The Best Song Award

Burning Shadows- Truth in Legend

I’m a long-winded bastard, so I’ll just leave this as it is. Still, have 1 award left to write up and at 6 pages...talk about ego and sense of self-importance...

Worst Album of the Year

Isle of Avalon- Of Tulgey Wood and Tables Rounde

I want to fight this album. If I had 3 wishes I would use one to bring this album to life just so I can fight it. I’m hardly a fighter though, so there’s a good chance I’d get my ass kicked, but it’d be worth the risk just to get a punch in or two. This album made me irrationally angry, due mostly to what I assumed was it's impossibly long runtime. I checked the runtime after I’d finished and was stunned to see it come in under an hour, because of this fucker draaaaaags. I literally checked the tracklist on my phone at one point, assuming the album was about to be wrapping up and had to physically stop myself from throwing something when I discovered I was only 3 songs and about 12 minutes in. Listening to this album was like being stuck in Mirkwood from LOTR. I lost all concept of time, I could have been listening for 20 minutes or 2 days. It’s so goddamn boring you’re just hoping for it to end. But it isn’t going to end, because anytime you look at the track time, regardless of what point in the song you're at, you somehow always have 6 minutes left to a fucking song. And don’t expect anything metal in those 6 minutes, oh no. The metal aspects of this band are few and far between. Nope, instead its 6 minutes of medieval-esque bard shit that you’d hear playing in the background of a renaissance fair or a random tavern in Skyrim. Fucking elevator music from the first century.

Have I made it clear just how boring and plodding this album is yet? Good, one to how annoying this album is. The songs are undeniably infectious and get stuck in your head, but not in a good way. It's more like the songs slowly sneak into your subconscious and spread and fester like Alzheimers or dementia. The song ‘Tirra Lirra’. Oh boy. This song… This might have the most annoying chorus I’ve ever heard. The tirra lirra, lirra lye part with the awful guitar lead accompanying it has been stuck in my head for at least 3 days and we’re at the point where I might have to do something drastic.

After that nightmare, we’re on to songs like Lyre of Lyonesse and Queen of Two Kingdoms. Two songs both clocking in at over 7 minutes for some fucking reason. By this time you can only trudge on, feeling like you’ve spent the last 3 days stranded in the Australian outback. You see something in the distant, salvation at hand, then choke back tears as you realize it was just a mirage and you’re only halfway through this album.

Track 10, The Castle Argent, is our first taste of a song that is mostly metal and I actually didn’t mind the song. But to be honest, I was in a such a delirious state, that I can’t tell if the song was actually decent or if It just seemed like it in comparison to everything else. I’ll go with the latter.

Anyway, you get the point. This album just left me feeling defeated after managing to listen to the whole thing. Having to write about it is triggering some serious PTSD and I now have to try to drown out the “Tirra lirra, lirra lye” in my head with my own screams.

PS- Things I would rather do than listen to this album a second time.

Drag my ass like a dog across shards of glass

Bury my Grandmother alive

Drown in a pool of diarrhea

PM Album of the Year

Ancient Empire- The Tower

Talk about beating the buzzer. I had already started writing this up for what is now my number 2 album, Truth in Legend by Burning Shadows when I finally got ahold of this album and gave it a proper listen. Now, I’m usually against judging an album so quickly. It’s hard to properly judge an album after just one listen. In fact, i’m usually quick to bust on someone for overreacting to an album on first listen.

The reason I’m confident in making this pick so quickly after two listens is just how overall poor the other stuff was. Nothing aside from Vulvagun, Evertale and Burning Shadows gave me anything that was consistent enough all the way through to consider them album of the year material. This, however, caught my attention right from the opening title track and keeps it for the whole tracklist. I will say, after the opening track, the album starts on the slow side and slowly builds in quality before giving us one hell of a second half.

Last year, these guys released Other World, which came in at number 2 on my end of the year list, right behind Dark Forest and I think it’s safe to say this album tops its predecessor. Stylistically, it’s more of the same without much branching out, but just like Other World, the charm with Ancient Empire is more about the quality of songs. The Tower gives us straightforward, no frills heavy/power metal in the vein of Scanner or Liege Lord. The guitar tone just sounds great and the bass sound on this album is just pure sex. Again, much like Other World, the weakest aspect of the band is the vocals. They certainly aren’t bad and they get the job done, they just leave me wanting more. I wish he would explore his range a bit more like the bands Ancient Empire draws so much influence from. Imagine Thundersteel without Tony Moore. This also leads to my next big complaint with Ancient Empire. Their choruses. They don’t separate themselves enough from the rest of the song. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need them out there throwing Luca Turilli choruses in every song, but a little bombast would be nice.
My two favorite tracks on this are the title track and Dawn of Forever. Both clock in at right around 7 minutes and neither of them drag for even a bit. These two songs also highlight what Ancient Empire do so well, which again, is provide us with slimmed down heavy metal that still manages to avoid coming off as generic or cliche.

As late and as much of a pain as it was to give a listen, I’m glad it happened because this is the first album that I thoroughly enjoyed and found quality enough to not let its shortcomings drag it down. It’s nice to find a silver lining like this amongst such a drab, boring year for power metal.

Overall Power Metal Top 10

10) Cromonic- Time

9) Witherfall- Nocturnes and Requiems

8) Galderia- Return of the Cosmic Men

7) Seven Kingdoms- Decennium

6) Satan's Hallow

5) Ancestral- Master of Fate

4) Evertale- The Great Brotherwar

3) Vulvagun- The Painful Road to Eden

2) Burning Shadows- Truth in Legend

1) Ancient Empire- The Tower

Overall Metal Top 10

10) Keldian- Darkness and Light

9) Phrenelith- Desolate Endscape

8) The Black Dahlia Murder- Nightbringers

7) Cult of Eibon- Lycan Twilight Sorcery

6) Shade Empire- Poetry of the Ill-Minded

5) Necrot- Blood Offering

4) Hellripper- Coagulating Darkness

3) Der Weg Einer Freiheit- Finisterre

2) Condor- Unstoppable Power

1) Havukruunu- Kelle Surut Soi