The Bad Penny (beta)

With a handful of this year’s best metal releases dropping Tuesday, the timing feels apt for the Bad Penny to round up its favorite 2010 LPs – at least so far.

Below are the top 25, ranked in descending order of righteousness. Think some of these aren’t worthy? Notice one or more glaring omissions? Drop a comment.

1. Artist: Black Anvil
Album: Triumverate
Label: Relapse
Release date: September 28
Bad Penny’s two cents: They’ll soon be touring with fellow blackened-death-metallers Goatwhore – and might manage to upstage them. Black Anvil have even more melody, and their songs are even more infectious.

2. Artist: Shining
Album: Blackjazz
Label: Indie Recordings/ The End
Release date: January 25
Bad Penny’s two cents: album review
Asset:
• Bad Penny download: “Fisheye (Edit)”

3. Artist: Priestess
Album: Prior to the Fire
Label: Tee Pee
Release date: February 2 (U.S. release; came out in Canada late last year)
Bad Penny’s two cents: Somehow, Priestess managed to improve upon the masterstroke that was 2006’s Hello Master. Their second record is Exhibit B in making the case that this is one of metal’s best bands of the past five years.
Assets:
• Stereogum download: “Trapped in Space & Time”
• Brooklyn Vegan download: “Raccoon Eyes”
• Spin.com download: “Ladykiller”

4. Artist: Black Breath
Album: Heavy Breathing
Label: Southern Lord
Release date: March 30
Bad Penny’s two cents: Believe the hype. Rarely is hardcore-informed metal this tight.

5. Artist: Sweet Cobra
Album: Mercy
Label: Black Market Activities
Release date: September 28
Bad Penny’s two cents: Not to be confused with Southern Lord’s sludgy Black Cobra, these guys sound more like Torche at their best.

6. Artist: King of Asgard
Album: Fi’mbulvintr
Label: Metal Blade
Release date: August 17
Bad Penny’s two cents: These Amon Amarth apprentices sound almost as good their masters did when they were in their prime.

7. Artist: Hail of Bullets
Album: On Divine Winds
Label: Metal Blade
Release date: October 12
Bad Penny’s two cents: As fierce as a hailstorm … made of bullets.

8. Artist: Black Tusk
Album: Taste the Sin
Label: Relapse
Release date: May 25
Bad Penny’s two cents: What, is Savannah, Georgia, too small for more than one exceptional sludge band? Either way, these guys are getting criminally overshadowed by their hometown peers Baroness.

9. Artist: Unearthly Trance
Album: V
Label: Relapse
Release date: September 28
Bad Penny’s two cents: If you haven’t lost your mind yet, listening to this skin-peeling doom record should do the trick.

10. Artist: High on Fire
Album: Snakes for the Divine
Label: E1
Release date: February 23
Bad Penny’s two cents: “Frost Hammer” is arguably High on Fire’s strongest single to date. And could it be that all their songs finally don’t sound the same?
Asset:
• Brooklyn Vegan download: “Frost Hammer”

11. Artist: Chambers
Album: Old Love
Label: self-released
Release date: June 22
Bad Penny’s two cents: album review

12. Artist: East of the Wall
Album: Ressentiment
Label: Translation Loss
Release date: July 20
Bad Penny’s two cents: Just about as fresh and adventurous as the first Yakuza and Burst records.

13. Artist: As I Lay Dying
Album: The Powerless Rise
Label: Metal Blade
Release date: May 11
Bad Penny’s two cents: Not as strong as An Ocean Between Us, but even when AILD don’t bring their A game, they’re still one of the best metal bands with mainstream appeal.

14. Artist: The Secret
Album: Solve et Coagula
Label: Southern Lord
Release date: September 28
Bad Penny’s two cents: At just under 35 minutes, this crushing record by the Italian band is more jolting than a bottle of Full Throttle.

15. Artist: Melvins
Album: The Bride Screamed Murder
Label: Ipecac
Release date: June 1
Bad Penny’s two cents: Nothing is certain but death, taxes – and Melvins.

16. Artist: Meshuggah
Album: Alive (CD/DVD concert set)
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release date: February 9
Bad Penny’s two cents: We’ve come to take Meshuggah for granted – but this live treasure is a reminder that we shouldn’t.

17. Artist: Barn Burner
Album: Bangers
Label: Metal Blade
Release date: February 16
Bad Penny’s two cents: album review

18. Artist: Aeternam
Album: Disciples of the Unseen
Label: Metal Blade
Release date: February 16
Bad Penny’s two cents: album review

19. Artist: Withered
Album: Dualitas
Label: Prosthetic
Release date: October 26
Bad Penny’s two cents: The perfect soundtrack to killing your neighbor’s cat.
Asset:
• Adult Swim download: “Extinguished With the Misery”

20. Artist: Down
Album: Diary of a Mad Band (two-CD/DVD concert set)
Label: Down
Release date: October 5
Bad Penny’s two cents: There won’t be any need for a best-of-Down record after this pitch-perfect live document. And Phil Anselmo, as always, is banter-riffic.
Asset:
• Crave Online download: “Stone the Crow”

21. Artist: Orphaned Land
Album: The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Label: Century Media
Release date: February 9
Bad Penny’s two cents: The Israeli band’s spiritual, socially conscious record could be the boldest metal album of the year.
Bad Penny interview: “Faith in Metal: Orphaned Land Push for Peace in the Middle East”

22. Artist: Lamb of God
Album: Hourglass
Label: Epic
Release date: June 1
Bad Penny’s two cents: The demos are of negligible quality and for collectors only, but the golden “Another Nail for Your Coffin” and “Condemn the Hive” – previously available in Japan only – earn the anthology a place on this list.

23. Artist: Howl
Album: Full of Hell
Label: Relapse
Release date: May 11
Bad Penny’s two cents: A relentless flogging, this record will send fainthearted metal fans scrambling for their ear plugs. Very hard to believe Full of Hell is the Providence band’s first full-length.

24. Artist: The Ocean
Album: Heliocentric
Label: Metal Blade
Release date: April 13
Bad Penny’s two cents: The iconoclastic band is undertaking a two-album concept effort this year, and the results sound as ambitious as the task itself.

25. Artist: Powerglove
Album: Saturday Morning Apocalypse
Label: E1
Release date: September 28
Bad Penny’s two cents: The guiltiest of guilty pleasures, but only the coldhearted can deny Powerglove’s speed-metal rendition of the themes to “Batman,” “The Simpsons” and other toons.

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Go here for the Bad Penny new music releases schedule.

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More metal:

• Extreme-Metal Word Search
• An Extremely Long Conversation About Extreme Metal With Albert Mudrain
• Death-Metal-Parody Proposals For ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic
• 3 Inches Of Blood’s Cam Pipes Geeks Out On Tolkien, ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
• Mastodon’s Brent Hinds And Actor J.C. Quinn: Doppelgängers
• Isis’ Aaron Turner In ’02: Oceanic Is ‘The Best Material We’ve Ever Written’
• Isis’ Oceanic: Mystery Revealed?
• In Flames Album Discography: Drummer Touches ‘Em All
• What, Dark Tranquillity Not Worthy? An Open Letter To L.A. Metalheads
• Wordle’d: At The Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity Albums
• Apocalyptica’s 7th Symphony: Two Cent Review
• White Wizzard’s Over The Top: Two Cent Review
• Best Metal Albums Of 2007

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More lists:

• Bad Penny MP3s: Best Of 2010, Part III – Superchunk, Lovers, Robert Pollard, Women, More
• Bad Penny MP3s: Best Of 2010, Part II – Trans Am, Damien Jurado, Masakari, Versus, More
• Bad Penny MP3s: Best Of 2010, Part I – Quasi, Xiu Xiu, Harlem, Album Leaf, More
• Top 10 Reasons Why Stone Temple Pilots Suck Even More Now Than Before
• Best Albums Of The 2000s
• Best Albums Of 2009
• Best Albums Of 2008
• Best Albums Of 2007
• Best Albums Of 2006
• Best Albums Of 2005
• Best Albums Of 2003
• Best Albums Of 2002
• Best Albums Of 2000
• Best Albums Of 1909

This entry was posted on 09/25/2010 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags Aeternam, As I Lay Dying, Barn Burner, Black Anvil, Black Breath, Black Tusk, Chambers, Down, East of the Wall, Hail of Bullets, High on Fire, Howl, King of Asgard, Lamb of God, Melvins, Meshuggah, Orphaned Land, Powerglove, Priestess, Shining, Sweet Cobra, The Ocean, the Secret, Unearthly Trance, Withered. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.