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Top Albums of 2014 - Honourable Mentions


Queen of Liars

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It's time for the albums that won't be making it to my top of the year list, but are still great albums which deserve attention.

 

Casualties of Cool by Casualties of Cool

This is a side project by Devin Townsend and Ché Aimee Dorval (who did the female vocals on Ki) which Devin made while wanting to take a break from all the heavy music he's been making. Indeed, very different from his usual music, this is a strange mix of country, ambient and blues rock with a very eerie and mysterious sound to it. Although extremely different from his other work, it is still unmistakably Devin Townsend.

It's a concept album about a traveler who is lured to distant a planet by a beautiful voice. Once he lands on it, he discovers an old radio which was the origin of the voice, and finds out that the planet is in fact sentient and uses the radio to lure unaware travelers and trap them, feeding on their fear. His attempts at escape being futile, he finds solace in the music from the radio and explores the planet, finding clues about other people once trapped on it. Really neat stuff.

 

The Serpent & the Sphere by Agalloch

A fantastic atmospheric black metal album, with influences from doom metal and folk.

Even if it doesn't necessarily live up to some of their previous albums, it's still excellent.

 

Grand Morbid Funeral by Bloodbath

With Paradise Lost's Nick Holmes taking over the vocals, Bloodbath make another great death metal album.

It's crushingly heavy with some excellent instrumentation.

 

The World We Left Behind by Nachtmystium

The band's final album, it's a fitting progressive black metal swan song with great guitar parts and a very strong atmosphere.

 

Esoteric Warfare by Mayhem

One of black metal's most infamous bands returns with another album, delivering ten absolutely crushing songs.

 

Run the Jewels 2 by Run the Jewels

The second album by this hip-hop collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P starts off with an extremely strong first two thirds or so, but unfortunately loses some steam by the final third which I think suffers from too many guest artists, making it feel far less cohesive than their debut. Regardless, the first two thirds are fantastic enough to earn a spot on this list.

 

Roads to the North by Panopticon

An excellent atmospheric black metal journey, with influences from melodic death metal and bluegrass.

It's also almost entirely created by the band's sole member Austin Lunn, with only the violin being performed by a guest, which is just incredible.

 

Shogunate Macabre by Whispered

Melodic death metal with influences from Japanese folk music. More or less as cool as it sounds.

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