This was another surprisingly good music year for me. Perhaps not as strong as 2022, but still solid enough to produce a Best of 2023 list that includes a lot of very familiar faces and a few newcomers:
No. 20. GRYMHEART – HELLISH HUNT: There were several albums competing for this last spot on my list, including solid new efforts from Prong and Spirit Adrift. In the end, though, Grymheart’s debut album was just too much fun to deny. From the first time I stumbled across “Ignis Fatuus,” I knew this was my kind of band – a blend of folk metal, power metal, and extreme metal with some super addictive melodies. The lyrics are, at times, pretty awful, but since the only Hungarian words I know I learned from Alestorm, I really can’t knock them for their English lyrics.
The pirate ship has been righted and is back on course.
I’ve been a fanboy and evangelist for Alestorm since their debut album Captain Morgan’s Revenge in 2008. Christopher Bowes and his goofy band of pirates have put plenty of smiles on my face, and I’ve shouted the band’s praises from the rooftops so loudly that a lot of people I talk music with regularly have probably wished they could make me walk the plank.
Their last lackluster outing, Curse of the Crystal Coconut, left me scratching my head by putting far more emphasis on the goofy than the pirate – and just honestly not featuring many memorable moments. But, hey, 2020 was a rough year for everyone. And so was 2021, particularly for Bowes who became embroiled in some controversy around one of his other bands, Gloryhammer. But in 2022, the world, and the seas, have opened back up. Bowes takes to them with gusto.
A great deal of turmoil has descended upon the Kingdom of Fife since last we heard from Gloryhammer.
In the summer of 2021, the band unceremoniously fired vocalist Thomas Winkler with a brief, matter-of-fact social-media post just as live music was beginning to make a comeback. Shortly after that firing, a leaked chat transcript revealed some juvenile and offensive chatter between remaining members of the band that included racist and misogynistic jokes. An evil cloud descended upon the land, and it seemed that the former heroes might not be able to save it this time.
OK, I make a little light of what was a serious situation on both fronts. Winkler was an integral part of the band’s sound and was the absolute perfect frontman to take on the role of their main character Angus McFife. Obviously, I don’t need to explain the seriousness of the other charges.
To say that I anticipated this album more than any other in 2020 would be an understatement. Through five albums with Alestorm and three with Gloryhammer, Christopher Bowes has never disappointed me – and the band’s last outing, 2017’sNo Grave but the Sea, was its best to date. I’ve sung the praises of Bowes at the top of my lungs, and his music has been a source of great joy for me for more than a decade. So it pains me to write this, but the magic just isn’t here on this one. It’s not a bad album by any means, but it’s just not on par with what they’ve done in the past.
Curse of the Crystal Coconutwas always going to have a hard time following No Grave but the Sea. That release was near perfect. Bowes and crew were performing at the height of their piratical prowess on that one, and three years later, there’s not a song on it that gets the skip button. But the strong melodies and catchy hooks of No Grave are traded in here for a collection of middle-of-the-road songs that lack much of the charm I’ve come to expect.
Today, we continue with the next 10 entrants on my list of favorite albums of the last decade...
GLORYHAMMER – SPACE 1992: RISE OF THE CHAOS WIZARDS (2015): Yes, this is Christopher Bowes’ second inclusion on this list, but it’s a different band and just as much fun. Instead of pirates, we’re focusing on heroic fantasy and science fiction. The next chapter of Bowes’ tale about Scottish hero Angus McFife takes us to space in the “far future” of 1992, where Angus McFife XIII battles the evil wizard Zargothrax, released from the ice prison where the hero’s ancient ancestor had locked him. The story was a bit looser than the band’s debut, 2012’s Tales from the Kingdom of Fife, but the music had matured by leaps and bounds. It was a tough call between this one and 2019’s Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex, but in the end, I think the songs here are stronger overall – and there’s “Goblin King of the Darkstorm Galaxy.” If I’m most thankful for one thing musically in the last decade, it’s Bowes and the joy he’s brought me with both of his primary projects.
There’s a contingent of metal fans who think the music should always be uber-serious and without any trace of humor. I don’t agree with those folks, and really never have, but I do get it. Many of us were drawn to metal from places of anger, pain or isolation, and we found solace in knowing that there were others feeling the same things.
As I’ve gotten older, I have gained a much greater appreciation for things that just make me happy. There’s enough going on in the world to validate my anger and sadness these days, and more often than not when I turn to music, I want to get away from that.
When Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo were getting bashed mercilessly by some fans this year for taking a couple of minutes of each Metallica show to have some goofy fun by performing absolutely awful covers of songs that had some significance to the town they were playing, I was watching the YouTube videos and laughing along with them. I was happy to see them having fun and not taking things too seriously.
For the same reason, Nanowar of Steel’s completely ridiculous IKEA-ad Christmas tune “Valhallelujah” sits right next to Parkway Drive’s “Wishing Wells,” a violent and raging tale of coping with grief, on my list of Best of 2019 list. (And, yes, I know the Parkway Drive song wasn’t actually released in 2019, but more on that later).
So, if there’s a theme to my list of favorite albums of the past year, you’ll see that it’s not necessarily complex and serious musicianship that won me over in 2019, but rather the ability to make me smile and take me to another place for a few minutes.
BEST OF 2019 NOT RELEASED IN 2019
PARKWAY DRIVE – REVERENCE: I was a fan of the early wave of metalcore in the late ’90s and early ‘00s with bands like Shadows Fall and God Forbid, but the style quickly got stale for me. These days, I tend to discount most anything tagged with the label automatically, so Parkway Drive was not on my radar until late January. We were listening to Sirius/XM on our four-hour drive back from a concert in Dallas that had been my son’s Christmas gift when I heard “The Void” on Octane (his channel of choice). I thought it was kind of cool with a Metallica vibe. A couple of hours later, they played “Wishing Wells” on Liquid Metal, and the song just punched me in the gut. When I got home, I grabbed Reverence, and it remained a staple of my listening all year. It has the perfect balance of raging heaviness mixed with memorable melodies and riffs that just does it for me. It’s one of my most listened records this year, and if I had heard it when it was released in 2018, it would have easily been a Top 5 pick.
Having just seen Gloryhammer opening for Alestorm back in September, I had decided I wasn’t going to make the trek to Dallas for this show. Then, they released Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex at the end of May, and given my previous experience, I absolutely had to hear some of those songs live.
I’m glad I decided to go. I’ve seen a ton of concerts in my lifetime, but I’ve rarely had more fun than I did on this night.
In all honesty, I’m starting to feel a little stalkerish in the way that I gush over all things Gloryhammer and Alestorm, but they just make me happy, so prepare for more of the same.
I wish it were possible for Christopher Bowes to release new music every week. No matter how lousy the day or how bad the mood, it’s nothing that a new Gloryhammer or Alestorm song can’t fix.
The latest release from his heroic power metal outfit Gloryhammer bears a mouthful of a title – Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex – and a story that’s just as big. It concludes a trilogy of albums that started in a fictional version of medieval Scotland on Tales from the Kingdom of Fife, took us to outer space with Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards, and now takes us to another dimension.
If you take off work, pull your kid out of school and drive five hours to go to a club show, you may have a metal problem.
If you’ve followed my ramblings for the past decade or so, you’ll know my love for all things Christopher Bowes, so there was no way that I was going to miss a U.S. tour featuring both Alestorm and Gloryhammer, even if I had to do all of the above to get there. Which I did. And it was more than worth it.
This past year was a strange one for me musically. While there were a few albums that I’d consider outstanding, I had a very hard time finding new music that connected with me. Some highly anticipated records disappointed me, and an album for which I really had no expectations stunned me and rose to the top of my Best of 2015 list.
Rather than culling from a big list as usual, I had to stretch a little to get it to 10 entries, and the bands on the list are all pretty well-established acts. It’s certainly not the strongest top 10 that I’ve ever turned in, but those few records at the top would be there in any year.
Here’s hoping for a more fruitful musical search in 2016 …
10. PRO-PAIN – THE VOICE OF REBELLION: This is the first of a few surprises on the Best of 2015 list for me. Though the veteran hardcore band has been popping out albums every year or two since their 1992 debut Foul Taste of Freedom, I haven’t really given them much thought since that record. I liked the debut but, as with most hardcore, the sound got old to me after a while. I gave this one a listen with somewhat fresh ears, and songs like the raging title track and the catchy “Age of Disgust” pulled me in.
I have become a great admirer of Scottish musician Christopher Bowes. He has the uncanny ability to take the absurd and turn it into metal gold.
We first met Bowes as the frontman of pirate metal band Alestorm, where his aaarr-filled vocals, folk instrumentation and knack for unforgettable melodies turned what should have been a one-off novelty act into a formidable outfit that’s spawned a number of copycats.
A couple of years ago, Christopher Bowes turned his attention to epic power metal with the formation of the band Gloryhammer. On their 2013 debut Tales from the Kingdom of Fife, the band introduced us to Prince Angus McFife (vocalist Thomas Winkler), who rose after his home of Dundee was destroyed by the evil wizard Zargothrax (Bowes, who plays keys in Gloryhammer) and his army of undead unicorns. Preposterous, right? But so much fun.
Metal, old school country, a classic rock flavored Bruce Dickinson tune and a little new-school country to round things out ...
“Wherever I May Roam,” Metallica. From the album Metallica (1991). From a sitar opening lick to a huge, epic tune. I talked a bit back about how I’ve come to have more appreciation for this record, but this is one of the songs that I always loved.
I'll start my look at the best hard rock and metal albums of the year with a few that didn't quite make the cut, some random thoughts, and a look ahead at 2014.
Honorable Mentions
Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals -- Walk Through Exits Only. Though this record narrowly missed my top 10, it's certainly the most interesting I heard this year. Dubbed by Anselmo as anti-music, the album is loaded with hooks while, at the same time, being very chaotic and jarring.
Some old stuff, some new stuff in this week's edition of the shuffle:
Pantera, “Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks.” From the album Far
Beyond Driven (1994). I differ from many Pantera fans in that Far Beyond Driven
is my personal favorite. “Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks,” for some reason seems to
come up a lot on my shuffles, though it’s not one of my favorites from the
record. It’s still rock solid, though.
It’s been a really solid year for hard rock and metal so far. At six months, I’m often adding mediocre albums that I know won’t make the final list to get to 10. This year, I actually had to make a tough call or two. Maybe I should have gone to 13, but with two 13s on the list already, that might get confusing …
No. 10: GLORYHAMMER – TALES FROM THE KINGDOM OF FIFE: Christopher Bowes, the man who brought us Scottish Pirate Metal with Alestorm, now brings us Scottish Epic Fantasy Metal. Tales from the Kingdom of Fife pokes a little bit of tongue-in-cheek fun at the formulas of power metal, but also shows a great respect for the music. It’s a little cheesy, a lot of fun and better than a great deal of the “serious” power metal out there. If for nothing else, this album gets a nod because “Angus McFife” is the most fun I’ve had singing along to a song with my son all year.
Christopher Bowes may be on the verge of becoming a new musical hero of mine. First he gave us Scottish pirate metal, now Scottish epic fantasy metal, and it’s just as much fun.
If you’re familiar with Bowes’ other band, Alestorm, it will be no surprise that Gloryhammer’s music is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it’s no joke. Yes, Bowes and his cohorts dress as wizards, warriors and elves, and they skewer some of the tropes and conventions of the power metal genre with some laugh out loud moments. But when it comes to the music, it’s no laughing matter. This outfit is tight, and they play the style much better than some of the “serious” power metal bands out there.
