2011 can suck my dick.

I have seen countless year end "best of" lists, and with greater frequency as the year winds down. Depending on the source, there are varying numbers of albums worth rating and compiling into lists. How in the hell does one listen to so many albums in a single calendar year?

Whenever I try to put such a list together, most of the albums worth ranking have been out for at least a year. While there are some albums that really do deserve the praise heaped on them, sometimes it takes a while for their greatness to shine through, especially in this era of immediate access to all music from anytime forever. Surely you've noticed the glut of music pumped out every year since access to the internet became widespread and recording software has become cheaper and cheaper?

Still, there are some albums that successfully caught and held my attention this year. Atma from the mighty Yob was pretty excellent. Said album was also my first exposure to them, which makes me feel like a goon for sleeping on it for so fucking long. It's hard to explain why, but it makes me think of Vitus on cough medicine; perhaps it's the bowel shaking riffage paired with a decent set of pipes?

I really dug Bermuda Drain, an offering from Prurient, another one of those artists/albums that should have been in my listening queue a long time ago. It's not your typical heavy metal vomit party (although those are certainly enjoyable when executed properly); this one's a bit more of an acquired taste, I'd say. Gutter caviar, maybe? Whatever, shit rules and will dominate my playlist for a while.

The Atlas Moth put out an album that was pretty heavily acclaimed, but once it finally came to my attention, it turned out to be kind of a clunker. It wasn't all bad, certainly, but after seeing them live, the document offered seemed to pale in comparison. They opened for Eyehategod (who used footage of the show in Cleveland for a dvd), and were a part of the Metaliance tour, and both times they were tight as fuck and presented themselves really well, just really bombastic heavy metal psych-screech, so when news of an album came about, I was pretty stoked. When various metal sites gave it sturdy and consistent reviews, I was even more stoked. Then I sat down to listen to it and it was just okay at best. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I'll give it another couple spins just in case it was me who dropped the ball and not them. Entirely possible.

I haven't heard any Mastodon since Blood Mountain, and probably won't check out the new one. Just sayin'. I would honestly be more apt to check out the Lou Reed/Metallica album first...just kidding, I'd rather slam my dick in a car door about ten or eleven times. Let's go with eleven, for posterity's sake. Goddamn if some goofy shit didn't come out this year.

What else did I have a major rager for this year? How the fuck could I forget HARM'S WAY. After seeing pictures of their infamous frontman and seeing some pretty baller live footage, it behooved me to check out some of their stuff, and goddamn it I'm glad I did; it's music for flipping cop cars and calling out assholes while jamming your thumb firmly into their eye-sockets. Holy fucking Hell, the shit makes me want to rip a phone book in half and stuff it in someone's ass, then kick open all doors just because I fucking can.

Now seems like a good time to mention the new Weedeater. This one seemed to be kind of divisive, but really, who gives a fuck. It's fucking Weedeater, just shut up and hit this already, dude.

Generally speaking, there was a lot of stuff that was just okay, namely Today Is The Day's new one, and Ringworm's new one. I love the fuck out of both bands, but they didn't really pack the proper punch. Same goes for Rwake's new one,Crowbar, Big Business...the list goes on, and we've all picked out the stinkers, so I'll leave this list alone. Maybe I was just burnt out on music at the time each of these came out, so it's not really prudent to out and out forget about them, but it was pretty underwhelming overall, especially from bands that are so fucking capable of being absolute killers.

Another thing I noticed this year that got old real fucking fast: black metal and the plague of mainstream attention. Now every stupid fucking thing under the sun is capable of being black metal or "blackened." I was never the biggest black metal dude to begin with, but what the fuck. It's existed for how many years now, with all this mythology surrounding it, and one faggy band drags it kicking and screaming into the spotlight? Shit. I'm not saying the genre isn't deserving of some level of recognition, but does it really have to be because of a shit-storm over one hipster's misinterpretation of it? Praise Jesus and pass the ammunition. Also stirring my ire are hardcore bands being referred to as powerviolence. A blip on the radar back in the 90s that influenced a fuck-ton of bands is now one of the biggest trends in hardcore, but it seems insincere. Eh, whatever. There will always be stupid shit like this in said scene, hence the continual spew of straight-edge bands, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. Even further still: I don't give a shit about old school death metal. Or new school death metal for that matter. Basically, people went fucking insane with their descriptions of heavy music to the point of it being kind of embarrassing.

Shit, there's entirely too much dogshit to sift through, so I'll leave you with this:

Ghost fucking sucks. #realtalk

Bong rips and bacon strips, let's hope next year isn't so fucking aggravating!