2017 managed to be even more exhausting and painful than 2016, for the most part. I hate to sound so negative (despite writing for a metal blog), but it is the truth. Thankfully we had so much good music to help save us from extinction. While we lost many more great artists this year to the great beyond, this list alone is a reminder that a lot of kick ass bands are just hitting their stride. Rock n’ roll is in safe hands as long as acts like these take the time to remain so invested in their art. Yes, even Gwar (hahaha).
While in the past we have often had lengthy descriptions for each album that made our rather amorphic year end lists, this year (album of the year excluded), we listed the artist name and the album cover. It is less about being lazy than encouraging you to discover some of this music for yourself. Live in it a little or discover something new without preconceptions other than the recommendation (though let’s get real, if you are reading Metal Riot you prob stay attuned to the goings ons of many an obscure or well known band anyhow). But yeah, we wrote about it all year long, after all…let’s experience it together. Smack the tambourine together and slit our wrists and twist and shout and all that crap.
Suffice to say, it is awesome to see a wide variety of sub genres, related branches and different types of people represented. We hope you feel the same. You BETTER feel the same when it comes to the awesomeness of having several antifascist black metal bands on our list. And anybody who wants to complain about Limp Wrist beating out some more “metal” acts hasn’t heard how intense, timely and passionate Facades is.
From Life Of Agony‘s explosive comeback supporting Mina Caputo to Woe‘s scorching “No Blood Has Honor” (and the album that houses it) to the hits you in the gut critically acclaimed Zeal and Ardor record to Bell Witch‘s engulfing latest opus to Kreator breaking the sound barrier to Wage War even proving there is still some life in Metalcore, you’ll find quite a lot to digest here and revisit or look up if you already haven’t heard or purchased these babies.
Thanks to all our staff writers who participated. June, Tyrus, Andrew , Jessica and… myselves.
Anyway, there will be some random posts here and there before the end of 2017 on Metal Riot, but I am scaling back the next few weeks to deal with some very important family stuff, start the next stage of my transition mindfully, brace for the holidays and to both help assist with the next Globelamp album AND work on an EP I am doing as Walking Bombs in collaboration with the noise project Gridfailure. Thanks for everyone who gives a shit! I’m extra stoked on a lot of the records this year as well as the piece we got to run on the Warzone NYHC tribute.
Terviseks
Read the METAL RIOT BEST OF LIST 2017 BELOW.
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