No. 10:

Band: Spiritbox
Album: Eternal Blue
Genre: Metalcore

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2017
Label: Rise Records

This much-lauded Canadian band's USP is super-talented front girl Courtney LaPlante (formerly of iwrestledabearonce). Perhaps the most anticipated, most hyped heavy album since Code Orange's Underneath and heralded by a series of singles and accompanying videos that either a) whetted the appetite or b) over-played the hand before the cards were dealt, this is a superior collection of songs that will have legs, ie a life well beyond 2021. Courtney owns it. She's not Barbra Streisand, she's not Pink. She's not Adele. But she is Spiritbox.

No. 9:

Band: Greta Van Fleet
Album: The Battle At Garden's Gate
Genre: Hard Rock/ Blues/ Folk

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2012
Label: Republic

Quite a few years ago, some mates and I were eulogising over Led Zep and ruminating as to which bands "today" could aspire to the epic soundscape, the sheer sonic SCALE of Zoso & Co. The answer we came up with at that time was The Raconteurs - play the Consolers Of The Lonely album LOUD and you might see what I mean. Greta Van Fleet have often been compared to Zep and/ or Rush and/ or many others but this year, IMHO, the Michigan boys have taken a step forward in their own shoes and, whether or not you agree they are the real deal, or anything like a true original, you must at the very least respect the sheer delight in the playing of it and the sheer joy in the singing of it. If nothing else, Greta Van Fleet inspire music fans to talk about classics from the past, music of the present, music of the future - with regular references to The Lord Of The Rings, obviously.

No. 8:

Band: Tremonti
Album: Marching In Time
Genre: Metalcore

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2012
Label: Napalm

Mark Tremonti has long delivered superior quality hard rock guitar/ voice/ songwriting, across Creed, Alter Bridge and his Tremonti records - he is a superlative shredder and aces all-round axe hero, with the considerable nous to always select and secure a team of musicians who are worthy of his playing chops. Marching In Time boasts the added frisson of a post-lockdown "concept", not least on the milestone title track, an inspirational love letter to family with a vision of the future, spiced up and loved up with a cathartic HOPE and DREAM that seep out of the cans/ speakers like vax to the max: "Don't ever forget/ This world's not claimed you yet/ And all you've come to be/ So, go in peace/ So am I/ I'm worn and I'm tired/ Take your life/ And go and thrive/ Don't let this cold world change you/ Don't ever go astray, and don't you/ Fail to keep on giving/ Don't ever lose your strength, no !"

No. 7:

Band: Bummer
Album: Dead Horse
Genre: Sludge/ Noise Rock

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2013
Label: Thrill Jockey

Back in the dark past, some time before Bummer, if I stirred a cooking pot and/ or tapped the wooden spoon on the side of it, or hammered a nail into the garden fence, I would hear in my head the music of Killing Joke. Now, I hear Bummer. The Kansas City sludge/ noise rock trio are masters of the riff-tastic, in-your-face, boot-on-the-throat, confrontational stuff. Their primary concern is the here and now, the struggle to survive day to day in the place you're in. Bummer covetously and violently harbour an oh so tangible frustration and righteous fury. Crank it up, play it LOUD LOUDER LOUDEST ELEVEN.

No. 6:

Band: Full Of Hell
Album: Garden Of Burning Apparitions
Genre: Grindcore

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2009
Label: Relapse

Full Of Hell - love it or loathe it? I defy you to do either and be SURE you're right. The US grindcore outfit have delivered 12 tracks that are over and done with in 21 minutes. Call that an album? Well, yeah. Experimental genius and/ or nonsense? Avant-garde or 'aving a laugh? It's nothing if not "extreme". There's a saxophone in there at one stage. Track four Derelict Satellite, one of the longest, is completely out there, off the scale. Burning Apparition churns as it burns. Industrial Messiah Complex rips the guts out of it. And so it goes. Closing track Celestial Hierarch is another classic of its kind.An album of total commitment, a true experience for the listener. Let's face it, we've all seen a garden of burning apparitions, somewhere, some time !

No. 5:

Band: Trivium
Album: In The Court Of The Dragon
Genre: Metalcore/ Thrash etc

General Information:

Year of Formation: 1999
Label: Roadrunner

A friend of mine, who knows what he means and is in a band, said of this album's title track: "I genuinely don't get it. I often find this kind of music similar to improvised jazz - it's a great platform to showcase technical ability, but without a hook, or the slightest swing, it's kinda like musical maths? But hey, if it gets your blood pumping, go with it!" Some of that is inherently negative but, to me, "improvised jazz", "great platform to showcase technical ability", "musical maths", "blood pumping" and "go with it!" are all turn-ons, not turn-offs. Trivium, I believe, took a massive songwriting step forward with the much-gnashed-over album Silence In The Snow (2015). The fans - and this Florida outfit have a large and super-loyal following - seem to have pretty much doubted and debated that. Since Silence, the band have gravitated "back on track" via The Sin And The Sentence, What The Dead Men Say and now this latest platform/ showcase for their technical ability, musical maths, blood pumping and, er, improvised jazz (sort of). Matt Heafy is a Metal God, sela.

No. 4:

Band: Khemmis
Album: Deceiver
Genre: Doom

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2012
Label: Nuclear Blast

Remember when life was easy, life was simple? Your turntable was spinning hot with Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, Sabbath and/ or Pavlov's Dog? Remember John (Apocalypse Now) Milius' Conan The Barbarian movie, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the music of Basil Poledouris? Colorado's Khemmis - remember the name, these guys will be huge. They plug me back into that classic/ mythic/ legendary/ Robert E Howard-y time while expertly and muscularly making it clear they can be in it for the long run. This humble Top 10 contains a number of heroic singing performances but Phil Pendergast's voice on this album may be the best of the lot - soulful, full of character, full of emotion.

No. 3:

Band: Dream Theater
Album: A View From The Top Of The World
Genre: Prog

General Information:

Year of Formation: 1985
Label: Inside Out

Dream Theater, a band of extraordinary musicians, were the last live act I saw before the first UK lockdown. Listening to previous album Distance Over Time and now A View From The Top Of The World, I'm reminded again why we all missed gigs so much. DT have their critics and have divided fans - some say it's never been the same since drummer Mike Portnoy exited (in truth, he's never been far away, and Flying Colors are special - as is Mike Mangini), some have never forgiven them for their dystopian sci-fi concept album The Astonishing (which I still say contains some astonishing stuff and was a genuinely impressive achievement if, ultimately, too "Disney-fied"). On the outstanding and beautifully engineered and produced A View ! peerless guitarist John Petrucci again inspires, delights and downright astounds. Also check out another 2021 album, Liquid Tension Experiment 3 - it's Petrucci, Portnoy (never far away), Tony Levin and Dream Theater keyboards maestro Jordan Rudess, and includes their version of Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, no less.

No. 2:

Band: Converge (and Chelsea Wolfe)
Album: Blood Moon: I
Genre: Hardcore (but so much more)

General Information:

Year of Formation: 1990
Label: Epitaph

OK, I admit it's getting ridiculous now - from Prog titans Dream Theater to Hardcore legends Converge in one "simple" step, somehow via Gershwin. It's not so easy, this Top 10 lark - try it for yourself! I confess I was a Converge doubter for quite a while. I didn't know my Kurt Ballou from my Cat Ballou, or even my Klute (Jane Fon-Doe?). But, once you get it, there's an emotional connection thing with Jacob Bannon & Co that is hard to put into words. Here they team up with Wolfe, not to mention Ben Chisholm and Stephen Brodsky, for a collaboration that's magically, majestically more than the sum of its already considerable parts. Kerrang! magazine said: "Elaborate, dense, varied and wild, Bloodmoon: Iis the sound of music pushing at the boundaries of ideas and execution," and I concede I cannot put it any better than that. We all need to find a way to work together in lockdown, "they" kept telling us. The music world revealed how it might play out - "supergroups" blossomed with a plethora of collaborative EPs or albums often written or recorded distantly and remotely. In such oppressively static times, many, many musicians reached out to each other - positively and persistently, some better than others, of course, but always, always creatively which, for Converge, is the name of the game.

No. 1:

Band: Mastodon
Album: Hushed And Grim
Genre: Prog/ Sludge etc

General Information:

Year of Formation: 2000
Label: Reprise

"I can see your face/ And I feel the pain/ And I feel the shame that I have let you down again ! Try to give up what weighs/ What weighs you down/ The only control you have/ Is all your own ! Leaving you behind/ Is the hardest thing I've done !"

Masterful Spaghetti Western director Sergio Leone was the subject of an inspirational biography, Something To Do With Death (the title is "a reference to one of the great lines from Once Upon A Time In The West", said the bio's author, Christopher Frayling). Mastodon's previous album, Emperor Of Sand (2017), had quite a bit to do with death. It was also a mindblowing, awesomely musical album. Hushed And Grim follows the passing of the Atlanta group's long-time manager Nick John, their all-round good buddy and so much more. I knew that going in, and I knew the downbeat title and, with all due respect, I thought ! is this REALLY the time for this, still in the grip of a pandemic? Something else to do with death, what now? Then someone reminded me - musicians, when they lose someone, they write and play music. It's what they do. From then on, I was hooked, especially when I realised Hushed And Grim is so much more than hushed and grim, and contains perhaps the most euphoric music about a difficult, delicate subject since The Band's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, or since Ennio Morricone conjured forth the orchestral, choral, guitar-twangin', hoo-ha hollering miracles to accompany those Leone Westerns. Hushed And Grim is my album of the year. The sheer scope and scale are impressive, the ambition and technical mastery courageous, the boys strong, ferocious yet emotionally vulnerable, the honesty and integrity ring oh so true, the producer is David Bottrill (Rush, Tool, Dream Theater), the drums Brann Dailor. 'Nuff said.