Metal Awards

Aleksie's Top 15 albums of 2007

  1. Symphony X - Paradise Lost
    One of the best bands in the world puts out the best album of their career. Scorching mixture of aggressive metal and proggy widdling. The top of a glorious year.
  2. Machine Head - The Blackening
    Yes, they dwarfed Burn My Eyes. Epic metal mayhem on a completely unexpected scale.
  3. Nile - Ithyphallic
    Bow down at the feet of the overlords of Pharao Metal and their latest epoch of awesomness!
  4. Turisas - The Varangian Way
    From a good debut album to a massively enjoyable, concept-driven slab of grandiose metal filled to the brim with the will to take up a sword and head for the seas as a ravenous warrior. Brilliant!
  5. Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet
    A band whose name often popped up from the background in prog circles metals up their sound considerably and pulverizes both my hair and thought patterns. Dazzling!
  6. Iced Earth - Framing Armageddon - Something Wicked Part 1
    Schaffer keeps it up and Ripper shines. The expansion of sound is suiting Iced Earth very well, can't wait for the drool-inducing Pt. 2 with Matt Barlow.
  7. CMX - Talvikuningas
    One of the most successful Finnish rock bands with a cult-like following, CMX have gone from hardcore punk to proggy hardcore, to hard radio rock, to industrial rock, to full-tilt progressive rock-dabbling, to a mixture of all of the mentioned styles, to end up here with their latest: A 62-minute epic space rock concept record - consisting of one song, which is divided into 12 sub-sections - that tells us the saga of the Winterking - a story full of confusing technical terminology, time-travel, intergalactic battles in space and the lamentations of the soldiers caught in the middle of all of it. Mindblowingly awesome from a band who we Finnish rock fans have grown to expect a lot from no matter what styles they've done.
  8. Waltari - Release Date
    Psychedelic, progressive speed metaling madness from Finland's finest "freak out-ers".
  9. Amorphis - Silent Waters
    Proving that Eclipse was no fluke, Amorphis continues their rise to folky, dark, death dominance.
  10. The Flower Kings - The Sum Of No Evil
    The Swedish prog veterans come out with a wonderfully pop-drenched yet intricately progressive batch of rock that can reach almost half an hour on one song, a little under five on the next, making both types equally catchy and enjoyable.
  11. Moonsorrow - V: Havitetty
    Unparalelled in atmosphere by anything released this year, Moonsorrow just keeps getting better and better.
  12. Arch Enemy - Rise Of The Tyrant
    Blistering riffage galore with the finest air guitar album of the year - it ain't reinventing anything but it is just so good - the best Arch Enemy have put out yet.
  13. Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos
    Gimme that noodling, boys! Just keep it as catchy and/or heavy as this and I'm lapping it up!
  14. Helloween - Gambling With The Devil
    Moshtastic Pumpkin-action FTW!
  15. Nightwish - Dark Passion Play
    A brilliant album full of epic movie-score induced metal after a very harsh period. The band survived without a scratch, and on stage, they have never been better. When cosidering the total package, the singer change was the best thing that could have happened to Nightwish.
Aleksie's Top 5 surprises of 2007

  1. De Lirium's Order - Diagnosis
    Magnificent technical death metal from a band I'd never heard of before this monster.
  2. Megadeth - United Abominations
    Mustaine still has it - I wonder how it is that the presidential terms of war-mongering republican leaders in America have always brought out the best in Dave's pencil and guitar - especially the second terms, think Reagan '84-'88=Peace Sells and Bush jr. '04-'08=United Abominations. Excellent thrashy yumness.
  3. Discard - Carrion
    Another Finnish band catching me completely off guard with molten, aggressive metal.
  4. Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli
    Holy mother, a Demon Burger-album I'm actually enjoying. Can it be the catchy melodies, the perversely appealing operetta vocals, or the fact that I'm a concept-album -addict? Naaah, I'll blame it all on the fact that Blomberg is on drums. The man can do no wrong and makes every album he's on more enjoyable for me.
  5. Machine Men - Circus Of Fools
    The Finnish melodic metal guard finally lives up to its potential with great blasts of fury.
Aleksie's Disappointment(s) of 2007

  1. Ozzy Osbourne - Black Rain
    I was hoping so hard that Down To Earth was mediocre because of the outside songwriters - just let Ozzy into a room with a pen, paper and Zakk Wylde, and everything will be magic once more. Oh well, I guess there was still one more extra songwriter/producer/whatever...
  2. Exodus - The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A
    Tempo was amazing, Shovel-Headed was great with the throat-grabbing groove, but apart from a few songs, Exhibit A just didn't get into my head like Exodus should.
  3. Primal Fear - New Religion
    Ralf basically saves the day from total disaster. Is it too lean overall? Can't say really, because I dig some really soft music given the right time, but this disc just didn't hit it.
  4. Annihilator - Metal
    Not a bad album by any means, some killer tunes abound, but Jeff Waters can simply do so much better. I know it, I've heard it and still believe it...
Aleksie's Joke(s) 2007
  1. As shocking as it is, I encountered nothing that could be classified a joke all year. I guess I really should crawl out from under my Nordic boulder and take a look around.
Aleksie's words about 2007
  1. 2007 was a most excellent year for metal. Looking at my "best of" I can only conclude that my lust for proggy nerdiness only intensified from previous years and the adolescent power-love has given some way to much harsher classes of metallic expression. Still, I found very much to enjoy all year from the most melodic epics to the most grinding quickies. 2008 doesn't seem to be letting the pace go with a swarm of new releases headed right at us with full speed - for me, the most lip-smacking anticipation is produced by the new Ayreon, Stam1na and ICED EARTH WITH MATT BARLOW! Now if only Nevermore could get the gears rolling (at least with the ever-so-torturous-to-wait-DVD) or Warrel Dane finalizes his solo record, my singer-lover orgasms would propel me to the next decade. Metal on, comrads - in every way, shape and form possible! -Aleksi-