Music That I Happened To Listen To In 2015: The Review

Thought I'd forget all about this, didn't ya?

As per my usual usual tradition of ringing in the New Year, I will share and review some of the highlights of my musical exploration over the past twelve months. 2015 itself saw one of the largest shifts in not only my taste in tunes, but the size of my collection which went through a radical decrease halfway through the year. I'll explain in more detail in the summaries below. For now, please enjoy what I found to be pleasant since last December. Cheers, and Happy New Years.

(P.S. Not all of the following albums are from the last year, nor are they in chronological order,
so I'm not going to bother with release dates.)

Frost* - Milliontown

If it wasn't clear in previous posts, I went through a significant binge in progressive rock and metal in the last year-and-a-half or more. As mind-expanding as that journey was, it ultimately took a serious toll on my music taste in general, leading me to remove an entire swathe of artists I deemed unworthy from my collection one-by-one. In frustration, I turned on the genre
I had just fallen for, and slowly added a handful of the bands I deleted back to my usual rotation. Only a few of those newer acts survived the culling, and Frost* was one of them.

Tantalizingly sweet yet dishearteningly short, "Milliontown" was released almost full decade before the time that I finally uncovered it, and it was an instant classic to me. As powerful as it is for such a succinct statement, it's even more disappointing that there never was a true follow-up to the album before the band finally called it a day.
A hidden gem if there ever was one.

Devin Townsend - The Retinal Circus

I've covered Devy multiple times before, but what truly sold me on his mad genius was this live performance released in 2013. After my first watch, it immediately became my favorite live show of all time, though I've admittedly only seen a handful in my lifetime. Regardless, I have since made sure to collect almost every work he's released under his various project titles. This clip happens to be one of the highlights of the show for me.

Threshold - Subsurface

This was the other band that I saved from the purge this last year. They had just enough edge to keep me interested beyond the first few listens, and enough experimentation to wash out the stale taste of older and simpler thrash bands.
I haven't dived headlong into their full discography just yet, but I'm sure I'll get there some day.

Eluveitie - Origins

I also branched out into folk and pagan metal at some point in my search for fresh, new jams, but I ended up walking away with just Eluveitie, a somewhat-softer entry in the genre hailing from Switzerland. Closely resembling both the melodic-death-metal of Sweden and female-fronted symphonic bands of Finland, Eluveitie dares to break ranks with their more pure brethren in favor of a style that's ultimately more digestible than drunken chanting or Satanic screeching. There's enough straightforward riffs and rough vocals as well as catchy sing-alongs for guys and gals who appreciate one or the other, or both. It's hard not to imagine being transported back to the Swiss Alps when playing their tracks on full blast,
as they deserve to be.

 Cancer Bats - Searching For Zero

I added Cancer Bats and other similar acts to my library out of the desire to satisfy my hunger for modern hardcore punk.
I'll admit, I haven't given their latest release much of a listen since I've acquired,
but the band as a whole makes for great shuffle-filler anyway.

 Mindless Self Indulgence - Pink

MSI is back again this year, following their shockingly satisfying "How I Learned to Stop Giving a Shit and Love Mindless Self Indulgence" with a compilation of early-era hidden tracks. No Kickstarter campaign this time around; merely a re-polish of songs recorded back when frontman Jimmy Urine was doing his absolute best Trent Reznor impersonation in the early 90s. I welcomed it warmly, as the self-titled album that it primarily revisits was already one of my favorite obscure releases of theirs. Here's to a new album of original material or even another Left Rights,
and hopefully without having to wait too long for it.

 Trocadero - Red vs. Blue: Season 12 & 13 Soundtracks

At least these guys have kept themselves busy. As the Chorus trilogy of Red vs. Blue wrapped, Trocadero released their contributions to the machinima's soundscape, mostly in the form of guitar-tinged ambiance. While there are remixes of older classics from the first official soundtrack, the one major addition would be the haunting and somber "Contact," available in handful of different versions. Worth the purchase of the entire albums, if nothing else.

 Black Breath - Slaves Beyond Death

Like the Cancer Bats, I just wanted to add some bitterness to my palate, without necessarily exploring the material too deeply. I did adore their first few albums, however, whereas the former band is a recent procurement. If harsh and black-metal-inspired hardcore is what you're craving, then you can expect Black Breath to deliver more of the same, at least.

 Kylesa - Exhausting Fire

One of the few, select bands that I've seen live, recently and in a smaller venue than most. These Savannah natives apparently visit my neck of the woods on more than one occasion, and they were definitely one of the better and more personal live experiences I've had. I certainly had more fun than I would at a fully-loaded amphitheater while being
sonically-pummeled by a poorly-adjusted PA system. Like others on this list, I'll have to do my part and give the a album a proper run-through, as I have their earlier material.

 Dog Fashion Disco - Ad Nauseum

Surprisingly, this band is back with another full album a mere year after their previous submission. Thankfully, I appreciated this one more than I did the other. It gives me hope that their recent reunion will mean a broader catalog replenished with songs comparable to their golden age. It gets my foot stepping to the beat, in any case.

Carcass - Surgical Steel

Another band they crawled out of its grave in recent years, I've seen this album placed in many reviewers top-ten lists at the time that it was released. It's undeniably a return to the form that won them so many loyal fans in the first place, while not denying the more mainstream sensibilities they adapted before their untimely demise. One of the few "melodic" death metal bands I can stomach, though with a little more credibility than their pop-oriented peers.

Soilwork - The Ride Majestic

Soilwork is the band I fall in and out of love with time-and-time again, but this time I think they're here to stay. It's also hard to think of any of their newer recordings that didn't at least have a few worth-while tracks, unlike others in their genre who jumped the proverbial shark a long time ago, according to hardcore fans. "The Ride Majestic" is as decent as any other album of theirs that I've commented on before.

Ideamen - Schemata

This is my new favorite discovery among those that I've added to my now-meager collection. Ideamen is the perfect blend of Faith No More, Incubus, and Twelve Foot Ninja for fans of either of those bands, without really sounding anything like them. How I went for so long without at least stumbling across them is a mystery, but I'm too busy jamming to their tunes to care. Hopefully they don't break up or go on an indefinite hiatus, as other aforementioned darlings have before them.

Parov Stelar - The Demon Diaries

I had actually listened to Parov Stelar before, and I'm familiar with the seemingly-waning trend of "electro-swing" from the last half-decade. It just seemed too much like music that steampunk losers would enjoy, so I left it behind in the pile of royalty-free jazz samples that it came from. I jumped back into it when I shed my fear of being judged for my music taste, and discovered to little surprise that the stalwarts of the genre had also given up on the tired trappings of the style, opting to return to their dance-club roots instead. And I, for one, gladly welcome it.

Caravan Palace - Robot Face

The cartoonier of the two nu-jazz heavyweights, Caravan Palace have also eased back on strictly sampling old swing recordings, to apparently no protest from their longtime fans. But yet again, they've complimented their composition with another fully-animated music video, far naughtier and more violent than the others so far. Not that I'm complaining;
I get to bob my head and admire the meticulously hand-drawn bloodshed and pole-dancing.

Baroness - Purple

This is the last time that I'll confess to not fully listening to an entry on this list, but in my defense, it literally just came out. And if anything, it's astounding to everyone that it came out at all, considering the tragic accident that struck the band shortly after the last album's release. But at least half the members refused to admit defeat in the face of long-lasting pain and costly self-repair, and instead endeavored to record a new album in spite of that anguish,
and for the sake of healing from it.

From what I've heard so far, it's neither a return to the trademark sound of the Red Album or Blue Record, nor a sequel to the more delicate Yellow & Green, which I would have personally whittled down to a brief EP of its stronger songs. Meeting them somewhere in the middle, I'm certain I'll love it just as much as I have the others, even though it represents a new and uncertain era of the band's turbulent history.

See you all next year when El-Creepo, Twelve Foot Ninja, and many others all plan to have new albums out. My retrospectives on films from 2015 will be out soon. Peace!