Top 11 Hard Rock Releases of 2009

Features • Friday November 27th, 2009 • 12:00 am

Hard rockers and metalheads are only slightly worse than indie kids when it comes to bemoaning the fact that everyone knows about their once-favorite band. But heavy music’s continued surge in popularity in 2009 has undeniably resulted in some of the nastiest auditory destruction we’ve ever been privileged enough to rattle windows with, from grizzled vets like Slayer and greenhorns alike.

The rules here are few: no re-releases, no cover albums, no live records, and absolutely nothing that doesn’t make you want to bang your head so hard you’ll wake up and want to go see a chiropractor. With that in mind, we give you the 2009’s 11 best ways to get evicted from your apartment and convince your neighbors that you worship Satan.

1. Alice In Chains, Black Gives Way To Blue
Let’s be honest: we had every right to expect Black Gives Way To Blue to be a failure of epic proportions. AIC hasn’t released anything since 1995’s self-titled effort, Layne Staley’s tragic death in 2002 still hasn’t scarred over, and to top it all off, new singer William Duvall looks like Macy Gray and Lenny Kravitz’s bastard lovechild with a Les Paul slung down around his knees.

Astonishingly, Black Gives Way To Blue threw a flannel-clad M80 into hard rock’s mailbox and not only thoroughly proved Duvall as a more than worthy successor to Staley’s dark legacy, but dished out an authoritative bitchslap to every post-grunge pretender that’s aped Alice’s sound since, well, day one. Your daddy is back, and their name is Alice In Chains. Respect.

2. Mastodon, Crack the Skye
If 2006’s Blood Mountain was supposed to make Mastodon’s virtually unclassifiable prog-stoner-sludge more palatable to Hot Topic kids, Crack the Skye flips everyone the bird with a mischievous grin and kicks the rudder squarely in the opposite direction. With seven colossal tracks combining for a titanic 50-minute runtime, Mastodon wisely ditched a coup for mainstream acceptance and threw down the gauntlet of prog in the vein of their forefathers from Genesis to Rush and even Neurosis. Instead of catering to the mainstream, they’ve gotten even more bizarre and smugly dared everyone else to catch up. True prog’s alive and kicking, and here’s a hint: Dream Theater ain’t exactly leading the charge anymore.

3. Converge, Axe To Fall
After the slightly underwhelming You Fail Me, Converge shot back with a vengeance (pun intended) with 2006’s No Heroes that was easily just as acerbic and vicious as 2000’s magnum opus Jane Doe. But where Axe To Fall earns it’s place on this list is because instead of trying to out-brutal themselves (and every other band that’s spawned from their caustic blend of extreme metal, noise, and crust punk), the name of the game on Axe To Fall is progression – while still laying waste to everything in site.

The fact that nearly every song on here boasts a guest spot from musicians ranging from Neurosis to Hatebreed to Genghis Tron to Cave In proves that Converge are far more sophisticated than their yet-unmatched blend of face-smashing auditory violence and poignant heartache has ever shown before, with their best guitar work to date, atmospheric dirge tracks that summon tormenting darkness and lovelorn regret like they’re on a leash, and a double helping of noise-laced chaos. Perfect for Converge n00bs and catalog-collectors alike. Even your grandmother needs to hear this record.

4. Megadeth, Endgame
As entertaining as it is watching Dave Mustaine flap his gums about virtually anything and firing enough band mates to make naming ‘em all a real metalhead’s drinking game, ‘Deth’s record output has been pretty consistently underwhelming ever since 1992’s Countdown to Extinction and the glory days of neck-snapping mosh anthems like “Peace Sells.” Throw in comebacks from thrash titans Metallica, Testament, and Death Angel over the last year or two that have ranged from eyebrow-raising to bone-crushingly excellent, and Mustaine’s playing his last hand all in. Get your black-tooth grins on, though, cause Endgame sees Mustaine holding a shred-laced royal flush virtually nobody saw coming that’s guaranteed to induce headbanging whiplash after about 10 seconds of the first track and not let up till Dave & Co fucking say so.

Newbie Chris Broderick and Mustaine trade electrifyingly carpal-tunnel-inducing shred like they were separated at birth, and the magically evil infectiousness that seemingly dried up around Countdown is back in spades on Endgame. There may be trendwhore thrash bands cropping up on every corner again, but Endgame takes Dave Mustaine from self-parody to living legend with every buzzsaw-guitar riff and Guitar Hero solo. We’ll wait another 15 years if that’s what it takes for another record this good, so get cracking.

5. He Is Legend, It Hates You
Ok, so it’s not I Am Hollywood, Vol. III, but who said He Is Legend cared what you think anyway? This band’s one of the only ones out there with the balls to make each record completely different from the one before it, and It Hates You is no exception. The band’s southern-fried ballsy groove is still more than intact, especially on tracks like “Party Time!” and the punk-o-rific “Everyone I Know Has Fangs”, but it’s the slower tunes like the brooding “Stranger Danger” and “China White III” where the band really drops your jaw to the floor, with Croom’s incredibly raw-yet-soulful vocals jerking tears just as often as they’re shredding his vocal chords. These guys going on a hiatus right after It Hates You was released is probably a bigger tragedy than global warming and the death of Michael Jackson combined.

6. Death Before Dishonor, Better Ways To Die
You straight-billed-ballcap kiddies rocking Hatebreed and Bury Your Dead hoodies likely don’t remember this, but back when hardcore was all about 7″ splits and circle pits and not bass drops and ninja mosh, the roots could be traced back to one god – and in punk we trust. Even though Death Before Dishonor’s been destroying their Boston home base with a furious hardcore punk assault a la Sick Of It All with a liberal smattering of Madball’s ball-crushing breakdowns and the occasional ripping solo for almost a decade now, this year’s Better Ways To Die brings the 100% USDA certified modern hardcore like only a bunch of scene vets can cook it up.

The secret ingredient? Fun. You read correctly. Fun. Even though DBD’s got more venomous hatred to spew than all the trendy whatever-core bands at Hot Topic combined (check out “Boys In Blue” or “Fuck This Year” for proof), darn near every scathing track on Better Ways To Die is guaranteed to send you home from the show with a bloody nose, broken ribs, and a big ol’ shiner, but you won’t be able to wipe the stupid grin off your face. Now grab a beer, your Chucks, and your best Black Flag shirt, and sing those gang vocals like you’ll die tomorrow.

7. Napalm Death, Time Waits For No Slave
Against any conceivable strain of logic, grind godfathers Napalm Death’s commitment to purely bludgeoning auditory chaos has yielded most excellently brutal dividends as the Birmingham lads get older, and nowhere is their resolve to crush any and all pretenders to the grind throne more viciously apparent than this year’s Time Yields For No Slave. Little more needs to be said. Greenway & Co are just as savage now as they were back when they literally invented the arguably most violent subgenre of metal, and the Napalm train still picking up speed is just as amazing as it is terrifying. Long live the code, boys.

8. Lamb of God, Wrath
Is there honestly a more consistent band in metal today than Lamb of God? Wrath picks up their redneck thrash-groove right where 2006’s Sacrament left off, and everything Lamb of God’s built their sonic signature on gets cranked to 11 with a demonic grin, as Randy Blythe spews even more pissed-off venom-laced hatred than we could’ve ever expected, guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler dish out even more sleaze and neck-snapping thrashy goodness, and rhythm section Chris Adler and John Campbell keep their Pantera-meets-Meshuggah slam glued together. Wrath is Lamb of God crashing through their own self-made glass ceiling with a big, spiked metal middle finger – again. For anyone who relegates these guys to “those dudes with that one song on Guitar Hero” category, you’re so SET TO FAIL. Ok, boo me for that one.

9. Pearl Jam, Backspacer
Ok, so calling Backspacer “hard rock” is a bit of a stretch, but only an FM-radio meathead would deny that Pearl Jam’s still got that mysterious “it” that’s produced monsters like Ten and the vastly underrated…well, all the rest of their discography. Soapbox aside, love ‘em or hate ‘em, Backspacer throws down yet another chapter of Pearl Jam reinventing themselves somewhere in between Vs., Riot Act, and 2006’s self-titled with downright addictive pop-laced tunes that beg to be cranked from a stack of Marshall 4×12’s. And if you’re one of those losers that keeps complaining about Vedder & Co selling out when they softened up, it’s high time you pull your head out of your kiester and learn to appreciate evolution already – or go back to your Creed collection.

10. Obscura, Cosmogenesis
When your band’s not only named after one of the most revered albums of the mighty Gorguts, but also boasts alumni from legends like Pestilence and Necrophagist, you’re pretty much guaranteed a solid slab of eardrum-raping tech-death, and Germany’s Obscura virtually exploded on to that elite scene with a record that’s anything but a protégé pretender to that blood-soaked throne. Cosmogenesis is a twisted tour de force of explosive carpal-tunnel-inducing technicality and unrelenting brutality, and unique touches like Thesseling’s 6-string fretless bass prowess and vocal nods to forefathers Cynic combine to make that magic alchemy of jaw-dropping technicality and unforgettable songwriting all look easy. Oh, and the scariest part? This is only their sophomore record.

11. Heaven & Hell, The Devil You Know
Geezer band reunions are dime a dozen these days, but even when three original members of Black Sabbath (hint: it’s the three that never got a reality show) team up with the most mighty midget in metal, who you might know by the name of Dio, few could have predicted how devastating this beast of a record would be. The Devil You Know culls every bit of doom-laden evil that vintage Dio-era Sabbath packed in spades like this is the record that should have come after Mob Rules with equal parts doom and balls-out power-chord destruciton, but it’s anything but a throwback – it’s more like a distortion-drenched flexing of the massive biceps from the undisputed clergy of metal as we know it. Hail.