The Benja-man Is Verbose

I can't be the only one who waits until the actual end of the year to finalize the year-end list (and then needs a little time to write it up), right? As previously discussed, 2024 was a great musical year.  So much so that I didn't get to everything.  Here are a few more 2024 records that could have made at least my long-list, had I discovered them in time: ( + = woulda been a top ten candidate) Body Count - Merciless Cemetery Skyline - Nordic Gothic Dawnwalker - The Unknowing + Kalandra - A Frame Of Mind + Kingcrow - Hopium St. Vincent -  All Born Screaming As far as 2025, it was okay.  Even within the admittedly limited sphere of music through which I move, I found a bunch of things that I liked.  Compared to any other year since I started actually writing these things in either 2020 or 2021, * there were a lot of returning candidates this time around.  A few former top-fifteeners and  two  former number-ones released music this y...

Rather than shoehorn genre labels into sentences, this year's schtick is that the list will instead include "listening notes," akin to wine tasting notes - a few words summarizing what one can expect to hear if checking out one of these records.  And this year I'm also forcing myself to include one, and only one, song to check out with each entry. Before we begin, as always: a few records of note from 2023 that I didn't mention in my 2023 list because of lack of my listening to them in 2023. Adjy - June Songs, Volume I Buffalo Nichols - The Fatalist Danny Brown - Quaranta Grace Potter - Mother Road KNOWER - KNOWER FOREVER On to 2024, then.  Now, this year was an embarrassment of riches for my musical tastes.  I don't know if I'm just better at hunting down metal that I like, or it was a uniquely good year, but when I already had fifteen hopefuls for my list by June, I knew it'd be a special twelve months.  I didn't even get to do as muc...

 [Note:  I've been doing one of these every year for a few years, but this is the first time I had a blog to put it into.] As usual, I miss a few things.  Quite a few last year.  Some that might have had a shot to make the 2022 list if I'd heard them in 2022 but never had a chance to make the list because I didn't hear them in 2022 - and now I don't need to worry about how they compare to the 15 I did actually include - include: Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You Doris Brendel - Star Bright Eruption - Tellurian Rupture Judicator - The Majesty Of Decay Megadeth - The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead! Zeal & Ardor - Zeal & Ardor And then, even accepting that I wouldn't be able to absorb all music in all genres, even within my little pocket of guitar-driven rock/metal/folk/whatever, 2023 was full of goodies.  Not a great year for veteran bands, necessarily, with some underwhelming releases from some big names.  Not a great year for pa...