Kai vs RYM metal charts: 1996

     1996: the year boomer-minded Gen X'ers thought metal died because Kerry King, Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson cut their hair.  It was also the year grunge ran out of gas, if not the year before, and everyone was scrambling around trying to figure out what to do next.  Of course, the answer was making German power metal the new popular metal style, as it would bring world peace, and permanent economic prosperity, but Lemmy forbid we have that.

    In any case, I have no faint clue what the Kanye-Ketamine minded users of Rateyourmusic.com are gonna think constitutes the best of metal for this year.  There's only one way to find out.  Let's go holy diving.....

1. Cryptopsy- None So Vile

    So, cards on the table, I peaked ahead a couple days or so ago, and I realized I've never actually heard None So Vile.  Well, I don't like looking things up for free but I'll make an exception here and there and I just heard this for the first time as of this writing.  Well, I feel like this is the album that killed what we now know as Old School Death Metal (OSDM).  You also hear a lot of trademarks of what modern extreme-metal/core is today: impossibly fast blast-beats, riffs sounding like they were made by Koji Kondo on crack (i.e. making Majora's Mask) and vocals that you have absolutely no clue what the guy is saying, so there's no point in getting offended.  Some will say this is what Suffocation did, but Suffocation was never this....fast.  This thing makes Dark Angel's Darkness Descends sound like Stream From The Heavens.  For me, I understand why this is a big deal, but part of what made death metal cut to the bone was clarity, lyrically and otherwise, and this is a little too much of a blur for me.

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: No

2. Tool- Ænima

    This album (and this band) would likely be considered the ultimate heavy metal band of the 90's if they, you know, actually went out of their way to call themselves that (at a time when metal needed champions).  Tool certainly didn't have a problem collecting metal Grammys for business.  Nonethless, Ænima* is where Tool truly figured out what they were doing, and an all time classic.  Hampered a bit by dumb interludes after near ever almost every song, but it also provided another avenue for not only heavy metal ideas, but progressive rock ideas to proceed in the 90s with a fresh new set of clothes.  It's also where Danny Carey steps into the GOAT drummer conversation for the first time.

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: Yes

3. Burzum- Filosofem

    Ah, Filosofem. The album so revolutionary that even a series of horrendous crimes can't knock down its impact and importance.  Though a certain stupid 24 minute synth wank can (even Varg regrets putting that song there and has since expressed a wish to have a typical fast black metal song there instead).  As a result, this album can only travel so high on such a top ten metal list.  Like Hvis Lyset Tar Oss before it, Filosofem is a masterclass on how to make hypnotic riffs good enough to power "x for 10 minutes" youtube videos.  Arguably the last word in lo-fi production in metal.

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: Yes

4. Neurosis- Through Silver In Blood

    Arguably the peak of Neurosis' powers (I do have to wonder how much of that was "Locust Star" slipping onto MTV for the nostalgia factor, comparable to Running Wild and "Bad To The Bone"), if Souls At Zero didn't set the wheels of sludge into motion, Through Silver In Blood certainly did.  This is a suffocating, dense glacier of agonizing heaviness that will never be supplanted by time or trend.  If Metallica put this out in 1996 the response would have universally been "the long hair was clearly holding them back!"

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: Yes

5. Crimson- Edge of Sanity

    Haven't heard it yet.  It beat Dopesmoker to the punch regarding the idea of the long one track album.  So it's got that going for it, which is nice.

Should this be on a top 10: Not sure

Would this be on my top 10: Not sure

6. Type O Negative- October Rust

    With regards to Lord Petrus Steele, I will always be a Carnivore fan first and foremost.  But I do have to give him credit regarding one thing: he figured out how to make goth manly, and doom metal appealing to women at the same time.  And that guitar tone, goddamn that thing still sounds cool today!  Processed and compressed?  Who cares!  If it is, it's processed and hi-tech the way an AH-64 attack helicopter is: refined for maximum murder (or in Type O's case maximum suicide).  I'll admit it is nonetheless what I call a victim of the CD age, in that just because the new unit has 78 minutes of space, mean it should be filled up with 78 minutes of room.  God, you have to wonder how many albums of the 90s and 00s that were ruined with 80 minutes of bloat could have been two classic albums in two years.

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: Yes

7. Immolation- Here In After

    The first entry into a top 10 for these beloved New York death metal cornerstones, and I have to say, if I'm gonna reach for a death metal album from 1996, I'll reach for Here In After over None So Vile for "Christ's Cage" alone.  If there is an issue here it's that Ross Dolan as a vocalist is hard to tell apart from Incantation vocalists (yes, plural), but that's ok because you have Bob Vigna and Tom Wilkinson's fifth dimensional demented riffs to establish their dominance.  It can't be overstated that there was five years between this and Immolation's debut.  Five years was a lifetime even back then, so if you're gonna be gone for that long, you better come back with something seminal.  Here In After not only was just that, it was the beginning of a run of such albums that arguably continues to this day!

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: Yes

8. Katatonia- Brave Murder Day

    I've stated before I infinitely prefer Dance of December Souls to anything else Katatonia did, but I'd be dishonest if I said Brave Murder Day held no value to death-doom metal.  One reason I feel this album has more popularity is the guest death vocals of none other than Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth.  Reason being that Jonas Renske's throat was too destroyed to continue that kind of vocals.  All I'm gonna say regarding that is Brave Murder Day is the best album Akerfeldt has ever sang on.

Should this be on a top 10: Yes

Would this be on my top 10: No

9. Acid Bath- Paegan Terrorism Tactics

    There's no denying that When The Kite String Pops was always an underground staple, but this?  I don't remember too many people slobbering over it before the Chinese social-engineering psy-op.  I can think of a few albums more important than this.

Should this be on a top 10: No

Would this be on my top 10: No

10. Iniquity- Serenadium

    Who?  I checked their song titles, and not one of them contain a reference to "mantis's," "raptures," "comin at ya's," or masters of any such.  Therefore this album clearly sucks and everyone who upvoted this (and mass downvoted better albums like Time of the Oath and Tunes of War), need to be forced to listen to and love Time Of the Oath and Tunes of War.

Should this be on a top 10: No

Would this be on my top 10: No

Closing thoughts:  Not a whole lot to say here.  I suppose this is where to complain about the lack of Great Southern Trendkill but let's be real, "Heaviest album of 1996" was really only an empty dig at Metallica, and even that was subverted by it's presence of three ballads.  Three.  Even Helloween and Grave Digger had less of such on their albums.  It really is funny how Pantera was seen as the better, less-sellout version of Metallica when Pantera had just as many faux-pas as Metallica.  Was it because Phil gave more white power speeches on stage?  Yeah its because Phil gave more white power speeches onstage.  You can smell it on James Hetfield too (Axl would complain that James got Body Count thrown off a Guns N Roses tour because he didn't like "Cop Killer."  Peh, Cop Killer destroys a good 3/4 of Metallica's 80s catalog.  Stupid drink poser.) Hilariously, two of those three ballads are the best songs on Trendkill.

My unordered alphabetical top 10.

BURZUM- FILOSOFEM

GRAVE DIGGER- TUNES OF WAR

GORGOROTH- ANTICHRIST

HELLOWEEN- THE TIME OF THE OATH

IMMOLATION- HERE IN AFTER

MOTÖRHEAD- OVERNIGHT SENSATION

NEUROSIS- THROUGH SILVER IN BLOOD

TOOL- ÆNIMA

TYPE O NEGATIVE- OCTOBER RUST

SACRAMENTUM- FAR AWAY FROM THE SUN

*It makes me feel so special to know how to type that.  No I will not say how.