Flush It Friday: Top Top Albums of 2K21
It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to Flush those lists!
Over the course of one week, Toilet ov Hell hosted something like 23 official and unofficial year-end lists, covering well over 160 albums (and good sounds [and fake pirate metal albums.]) If an album was only so good as to find its way onto one list, you can just forget about it. You won’t see it mentioned here. Each one of them sickens me, especially the ones I selected. You should’ve worked harder, wonderful albums!
What albums do merit a brief mention are those that received the beautiful double dip—those albums twice doused in the cleansing flushes of the Toilet. In alphabetical order by band name, they are:
Amenra – De Doorn (Theophrastus Bombastus & Eenzaamheid)
Black Hole Deity – Lair of Xenolich (Hans & Beavis Christ)
Body Void – Bury Me Beneath this Rotting Earth (Lord of Bork & Eenzaamheid)
Boss Keloid – Family the Smiling Thrush (Yours Truly & A Spooky Mansion)
Craven Idol – Forked Tongues (A Spooky Mansion & Lacertilian)
Darkthrone – Eternal Hails… (A Spooky Mansion & Lord of Bork)
Every Time I Die – Radical (Me! & Joaquin Stick)
First Fragment – Gloire Éternelle (Dapatcho & Spear)
Kanonenfieber – Menschenmühle (A Spooky Mansion & Eenzaamheid)
Lingua Ignota – SINNER GET READY (Iron Goddess of Mercy & Ben Serna-Grey)
MØL – Diorama (Joaquin Stick & Joe Thrashnkill)
Mystras – Empires Vanquished and Dismantled (Megachiles & Lacertilian)
Putrescine – The Fading Flame (Sepulcrustacean & Beavis Christ)
Richard Dawson & Circle – Henki (Megachiles & Joe Trashnkill)
Rivers of Nihil – The Work (Dapatcho & Spear)
Serpent Column – Katartisis (Beavis Christ & Joe Thrashnkill)
Steel Bearing Hand – Slay in Hell (Joe Thrashnkill & Spear)
Sunless – Ylem (Nordling Rites ov Karhu & Lacertilian)
Unto Others – Strength (Megachiles & Dapatcho)
You could so easily construct a Top Ten at random out of just this list of 19 albums and be respected—nay, revered—for your impeccable taste. There’s not a combination of those albums that doesn’t make you look like some sort of music reviewing superhero. Congratulations to all the albums lucky enough to be twice kissed by the Toilet this year!
So, finally, after nearly two dozen lists, lists within lists, lists about lists, we come to the List of Lists: Toilet ov Hell’s Top Ten Nine Albums of 2K21. These are the albums that appeared with the most frequency across ToH’s Top Ten Lists. There is no extra arithmetic that takes into consideration rankings, as most contributors left their lists explicitly unranked, so any attempt of mine to impose any further order or hierarchy onto these albums would be arbitrary and unnecessary. Hierarchies are whack, anyways! Let us rejoice in these albums, for they are good. Let us rejoice in those who selected them, for they are also good. Let us rejoice in each other, for we are all good.
Flame, Dear Flame – Aegis (Three Votes)
Eisenwald | Beavis Christ, Spear, Rolderathis
A beautiful doom album with heartbreaking vocals, touching melodies, folk flourishes, and just enough riffing. A wonderfully deserving record that could, like a few of these albums, grow on listeners who just need a little more time with it. Top tier artwork, too.
Atræ Bilis – Apexapien (Three Votes)
20 Buck Spin | Iron Goddess of Mercy, Beavis Christ, Rolderathis
How gratifying. This album almost got deemed a let-down after last year’s stunning debut Divinhility, but we all came to our senses and rated it properly. The only thing left to do is argue over which track goes the absolute hardest.
Dream Unending – Tides Turn Eternal (Three Votes)
20 Buck Spin | Megachiles, Theophrastus Bombastus, Beavis Christ
What’s left to be said about this classic-in-the-making from two titans of the contemporary death metal scene? Though some people may have found this album slightly boring, there’s no denying that (most of) the metal world has all but crumbled under its sprawling majesty.
Mare Cognitum – Solar Paroxysm (Three Votes)
Extraconscious Records | Megachiles, Joaquin Stick, Nordling Rites ov Karhu
To follow up 2020’s Wanderers with such an accomplished, rich, and rewarding album is truly a remarkable feat. Something tells me that this album will continue to grow on everyone, and, in 2022, many of us will regret omitting from our own lists.
Grey Aura – Zwart Vierkant (Three Votes)
Onism Productions | Theophrastus Bombastus, Goatforest, Darth WTF
“El Greco in Toledo” is the best track on this, right? Are we all in agreement over that? Abstract black metal pushed to its visionary extreme, this whole album is an exercise in limitations and limitlessness.
Khirki – Κτηνωδία (Three Votes)
Independent | A Spooky Mansion, Beavis Christ, Rolderathis
Once this record grabbed hold of Greatest Editor of All Time Rolderathis’ imagination and wouldn’t let go, I think we all started rooting for Khirki’s surprise debut to land in this spot. With its infectious blend of traditional Greek folk music and hard-driving 90s rock, this album couldn’t be more charming and intriguing. Even if it’s not ultimately to your taste, this is an album everyone can appreciate for its originality, authenticity, execution, and swagger.
Dormant Ordeal – The Grand Scheme of Things (Three Votes)
Independent, Selfmadegod | Goatforest, Beavis Christ, Darth WTF
Inevitably, a band will release something in December, when year-end lists have either already been published or are nearly chiseled in alabaster, and completely upend a not insignificant number of those lists. The Grand Scheme of Things is somehow blackened death metal, somehow dissonant death metal, and somehow melodic death metal without being any of things really. You can’t tell me “The Borders of Our Languages are not the Borders of Our World” isn’t one of the best (death) metal songs of the year.
Khemmis – Deceiver (Four Votes)
Nuclear Blast | Joaquin Stick, Lord of Bork, 365 Days of Horror, Joe Thrashnkill
That doom band everyone just love-love-loves is back with an album that has their fans totally agog, agape, and aghast. You know the deal: huge vocals, huge hooks, huge melodies, huge riffs. This is a band at the top of its game, as tracks such as “House of Cadmus” and “The Astral Road” clearly demonstrate. I definitely didn’t listen to this album for the first time while writing this post. Definitely not!
Suffering Hour – The Cyclic Reckoning (Four Votes)
Profound Lore | Nordling Rites ov Karhu, Lacertilian, Spear, Rolderathis
The only thing more inevitable than a December release wrecking everyone’s lists is Suffering Hour rising to the tippity-top of Toilet ov Hell’s annual rankings. The perennial Minnesota powerhouse released a frankly stunning album all the way back in the pre-variant days of February and would not be denied come Hell, highwater, Delta, or Omicron. Suffering Hour’s intoxicating and maddening blend of flanged technicality, hardcore brawn, and oppressive darkness will never cease to puzzle and delight the readers and writers of Toilet ov Hell. Did you expect anything different?
That’s it! That’s the List of Lists for Toilet ov Hell in 2021. If you haven’t yet, share your lists with us in the comments along with your holiday GBU’s. If you are celebrating, may your celebrations be memorable. If you are abstaining, may your respite be restful and rejuvenating. If you are working, may your shift be mercifully short. In any case, find some time to spend it in the comments, cavorting with your fellow Toileteers. Be well, my loves. Be well.
