me less and less. Klatter was great but New Album was what really struck me. Attention Please doesn't fill the need I have for Boris pop and the way they take a genre and go way over the top with it is the aspect of Boris that I love the most - and the one I felt was missing on most of their releases this year. A few of the tracks here still cause me to cringe but a lot of the rearranges are a lot better than the actual tracks themselves which is both awesome and disappointing. Boris left me with a lot of mixed feelings this year, but New Album is still the album of theirs I find myself listening to the most this year.

Unlucky Morpheus - Faith & Warfare

Song: ピロピロリングナイト●３●

Unlucky Morpheus always has been a refreshing breath of air in the doujin circle and their take on mixing Touhou with speed metal has always been something that I can escape to when I've gotten tired of the metalcore/deathcore/djent/faux black metal that a lot of bands rely on to arrange their music. Faith & Warfare expands on the Ankimo formula more, while introducing some jazzy elements that surprisingly doesn't disintegrate as soon as you press play. Those slower tracks remove a lot of the monotony that speed/power arrange albums tend to have in the second half and even the ten-minute long "Sunny" doesn't feel like it's taking forever to finish. The lack of Fuki is a little on the disappointing side but it's not enough to make this album lose it's spot as one of the top doujin albums of the year. Another solid album from another consistent top-tier circle. It's a shame they're so underrated. Fix that by listening to this.

Nightwish - Imaginaerum

Song: Scaretale

It's Nightwish, which means that you should expect to get cheesy symphonic pop-metal when they drop an album. The reason why this is here is because Anette Olzon improved an amazing amount since Dark Passion Play. The songwriting also shows really tight integration between what Anette is capable and what Tuomas is striving for and they meet at a nice medium that works for most of the tracks. Anette is the shining gem here and she shows that while she may not be as powerful or have as wide of a range as Tarja, she's capable of pulling off songs that Tarja wouldn't be able to. My main gripe with Dark Passion Play was it's ubiquitous orchestra which was bombastic and featured in songs that didn't need them at all. The orchestra is less 'in-your-face' here but all too often it adds an unneeded element and serves to only drown Tuomas' contributions to the music. Song of Myself also has six minutes of useless talking where there should be music, artificially inflating the runtime to a colossal 13 minutes. Despite all of these complaints I have about the album, it does enough right with tracks like Scaretale, Arabesque and Imaginaerum in order for it to secure a spot here.

A - White Album

Song: Masquerade

I actually enjoyed their Black Butterfly single more than this but I'm keeping singles out of my line-up here. White Album is the second solid EP by this band and it's a nice contrast to the darker sounds found on Black Album. This is definitely THE VK EP of the year, no doubts about it. The violin is authentic and Rookie Fiddler's playing accentuates the music very well. The guitars could be punchier and do more than keep rhythm but as they mature I'm sure this will improve. This is definitely an up-and-coming visual band I need to keep a closer eye on.

D'espairsRay - antique

Song: MAZE

This album is a nice condensation of D'espairsRay by featuring their B-sides and this forms a much more cohesive album than their previous compilation Immortal. I would say that this is almost a classic. I say almost because it is also characteristic of their career - the longer this record goes on, the more downhill the quality of the songs go. Hardcore D'espa fans may disagree with me on this but everything after DESERT could have been cut out and the album would have been better for it. As a longtime fan of D'espairsRay, I honestly cannot keep this off my best-of list but the shakiness of the last few tracks prevents antique from occupying a spot in the top-tiers. Still, this is a must-have record by a band that has helped influence many bands yet never seemed to break into the regular rotation of many visual listeners. It's sad that in two years D'espairsRay will be categorized by new fans into the bin of "bands I should listen to but won't because they're from the 90's".

Scale the Summit - The Collective

Song: Colossal

Another by-the-books post-rock album that sits down here for the basis that I have astronomical expectations from what I expect out of post-rock. The Collective delivers in spades but it's main problem is that it is not as direct as I want it to be. Instead of coming full-force and punching the user with one hard, polyrhythmic track after another like their previous record Carving Desert Canyons, this record takes a mellower approach and places their more fierce tracks between three or four tracks that lull the user into complacency. As such, I really need to be in the mood for this album and mood albums usually don't top my list because they aren't albums I can listen to "whenever". Still though, The Collective is good - perhaps too good to be real.

陰陽座 - 鬼子母神

Song: 組曲「鬼子母神」～鬼拵ノ唄

Kishi-Bojin comes as a huge surprise as it sees Onmyo-Za take on a darker, more melancholy direction to their music. For one, the album is a complete concept album based on the mythical figure Kishibonin and it shows because most of the tracks lead into the next one. Unintentionally, this fixes the issue that's plagued every Onmyo-Za album since Maoutaiten - the album somehow manages to create an ebb and flow that helps it not become stale and repetitive. Kishi-Bojin also sees Matatabi take on a more prominent role as male vocalist, which shifts the dynamic of the tracks a great deal. The near constant synth is also a welcome addition that goes unnoticed at first but slowly reveals itself upon multiple listens. As of now, the major beef that I have with Kishi-Bojin is that the tracks themselves are inconsistent - some tracks are amazing and some are just average. For a successful experiment and having Matatabi solely compose what is the most ambitious Onmyo-Za album to date, Kishi-Bojin quickly earns itself a spot amongst the best albums of the year.

Swarms - Old Raves End

Song: T-1000

Quite a different take on dubstep then the bassheads at my college showed me when they introduced me to the wompfest the genre has become. Swarms is adept at mixing ambient and electronica into their dubstep-influenced sound and they end up devising a record that's as fresh as it is different. I'm not the biggest fan of electronica in the world but I can appreciate when it's done right. If you are really into the electronica/dubstep genres this may be an overlooked album from 2011 that you may want to try.

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Can "The Tunnels" be found here? :U

[Zeus 7997]

No, that you're going to have to search for.

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Ohhh, I thought they were Japanese for some reason. Anyway, I found it . I loved the song you put on your Aeon mixtape but never got around to finding the whole album.

[Prophet 168]

This is awesomeness overload! Taking some samples of the songs above, Thanks man~

[iSin-Sama 4]

This is awesomeness overload! Taking some samples of the songs above, Thanks man~

I agree with this.

[sai 868]

Damnit Zess, now you have me hooked on Imaginaerum again