Top 5 New Band Discoveries in 2011
1. Trap Them
2. Towers
3. Wight
4. Premonition 13
5. Today Is The Day

Top 5 Concert Moments (Musical) in 2011
1. Saint Vitus @ Roseland
2. Wizard Rifle's new song @ Branx opening for YOB
3. Dispirit
4. Witch Mountain @ East End in May
5. Palo Verde / Orange Goblin (tie)

Top 10 Concert Moments (Not As Musical) in 2011
1. guy from Cough informing my table of activities upstairs then watching him get made fun of for being an ignorant Southern stoner stereotype
2. the LOL that followed getting hit in the head with Zoroaster's drumstick
3. getting helloed by Mike and Stevie for no apparent reason
4. witnessing a very inebriated, very excited Adam Noble Bass at Scion
5. meeting Aesop
6. the Glass House circle pit(s)
7. hearing about Joe's next project
8. meeting 2/4 Norska
9. "sneaking" into Rotture several times and nobody doing anything
10. the first "are you fucking serious?" thought, back when it was still funny and not a chore to deal with, after encountering my first real-life "the rules I make for others don't apply to me" grown adult Portland hipster

(Recap) 10 of the Best Albums That Came out of Oregon in 2011
1. Lord Dying - Lord Dying
2. Towers - The Fields
3. Witch Mountain - South of Salem
4. Red Fang - Murder The Mountains
5. YOB - Atma
6. Nether Regions - Into The Breach
7. Norska - Norska
8. Mongoloid Village - Folly
9. Rabbits - Lower Forms
10. Atriarch - Forever The End

How I Really Feel About That List
1. great flow, all the songs are related and themed together, it works really well as an album, music is a little too same-y and historically derivative, but great job and way better than expected, can't imagine it'll be topped out by them as a whole product in the future
2. holy shit
3. I like the new stuff better now, new voice added so much to them
4. this band does not know how to write an "album" yet, but this collection of individual songs is grand
5. dull in the wrong mindset, sparkly glitter fun amazing in the right
6. leading cause of BrainAIDS transmission in the metro area
7. I don't know who "they" is but it sounds like they need therapy
8. I think I needed to pay more attention in music class instead of spending the whole time making fun of the teacher
9. like I need a throat lozenge
10. if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands

10 Favorite Albums of 2011 That Have Nothing to Do With Portland
1. Sandrider - Sandrider
2. Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
3. Black Cobra - Invernal
4. Weedeater - Jason... The Dragon
5. Ill - Gotten Gains
6. Wight - Wight Weedy Wight
7. Parts & Labor - Constant Future
8. Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
9. Wizard Smoke - The Speed of Smoke
10. Dark Castle - Surrender to Life Beyond Form / Premonition 13 - 13

10 Releases I'm Looking Forward to in 2012
1. Salvador's new album
2. Fiona Apple, assuming that even happens... stupid music business.
3. Meshuggah
4. So is Tool going to release something in 2012 or what?
5. Witch Mountain
6. Saint Vitus
7. Wight
8. I bet the Melvins will release something if Big Business doesn't beat them to the chase.
9. Marilyn Manson :( Glutton for punishment.
10. HIGH ON FIRE

10 Favorite Songs of 2011
Sandrider - Scatter
Ill - A
Nether Regions - Outrun The Sun
Witch Mountain - Never Know (unreleased)
Opeth - The Devil's Orchard
YOB - Adrift in the Ocean
Krallice - The Clearing
Wizard Smoke - Weakling
Wight - Hammer Boogie
Earthless - Demon Lady

10 More Decent Songs of 2011
Black Cobra - Obliteration
Helms Alee - 8/16
Towers - Machine
Graveyard - Ain't Fit To Live Here
Today Is the Day - Pain is a Warning
Big Business - Guns
Foo Fighters - Rope
Orange Goblin - Red Tide Rising (preview)
Trap Them - Sovereign Through The Pines
Castle - Total Betrayal

10 More Just For Shits and Giggles
1000mods - El Rollito
Weedeater - Jason... The Dragon (more live than on record)
Radio Moscow - Little Eyes
Mongoloid Village - Halitocirrhosis
Foo Fighters - Rope
Atriarch - Shadows
Wizard Rifle - whatever that new song is called that they opened the YOB show with (live)
Fever Ray - The Wolf
Lo-Pan - El Dorado
Incubus - Adolescents

I've talked about Tool on SeeingtheDark.com (and Sounds of Sagittarius and Song of the Day) before. In fact, it was only a few Christmases ago that I posted "Ticks and Leeches" as my song of the day. Maybe you haven't been around that long, and I've purged my archives since then, so perhaps this is "news": I'm a huge fan.

I don't like that word - it implies complete knowledge and compliance. As much as I like some bands, I'm never really 100% on them. I have spotty knowledge, a lot of lyrical themes irritate me, etc. I've played around a lot with the cognitive dissonance between what I experience of a band's music and what they are actually like as people or what their music might actually be saying. But, for the sake of simplicity, I've been a "fan" of Tool since 1998. I know their music very well, I've spent a fuckton of money on their music or concerts, I've gotten into heated arguments about their music, they're responsible for my favorite albums and some of my most overplayed songs, they've shaped my tastes and tolerances, they've had an unrivaled influence over what music I've listened to since discovering them, and so on.

Tool was my favorite band for a long time. I didn't question this much (didn't have reason to) until I got into Kyuss. But Tool has always been at the top of my list. Even when my interest in listening to them has faded, even when I've felt like I'd rather stab myself in the ears with a Phillips head screwdriver than hear "Sober" again, my respect has always maintained.

One of the ways I respect the band is through their ability to share other bands with the so-called mainstream (you can argue Tool isn't mainstream, and you could be right, but they're as mainstream as heavy rock/metal gets). I have newly discovered at least a dozen bands because of shows they've done with Tool, or covers that Tool has done, or from members of Tool going on to do other projects (we're really just talking about Maynard for me there). A few of those bands have led me even further down the rabbit hole.

In one case, I found Kyuss because of Tool's live cover of "Demon Cleaner". Kyuss resulted in quite a sequence of bands and has led me straight to where I am now. Would I be doing a stoner/doom-centric blog if I had not been so irritated early on in my Kyuss obsession that nobody I knew had heard or heard of them before? Probably not. I may have eventually heard Kyuss because of Queens of the Stone Age or Monster Magnet, but my interest would have taken on a different tone. Certainly I wouldn't have discovered Sheavy without liking Kyuss exactly when I did, and then where would I be?

Perhaps more importantly, Tool introduced me to Russian Circles. In 2007, they played some shows together. I looked Russian Circles up. I liked "Death Rides A Horse" and that was about it. Around that time I really, really wanted to go to more live shows and Russian Circles seemed like one of those bands I'd better interpret live. Sure enough, they were coming to Portland, opening one of the March Into Darkness festival dates. I bought a full pass to the fest. There, I was properly introduced to SubArachnoid Space, I met my once-favorite venue, I learned of the entity Nanotear, I was blown away by Red Fang (who led me to find Diesto, who is the main reason I saw Nether Regions early on, who is the number one cause of my name written in albums that come out in January), and, most importantly for the context of this post, I discovered the band Middian.

Now, I didn't see Middian live. They were playing too late and I didn't have a ride home so I had to catch my last bus. But I did look them up beforehand and listened to "Dreamless Eye" a lot. Middian's court dramas unfolding in internet discussion about them in 2008 led me to discover YOB.

My listening to YOB has, of course, paid off. In part, my interest in them eventually led to me joining up with Nanotear. Now I know what YOB's doing before any of you guys. It's lovely. For example, about four days before the rest of the world, four years into my history with YOB and fourteen into my history with Tool (the band that ultimately led me to discover YOB, in case you didn't follow all of that up there), I learned that YOB is opening for Tool on some shows on the East coast.

I find it strange and cyclical that I went down a musical path that basically looked like Tool > Russian Circles > Middian/Nanotear > YOB > Tool. It seems, despite the path I took, my initial respect for Tool would have led me to discover YOB anyway. Perhaps I'm being overly sentimental and not cynical enough about my fandom self-validating itself, but that's really cool. For having such a band open their show, I respect Tool all the more.

And also they need a good, relevant band to open for them when they haven't released a new album in going-on-six years and have no reason to tour right now.

Here's hoping that once the January/February leg is over, and Puscifer has finished their run, Tool comes through Portland and asks YOB to open the show. Cuz, you know, that might be pretty fucking fulfilling to see on our home turf.

Orange Goblin is the new Mastodon.

"Red Tide Rising".

The new album, A Eulogy for the Damned, is out 2/14.

These charts are highly biased towards my listening habits in the first 3-4 months of the year. I had a lull in listening from about April to September; I was sick, my headphones broke, I had to reinstall my operating system, and for a while I just didn't "scrobble" my plays. I'd also like to point out that I listened to Nether Regions and Witch Mountain 900% more than these portray - last.fm doesn't believe music exists until it physically exists. Also, Salvador was near the top of the song chart but their album doesn't come out until next year as far as I know.

That said, here are some lists! These run from about December 12th 2010 to today.

Top 10 Listened Artists
Black Cobra
Tool
Melvins
Kyuss
Monster Magnet
Marilyn Manson
Red Fang
Weedeater
Tomahawk
Tweak Bird

Top 10 Listened Albums
Black Cobra – Invernal
Black Cobra – Chronomega
Weedeater – Jason... The Dragon
Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
The Black Angels – Phosphene Dream
Nether Regions – Into The Breach
Red Fang – Murder the Mountains
Tweak Bird – Tweak Bird
Ill – Gotten Gains
Tool – Ænima

* that came out in 2011
Black Cobra – Invernal
Weedeater – Jason... The Dragon
Nether Regions – Into The Breach
Red Fang – Murder the Mountains
Ill – Gotten Gains
Parts & Labor – Constant Future
Graveyard – Hisingen Blues
Dark Castle – Surrender To All Life Beyond Form
YOB – ATMA
Wizard Smoke – The Speed of Smoke

Top 50 Listened Tracks (that came out in 2011)
Weedeater – Jason... the Dragon
Weedeater – Homecoming
Red Fang – Painted Parade
Black Cobra – Beyond
Black Cobra – Corossion Fields
Dark Castle – Seeing Through Time
Ill – A
Nether Regions – Outrun the Sun
Foo Fighters – Rope
Black Cobra – The Crimson Blade

Parts & Labor – Constant Future
Lo-Pan – El Dorado
Nether Regions – Spanish Werewolves
Red Fang – Number Thirteen
Ill – One Time
YOB – Adrift In The Ocean
Black Cobra – Avalanche
Lord Dying – In a Frightful State of Gnawed Dismemberment
Towers – Machine
Wight – Hammer Boogie

Grails – I Led Three Lives
Battles – Sweetie & Shag (feat.Kazu Makino)
Ill – There Are Worse Things Than Being Alone
Red Fang – Hank is Dead
Nether Regions – Blood Ritual
Ill – Castration
Weedeater – Turkey Warlock
Sandrider – Crysknife
Graveyard – Rss
Parts & Labor – Rest

Earthless – Demon Lady
Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
Wizard Smoke – Dead Wood
Premonition 13 – Hard To Say
Norska – They Mostly Come At Night
Weedeater – Mancoon
Castle – Total Betrayal
Ill – Bitch
YOB – Prepare The Ground
Black Cobra – Somnae Tenebrae

Towers – The Fields
Graveyard – Ain't Fit to Live Here
MEN – Boom Boom Boom
Krallice – The Clearing
HAWKS – royalty
Witch Mountain – Plastic Cage
Wight – Wight Weedy Wight
Foo Fighters – White Limo
Weedeater – Palms and Opium
Black Cobra – Obliteration

Big thanks to the bands who linked to and talked about my redundant top Oregon metal albums of 2011. My nearly flat-lined blog of late received quite a few hits. In some sense, that helps me, but I know it really helps those bands I mentioned that aren't quite so "known", in these parts or otherwise. I'm not proposing that I'm an authority on anything other than my own taste and experiences, but of those things I'm happy to share, and it's great to see others excited about decent local bands and heavy music, too. Thanks for being members of the larger musical community, guys.

Back to cold reality: I'm attempting to write a very long post about all of the albums I paid any attention to this year (including some of the Oregon ones). This is proving difficult, probably overly narcissistic, and I may have to scrap it for song talk instead. Either way, I'm going to end up with some horrifyingly dumb omissions. Stay tuned?

I didn't research this that strongly or spend that much time on it. I have a feeling I missed a really obvious band. But, fuck it. Here you go. All the links go to a place you can hear said album.
 

TOP ELEVEN OF OREGON METAL IS KINDA OKAY AND MY TASTE IS BIASED AND I PUT THAT BAND EXACTLY THERE JUST TO PISS YOU OFF AND I'LL PROBABLY REGRET THIS LIST IN JANUARY 2012 (part one)

Lord Dying - Lord Dying
Towers - The Fields
Witch Mountain - South of Salem
Red Fang - Murder The Mountains
YOB - Atma
Nether Regions - Into The Breach
Norska - Norska
Mongoloid Village - Folly
Rabbits - Lower Forms
Atriarch - Forever The End
White Orange - White Orange
 

SOME OTHER OREGON LOUD AND/OR HEAVY ALBUMS WORTH A SHOT

Danava - Hemisphere of Shadows
Eight Bells - Isosceles
The Ax - Fossils Of Our Kind
Axxicorn - War of the Giants
Sloths - Transit
Sloths - Demo
Toxic Holocaust - Conjure And Command
Grails - Deep Politics
Spellcaster - Under the Spell
Transient/Elitist split
Elitist - Fear in a Handful of Dust
Lamprey/Zmoke split