Reflections at the end of 2013

First off, this is probably a better title than "Kristján's award show". I really struggled with a title, because I basically wanted to sum up a bunch of things I found interesting this year. I can't pretend that I'm able to do an all-encompassing review of the year, but I also didn't want to make this about me. I could've done a review of extreme music in 2013, but I can't even grasp just that limited range (in the whole context of things) of music. Also if I'd done that, a lot of interesting things would've had to be omitted from this thing. So this is basically my year in music, which is bound to be centered quite a lot around Iceland and extreme music. So just bear that in mind and feel free to complain about it. So in a sense, this is my way to sum up some things I found interesting, great, bad or boring this year, and pay my respects to some of the things I found excellent this year.

Comeback of the year
Modern Life is War

When a band comes back from a breakup nowadays, my reaction is usually "oh god". The most cringeworthy example of late being the TWO reunions of Black Flag. Unfortunately both sides of that coin were too stubborn to realise they were actually both embarrassing the memory of that great band. I realise I'm getting sanctimonious here but so be it.
The best example of a comeback this year is in my mind the return of Modern Life is War. This was not, as some comebacks, just a bunch of shows played, this was the band coming back for real. When a band comes back together and makes new material, you're usually a bit uncertain of how that might turn out, but this is not a band of the 80s coming back together 30 years later, blowing the dust off the instruments.
It's been five years since MLIW disbanded and they don't seem to have lost a step. The new album (Fever Hunting reviewed) is a solid effort and while there are some songs that aren't that great there are some in between that are candidates for song of the year in my opinion. There's a sense of seriousness as always, and some feeling of accountability and personal responsibility in what I've grasped of the lyrics so far, which is refreshing.


Honourable mention: Botnleðja. They only did some concerts (apart from the best of album) but they did release two new songs, which were both pretty good.
Editor's note: "Panikkast" is particularly good. No, great.


Nastiness of the year
The Psyke Project - Guillotine (reviewed)
I'm not sure whether I'm handing this one to the album as a whole, or just the opening title track. As I wrote in a review here, it is a superb display of something heavy, gritty, evil and nasty. The sheer heaviness of the opening track alone can crush your soul if correctly applied, I believe.


Album of the year
Cult of Luna - Vertikal (related story)
They've had great stuff before, I can admit that, but to me nothing really compares to this one. While I'm a huge fan of the band in general, I've never really been able to say I've gotten into whole albums as such, because to me their material varies A LOT in quality. On this one there is little to be critisized, overall a superb effort. It further explores electronic tendencies they've only hinted at before, while still delivering some of their most crushing stuff to date. It also notably (unlike the rest of their material in my mind) works great as a whole, and for once (in music in general I feel) we have a concept album that makes sense, isn't silly, and where music and lyrics and artwork combine to make one immense, solid structure. A picture of the modern city, with its callousness, alienation and disillusion with modern capitalism and society. To put it in simpler terms: This album fucking kills.



Songs of the year
Samaris - Sólhvörf II (listen)
Cult of Luna - The flow reversed (listen)
The Psyke Project - Guillotine (listen)
Modern Life is War - Blind are Breeding (listen)
Mammút - Salt (listen)
Grísalappalísa - Lóan er komin (listen)

Replay of the year
Samaris - Samaris
Quality album, but again, they're partially just releasing stuff we've heard before.


Newcomers of the year
Grísalappalísa

I've been of two minds so far. Either Grísalappalísa (debut album, Ali, reviewed) are sort of krauty, modern incarnation of Purrkur Pillnikk, except they are much more proficient at playing their instruments, or they might just be a thing totally of their own. I think I'm leaning towards the latter. And while Gunnar can really annoy me with his half sung half offkey speeches at times (see the beginning of an otherwise great song, "Allt má"), Baldur more than makes up for it by shouting out his often paranoid poems. Don't get me wrong, Gunnar is usually great and especially so when live (apparently their performance at this year's Airwaves was top notch, but alas I wasn't there), but his style annoys the hell out of me at times. Enough about the annoying though, there are far more things that are great than bad about this band. They seem to capture some atmosphere no other band is doing at the moment. And the fact they can reach the acclaim they did during Airwaves while spewing poems in our native Icelandic, is a testament to the musicianship of the band. A lot gets lost when you don't understand the lyrics, or shall we say, you get so much more for your money if you do. The fact some of the critics were drooling over them despite not understanding a word, shows the quality of the material, which is a great thing for them because if there was anything I was worried about on behalf of the band, it was that they'd get absolutely no international attention because of the heavy emphasis on Icelandic poetry. I think it's great that they started a band for exactly that though. All the Icelandic bands singing empty gibberish and getting away with it because it's in English (and at times, Icelandic) is frankly getting very tired. Lyrical ambition is not quite unheard of, but all too rare (and this is btw not a "damning review" of modern bands, this is not a new problem. This is not a "music used to be so much better!" exlamation, because it didn't). Overall this band is just really really refreshing. Can't wait to hear what they do next.


Goodbye of the year
People:
Jeff Hanneman, Chi Cheng, Lou Reed

Bands:

Celestine (remembered here and here), Sudden Weather Change.

This year we finally said goodbye to two bands that had all but called it quits. Celestine seemed to have slowly come to end in a process that probably started in 2010, and finally ended in the beginning of 2013 with their final show. It came as no surprise to anyone, as it had been known since the summer before that they'd have a final show during the winter. Some people's reaction was probably even something like "oh they only just disbanded now?" since my feeling was that in their minds, band members had quit the band probably in 2011. This was one of my absolute favorite bands in Icelandic extreme music, and one of my favorites overall for a long time, so it's sad to see them break up, especially when you have some feeling that they might've gone further than they did. But I mean, bands break up all the time and things don't always turn out like you think they will, for various reasons.
Celestine's final album reviewed.

Sudden Weather Change basically disbanded in 2012, just after releasing their best album by far, Sculpture, featuring the great songs "Weak Design" and "Proper Flavour", among others. It was an album that took them into darker directions than before, with a great result. While some of their earliest material sounded basically like Modest Mouse, their final effort ventured into a place totally their own. "Proper Flavour" for example sounds like Japanese post-rock band Mono playing some sort of indie rock, which comes out phenomenal. It was therefore terrible for a keen fan of their later material to see them disband. I was hoping they'd go further into this direction, I felt they had even more great territory to explore. They all but called it quits for whatever reason in 2012, but decided they wanted to end on a better note than the band slowly falling asleep and fading from the short memory of the modern mind, and held a final goodbye concert in November.

Also: some bands that according to Wikipedia broke up in 2013
Girls Aloud
Lostprophets
Sugababes
The Chariot
Gaza
Attack Attack! (crabcore pioneers)
Jonas Brothers
The Mars Volta
My Chemical Romance

Sorry but I can't say I will miss any of these.

Best concert in Iceland by a foreign-based band

Cult of Luna at Gaukurinn, September. It was 100 minutes in length, but dammit I could've taken more. That is, if they hadn't gone on stage at like 1 or 2 in the morning. They had just about one of the greatest performances I've seen, with the end of the 19 minute mammoth Vicarious Redemption being one of the highlights, but their late arrival on stage (not their fault, the schedule was packed with bands for some reason) meant that during the latter half of the set, everyone had either left, become too drunk, or like me, become too sleepy. I was definitely not going home, finally seeing the show of a lifetime by a band I'd followed for so long, but while at it, I had to fend off the sleep. Low marks for the person who arranged it all. Kudos for having them over, no doubt, but who do you think is in any shape to take it all in (and there is so much) at 3 or 4 in the morning, at a bar show?

"Please stop" of the year

Metallica. First off, if I didn't know what their personalities were like, I'd ask, even if they hadn't done what I'm about to mention, why on earth they're still going. But yeah they definitely get this one, for playing a Coke Zero sponsored show in Antarctica (what) and also making a joke of themselves performance-wise, whether at said gig or elsewhere. Definitely don't check out the PRO SHOT concert footage from the Antarctica on youtube.

Honourable mention: Slayer and the money fiasco around the Australian tour, leading Dave Lombardo to leave the band again. Thanks Kerry. That and Jeff dying all but makes this the trainwreck of the year, but amazingly Metallica can top that with their continual silliness.
Better use of their "Big Four in Thrash" fame: Megadeth and their Christmas album skit on Jimmy Kimmel. Good stuff. And finally, the best "realizing their time was then, not milking their fame and staying out of the spotlight": Anthrax. I willingly did NOT Google whether Anthrax are actually still doing stuff these days, but the fact I have no idea is frankly a good thing. Kudos guys. You're definitely the biggest of the four in my mind.

Predictable hype of the year
Deafheaven - Sunbather
You knew this was coming. Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty good album. Lots of good stuff on there, but the fact that an album like this would grab everyone's extreme music attention is so entirely predictable that it actually makes this the Funny of the year as well. And while this is a good album, there's just something about black metal and California that does not compute. The trve kvltist in me also didn't appreciate the black metal sections in a major key. Like one of my professors likes to say when perplexed about something: What's happening there? I'm not saying I want all my black metal to emit the sounds of the Norwegian forest, but come on, a major key? There's just something really off about that, and I'm not even a black metal guy.


Adaptation of the year
Kvelertak - Meir
These Norwegians decided to their 2013 album in the style of Canada's Fucked Up. It's really uncanny. And pretty odd since my sources tell me their previous albums sound nothing like this.

 - Kristján Friðbjörn

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