The seven best hard rock/metal bands of the last seven years

Okay, to celebrate the seventh blogiversary I commited to coming up with a list of what I think are the seven best bands of the last seven years. So that allows us back to mid 2005. My task is selecting what seven hard rock metal bands have produced the best music since then. There were some bands who started that time period well, but have since broken up and that ended their chances (Ogre and Byzantine fall in this cateogry). There were the bands that did something great in the early part of the seven year time period, but  have not followed it up (Acid King, Celtic Frost). So here are my final choices in no real order.

 Ufomammut-This Italian outfit plays a combination of experimental/doom/stoner/noise and they have just gotten better and better with each album. They released my favorite album of 2010 and their current album is my favorite of 2012 so far.

Sigh-I have trouble thinking of Sigh as being a veteran outfit, but with more than 20 years in the business they are. Their sound hasn't as much changed over the years as it has evolved. I enjoy their earlier material, but I am mesmerized by their more recent efforts.

Between the buried and me-A prog band? What was I thinking? Sure, these guys have the technical skills, but the important thing is they put the rock into progressive rock and they are heavy to boot. It's also possible that they have not yet reached their peak.

Admiral Browning-Yes, I know you've probably never heard of them. They are a Maryland trio who play doom/stoner/progressive instrumentals. They are amazing and really mix up the tones and sounds.

Iron Maiden-What? This isn't the 80's, what kind of suck-up fanboy are you, Metal Mark? Stick with me here. Now granted Maiden's output isn't as frequent as they once were. This seven year period has seen them release A matter of life and death (great, one of their best and best album of 2006), The Final Frontier was a top five in it's year plus add in Flight 666 and En Vivo! and you see and hear a band that's still one of the best going.

Hibria-Come on, Metal Mark the list is almost over and not one younger retro-thrash or retro-classic metal or retro-something. Okay, how about Hibria. Unfortunately their "Defying the rules" album falls about eight months before the cutoff, but their other albums are just as good. I could pick someone like Municipal Waste or Enforcer who have done a good job of channeling the vibe of old school metal. However Hibria do that plus they combine classic metal and power metal plus they manage to develop some of their own identity as well.

Gypsy Pistoleros/Gypsy Pistolero-What no glam bands on this list? Easily the best glam band in recent years. Creative, energetic and catchy. The only downside is they have really suffered from being unable to keep a stable line-up.


There you go. Love it, hate it, add own list.

Admiral Browning-Battle Stations

Self-produced
2011

Two years ago I was absolutely floored by "Magic Elixar" from Middletown, Maryland trio Admiral Browning. It was an amazing instrumental album that I played over and over. It was their third release, but my first exposure to the band. One day not long ago I was thrilled to find the new Admiral Browning release "Battle Stations" in my mailbox. I eagerly unwrapped the package and slipped the disc into my player. Since then I have spent the last two weeks listening to it and trying to gather my thoughts together to do it justice. So we get five tracks that total up to be a little under forty minutes total. Each song absolutely has it's own personality. Opener "Riff Crisis" is a deep, thumping voyage with chaotic attacks and subtle bursts interwoven through out. "The Binary" revolves around some oddly paced riffs with the rhythm section swirling around constantly. This is a more spaced out affair for about the first half and then the stars clear out a little and the song launches into a 70's style jam session with notes and beats flying around everywhere. "One luck canary" eases on with a slow almost sedate feel, but eventually the doors open to let loose a display of winding jams that are held together by some twisted riffs. Up forth is the very short "Interlude" which is a quick middle-eastern influenced track. The closer is a 12 minute plus monster called "Dreams of Hammurabi". It comes thundering out of the gates with an explosive force which lasts for around two and a half minutes before slowing down for a spell. However they are just getting started as the second of the track sees the trio pulling out all the stops as the song goes back and forth between an all out display of technical madness and the swirling pieces that hold the track together. In the end this song is an impressive display that will leave you exhausted and impressed. The style here isn't quite as in your face as the songs on "Magic Elixar", but it's just as fantastic. Admiral Browning are like progressive music for stoner rock fans or vice versa depending on your preference or background. Either way they meld styles together into a blend that calls upon the most exciting elements available. Once again an amazing album from this band.

Five things in metal that I am thankful for

I think this is the third or forth year I have done this. Five things in metal that I am thankful for this year in no real order.

Metal Mind Records-Okay, these guys have made my list every year and with great re-issues of albums from Satan, Maltese Falcon, Acid Drinkers, Turbo and more they easily make the list again.

UFO-Their label was going under, Pete Way was having health problems and this veteran band probably had other things going against them too. They still put out a fine album in "The Visitor". Always good to see a veteran band dig down like that.

Admiral Browning-I never would have thought a band from not far from my area would put out one of the best albums of 2009. This instrumental doom/stoner act have done just that.

Slayer-I still need to tie my ideas together and get a review out of World Painted Blood. Still I know it's good. While Slayer have never strayed far from the sound they set up in the 80's they have at least have been very consistent. Metallica went way off, Megadeth strayed for years and Anthrax disappeared and were not very relevant when they did reappear, but Slayer have remained as a solid, long running force and influence in metal.

Iron Maiden, Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen and everyone involved with making Flight 666-We all know how great Maiden are, but this movie shows what this band means to fans across the globe. It shows the band as the fine musicians they are, but it also shows the work and effort that went in to making a tour of this magnitude work. Of course the live clips and interviews with the fans are fantastic. A great film all the way around.

So there you go. I still have a big turkey award for 2009 to give out at some point. As it stands right now the nominees are Rocklahoma 2009, Lita Ford and Wal-mart exclusives (sorry, didn't hear the newest Queensryche or else I am sure they would make this list).

Admiral Browning interview

I am always glad where I hear a band from my home state of Maryland. Admiral Browning are an incredible 3 piece instrumental band. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing them.

Hello, please introduce the members of your band and what instrument you play.
Tim Otis - Drums
Matt LeGrow - Guitar
Fezz - Bass and with myself.

MM-Who are your musical influences?
Tim: Slayer, The Melvins, and the Jesus Lizard.
Fezz: Many bands, but off the top of my head Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Rush.
Matt: Bands: Ozric Tentacles, Rush, King Crimson, Voivod, Fugazi, King's X. Musicians: John McLaughlin, Ed Wynne, Steven Stills, Alex Lifeson, Steven Wilson

MM-Please tell us some about the history of your band.
- Matt: Tim and I started jamming in 2002 with various folks and started writing songs soonthereafter. Once we decided to start a band we found a second guitarist John Marion.We put out a demo (Maiden Voyage) and started gigging out in early 2005, but had some trouble finding a bassist until Fezz found us. We have stuck it out since then, and put out two more albums, though John left the band in 2007.

MM-You have a new EP out called “Magic Elixir”. Tell us about it.
- Tim: While it’s the 3rd disc we've worked on, its a kind of reboot in that its the first disc as a trio.
Fezz: We wanted to do an EP so that we could focus and re-invent ourselves as a three piece.

MM-Did you approach the writing and recording for “Magic Elixir” any differently than with your previous releases? If so then how?
- Matt: When John left, we had to sit down and take stock of what we could and could not play and lost quite a few tunes that had heavy guitar interaction. So we had a situation where we just sort of lost a lot of material, and even though we had some jams with Johnthat we still played out, we felt we had to come up with newer trio stuff. I think we tried to step up the technicality, aggressiveness and interaction. The album production is a lot less ambitious and more bare-bones than Dead Pets was. Plus, with Dead Pets, though Brian Dodds did good work, I think we really wanted to do things at our own pace. We were sorta tired of always being on someone else's schedule. So we did it all, soup to nuts - from the engineering, which was done in Tim's studio, all the way to the mix+mastering, which was done in mine, and we didn't release it until we were pretty much completely happy with it.
- Tim: We did Maiden Voyage by ourselves, and then in the intermediate time trying to put Dead Pets together, we worked with three different producers and soaked up a lot of stuff. There had always been something more I wanted from the recordings, and I felt strongly that we should try it ourselves so we could make it sound better. Sometimes it’s hard forme to convey what I wanted things to sound like with words, so I figured we should take the knobs ourselves this time.
- Fezz: We really tried to strip down and do less of a studio record and more of a live record in a studio. I wanted my bass tracks to be laid down with the drums, rather than what we did with Dead Pets where I just laid scratch tracks knowing they were scratch tracks.

MM-Have you been working on any new material for your next full length release? If so then how is that going?
- Fezz: Yes. I have two submissions for completed tunes which will be opped, sliced,dipped, flipped and tripped by the band, and a plethora of riffs to come.
- Tim: We also have six complete jams that we play out that we could record right now if we wanted to. So even though some of them have been around for a while we're always reworking them. We don't have a shortage of new songs or material, we could put out a full-length right now if we wanted to.
- Matt: I do have some specific conceptual ideas for this next record and some musical ideas tied to that concept. Whatever comes out of this will be pretty fucking epic, but nothing is quite there as a fully-formed song right now.

MM-How would you describe your sound to someone who was not familiar with your music?
- Tim: No rules, just right.
- Matt: Stoner-prog instru-mental alchemy
- Fezz: Every song is its own journey

MM-Your songs have a loose flow to them. Is everything you play worked out or being all instrumentals is there ever some improvisational jamming during the recording that you keep in?
- Matt: one of the things I always wanted for this band was to do a lot of improv jamming from the very beginning, because that’s how I always interacted with other musicians before the Admiral. So one of the best things that came out of reducing to a trio was how natural that experience is now. With John, we had improv parts worked out in a lot of jams that we would do to bridge songs together live, but they always seemed less like jams and more like structured bridges with guitar solos. But now we do more jamming than ever. The whole first part of "Speaking in Tones" and"Vortexer" both came out of improv jamming, in fact other than some atmospheric overdubs later on, the beginning of "Tones" is pretty much exactly how we played it in the studio.

MM-Where did you come up with your band name and what is the significance of it?
- Fezz: An admiral browning is literally a giant, unsinkable shit. You just can't flush it away.
- Tim: Instead of some emo band BS, we took our name from "Viz" (english comic). And it makes me think of Pepto Bismol rather than cutting myself.
- Matt: I always dreamed of answering this very question in interviews. I’ve to admit though we have rolled more with the nautical themes that one naturally tends to associate with a name like Admiral Browning, rather than the fecal themes. An all-instrumental band is a hard enough sell, much less one about poop.


MM-I know where you guys are from because it's not far from where I am from. The mid-Atlantic area has always had perhaps more than it's share of doom/stoner bands. Why do you think that is?
- Fezz: Doom originated in Maryland/DC. Its the capital. You have Trouble from Chicago, but Pentagram was the first real doom band, Obsessed, Internal Void, Spirit Caravan ... Another thing, speaking as a west coast transplant,the people playing out the East Coast are a little more open-armed and friendly. Out west its more like a competition, here its more like a brotherhood.
- Tim: Familiarity feeds back on itself.
- Matt: I can't really explain it, its not like they smoke more weed or are any more depressed than any other part of the country. It just sorta happened here.

MM-What are you guys doing that sets or will set you apart from other bands?
- Fezz: Speaking in Tones, not words. Being not just a heavy band, but a heavy instrumental band, is one of the hardest roads you can take.
- Tim: With or without a vocalist, we have a pretty good amalgam of sound. We haven't really pigeonholed ourselves into anything. If you asked anyone who has seen us what we sound like, you usually get a different answer every time.
- Matt: I think personally, I'm just committed to not having any boundaries on what we do or what we write. We've actually worked with vocalists, we just have always been more comfortable doing our own thing without words.
- Tim: I think we're the kind of band that even if one of us showed up with a bunch of riffs and a PA, we would just go and do it, regardless of what happened before.

MM-In what areas do you think that you need to improve upon?
- Fezz: I'm always working on delivering a 100% professional, on-point, musically proficient performance. After 27 years of performing I am still working for that level of just doing it every night, delivering all we can.
- Tim: I would like to reiterate Fezz's commitment to excellence, because I'm always committed to that. I'm also always personally working to learn new drum techniques myself. And while I think that we have improved our production techniques, and our songwriting is getting better, I still think we have room to grow.
- Matt: This is like a neverending process. Every time I think we're the shit, I see someone out there doing it better. If we ever get complacent we're done.

MM-What are some of the most memorable shows that you have played so far?
- Fezz: The very first show at Jaxx with the Admiral, Happy Jack's Pumpkin Farm, The New Orleans show, and Fanny Fest '08.
- Tim: The first time we played in Nashville at Springwater was the first time I was wowed by a crowd response. The whole Hell and High Water tour was special in so many ways, because we had just lost a band member and we went out and did it anyways. On the Sarsaparilla Roadshow I dug the Chicago show, and also the show at Replay in Lawrence, KN, we had a chick throwing dollar bills at Fezz. I've seen a lot of bands, but I ain't never seen that before!
- Matt: The very first show we ever played as the Admiral was insane. Here we were in front of 70 high-school or younger kids and they were just going apeshit. I was so terrified I couldn't even look at the crowd, but they were hurting each other to our music. Just getting up there was a huge personal obstacle for me to overcome. Iwould also say our hundredth show was really cool for me, it was a personal high point, we had a lot of people come out and I really felt proud of what we played and the level of the performance that we gave.
- Tim: The XS speed Memorial day '08 choppers party was cool too, we had tons of mini choppers racing and doing all kinds of cool stunts while the tunes were going.
- Fezz: Can't forget the Cabin Keggers, I II and III !
- Matt: Cabin Kegger I, was like a spiritual experience for me. I remember Sherman from Earthride was riding the earth at 3 in the morning, doom echoing through the countryside. So loud!


MM-You have played around a lot in the last few years. Where have you not been to that you would go and play?
- Matt: CA and the Pacific NW. We've pretty much been everywhere else in the US. I'd like to get overseas and crack some skulls in places like Germany, or Japan, where there are good, active metal scenes.
- Fezz: Orange County, CA. Hollywood at the Troubador, and Zakk's in downtown Detroit. And the Fillmore West.

MM-Is this the only project for you guys or any of you currently workingon any other projects? - Fezz: None
- Tim: Nope
- Matt: I do have a side project with a cat we were all in a band with for a while (Pat Paul) and its called Last Band on Earth. Its just a fun studio thing where I can dump my 4/4 rock aspirations.



MM-What do you hope to accomplish in the second half of 2009?
- Tim: Continue the promotional cycle on Magic Elixir. The promotional work is immeasurable and really never done. Towards the end of the year we talked about getting back in the studio to record some of the newer stuff in the studio.
- Fezz: Try to get back to recording, SHoD, and some local shows. I would like to get back to songwriting as well.
- Matt: I'm pretty psyched to record some of the newer stuff we're jamming out and get back to writing.

MM-Pick the band from each of the following pairs that you prefer and tell why you picked them.
High on fire or Sleep
- Tim: Like the feeling of Sleep better overall, but Dez from High on Fire is one of my heroes.
- Fezz: Sleep - I'm a pothead
- Matt: Sleep's Holy Mountain was decent enough

Acid King or Earthride>
- All: Earthride
- Matt: We know those guys personally.

Electric Wizard or Witchcraft
- All: Electric Wizard

Pentagram or Sir Lord Baltimore
- All: Pentagram

-What are some of the best albums that you have heard so far this year?
- Matt: Mastodon/Crack the Skye is wicked, and Voivod's latest Infini is ridiculous. There was a really great reissue of a 1975 demo for a punk trio from Detroit called Death/...For the Whole World to See that is incredible.
- Fezz: Amon Amarth/Twilight of the Thunder Gods, Haunted/Versus, our friends Husky/The Sea King,Stinking Lizaveta/Sacrifice and Bliss. 2013 Wolves and Bison BC were two bands I discovered this year that I think everyone should check out.
- Tim: Stinking Lizaveta/Sacrifice and Bliss, Metric/Fantasies, Trans Am/Sex Change(?), Colisseum/No Salvation,the remastered Paul's Boutique and Ill Communication.

MM-Is there anything else that you would like to say about your band or your music?
- Matt: Come out, see us live and say hello!

www.myspace.com/admiralbrowning

Admiral Browning-Magic Elixir

Dancing Sasquatch
2009

This disc from Middletown, Maryland's Admiral Browning showed up a few weeks ago and I promptly stuck it in the stack I think of as "need to be reviewed at some point". Eventually I pulled it out of the disc and popped it in the player to see what this three piece instrumental band was capable of doing. I was promptly greeted with a brief old time salesman pitch which goes along with the theme of the album title/cover and liner notes. Then the opener "Vortexer" marches on very deliberate and simple strides. Heavy for sure, but all rather ordinary until a few minutes in when they started to deviate from the simple path they were on. All of a sudden my senses were assaulted from multiple angles as the instruments involved seemed to explode bringing tones, various beats and a barrage of all things slow and brutal. Only one track in they in and this band has already set me up and knocked me down. "Ol' Martini Man" is up next and this much more aggressive from the start. The main riff sounds like they took the core of classic Sabbath and Pentagram, but pumped it up and twisted it into a huge and powerful Frankenstein monster style creature. Then it stomps it's way through knocking aside everything in it's path. This one is a behemoth that shows it's muscle form the beginning and never backs off. Up next is "No good stones" which at it's core is Led Zeppelin influenced blues rocker. Only Admiral Browning add a smoky haze to the mix yet still keep a big beat going in the background to guide this one through. The next track is the very appropriately named "Speaking in tones". This is a wild, riff-fueled rant that comes on like a storm and never let's up. Like a boiling cauldron, they keep steadily stirring the pot and adding odd and bizarre ingredients that all help keep the mixture swirling. All these songs have somewhat different approaches, but they all show that this band are a talented group with a mass of ideas at their disposal. This is only an EP and it manages to stand up great on it's own and also wet my appetite for the next full length offering.

www.myspace.com/admiralbrowning