Top 20 of 2010: 16 - 20

Finishing up my Top 20 of 2010 (besides the honorable mentions of course) almost brings a tear to my eye. It's been a year full of ups and downs - both personal and within the musical soundscape. The year was rocked by the monumental deaths of Ronnie James Dio (Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Solo, Heaven & Hell) and Peter Steele (Carnivore, Type O Negative), and I'm sure others. But we move on, being stronger and more metal with each passing day.

16. sHEAVY - Disfigurine
One of my favorite bands, and another act to release two albums within one year, sHEAVY continues to do the seemingly impossible: consistently evolve their sound, and yet stay the same. Eight albums in, and I can still hear the basic influences of Black Sabbath and Kyuss that was present on the first record. Disfigurine keeps up the tradition of a sHEAVY album every two or three years, except that this time, it was predated by the sonically different The Golden Age of Daredevils, which was released in May of this year. You see The Golden Age of Daredevils was given birth through the group competing in the RPM Challenge, held every February, which holds that musicians of all genres complete a full album (10 songs or 30 minutes) within the month. There are lots of applicants, and one of the bands I like quite a bit, Snailface, is directly from this challenge. Anyway, so sHEAVY joined the challenge, recorded The Golden Age of Daredevils and decided to release it (why not, seeing as you've already recorded it). The album from the RPM Challenge was a bit different then previous LPs from the group so I was a tad worried about their future, but all my worries were cast aside after I heard Disfigurine. The group picked up a new guitarist, so the sound has evolved a bit, this album being more straight-forward stoner rock, then their very doomy predecessors, but it's still all good. It's just the beginning of a new chapter for the band. While Disfigurine is not their best release, how could I compile a list of the best albums of the year without including these amazing rockers?

New Band: Titan

Also seen on Heavy Planet:

Titan was not what I was expecting. Mostly, it was because from the masses of nameless and un-listened bands i have in my collection, they had fallen by the wayside. When I actually decided to listen to their newest album, I was expecting some more akin to the psychedelia-tinged stoner rock that I have been listening to recently. Boy was I wrong.
While the group is somewhere in the psychedelic stoner rock universe, they are at a distant end of it, perhaps somewhere between dimensions (to keep this nerdy comparison going). You see, on Sweet Dreams (their second release, I'm going to have to listen to their first now), Titan is downright progressive metal, and 90% instrumental, and it's awesome. In my review of Cloudkicker (and maybe in other places) I stated that I'm not a huge instrumental rock/metal fan due to the repetitiveness and general boredom associated with it. Titan only barely has this problem, and even then only in the last song, "Maximum Soberdrive," and I believe that is only because the song is over eleven minutes long; if it was trimmed a bit it could be another amazing song. The rest of the instrumental tracks are superb, leading to the only other lesser track being the only one with vocals, "Wooded Altar Beyond The Wander," an unusual surprise.