I haven't even bought 10 albums this year, so uh, here're all the albums I've purchased ranked:
1. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Fishing For Fishies (9/10) - Not perfect but fun, unique, and absolutely catchy. Has some of the most fun songs of the year with "Plastic Boogie" probably being my favorite. Just a really fun, good album all around.
2. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Infest The Rats' Nest (8/10) - The second Gizzard album of the year and it's completely different from the previous. While Fishing For Fishies was more of a boogie rock album, this one is almost full-on thrash metal. It's not quite as successful, a few of the songs kind of fade into the background and don't stand out as much as the others, but overall it's still really good.
3. Equipoise - Demiurgis (7/10) - A technical death metal album that falls prey to many of the problems with technical death metal: it's overlong and wouldn't lose much if a few songs were trimmed or cut entirely and some of the songs do tend to bleed into each other at times, especially on the backend. HOWEVER, there are a few really standout songs that just elevate the whole album, namely "Squall of Souls," "Dualis Flamel," and "A Suit of My Flesh." If you like Technical Death Metal, definitely check this out, the playing is fast, frenetic, and (unsurprisingly) deftly technical, the mix is good, and the songwriting is mostly good, with only a few unmemorable songs.
4. Dream Theater - Distance Over Time (7/10) - A good return to form with no bad songs but, conversely nothing that I think will stand out as a classic. Maybe "Pale Blue Dot?" I dunno, but I like every song on the album, some more than others, but none make me go "Oh shit!"
5. Devin Townsend - Empath (6/10) - An okay Devin album that's just too scattershot and lacking in cohesion. The main disc is okay, lots of good ideas and musical moments peppered throughout, but no single song is compelling to me. The demo disc is a bit better with more songs that stand on their own but it still has the same scattershot feel that the main disc has. Eh, it's okay overall.
6. Soen - Lotus (4/10) - Either Soen is just not for me or I just do not get the appeal. It's like room-temperature Tool for me and I'm not even a big Tool fan. Lotus is less Tool-like than Tellurian was, but it still has that some plodding undercurrent but without Tool's (better) songwriting. Nothing stands out and I never have a desire to return to this. Honestly, I often completely forget that this and Sunn O))) actually came out this year.
7. Sunn O))) - Life Metal (3/10) - I own one other Sunn O))) album and it's not bad, but this was just boring and completely unmemorable. This is probably just not for me, honestly.
Needs More Listens First
Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold - Initial impressions, nowhere near as good as No Cities To Love (which was one of the best albums of 2015), but an interesting new direction. I think the more electronic focus waters down the energy of the band a bit, but I can't say if it works well yet or not.
The Claypool Lennon Delirium - South Of Reality - Initial impression, good but a bit lightweight. Some good playing but I don't see this one sticking much at the end of the year. Hopefully, that will change as some of the songs have the potential to be very good.
Topic: Top 10 Albums of 2019 (Preliminary DTF Top 20 of 2019) (Read 20651 times)
