Please note: This list is not culled in any way from the Readers Poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t yet contributed your favorites of 2015 to that, please do.

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I’ll note right away that this list started out as a top 10. When it came to it, it didn’t seem fair to cut it off. Too much left out. It gets to a point where you look at your list of honorable mentions and it’s like three times as long as your list itself and you realize maybe you should up the numbers and give a few more records their due. So yeah, a top 20 it is.

The temptation with a list like this, especially since it’s dealing with bands working on their first full-length albums (EPs are counted separately), is to think of it as indicative of future movement overall, to try and measure some overarching trend from some of the best outings of the year. I’m not sure that’s a fair approach either to the bands who made these records or to everyone else who might come after, but if we step back and look at what’s presented in the list below, we see veterans resurfacing in new incarnations, new, young groups coming together with classic ideologies, a bit of heavy extremity, psych melding with pop, heavy rock going prog and much more.

What all that tells me is that notions like “underground” and “heavy,” these vague terms that get applied so liberally, are constantly expanding. Whatever their individual sound might be, these bands all pushed ahead an overarching stylistic progression in whatever they’re doing, and like the best of debut albums, they held promise for further growth beyond this already impressive output. It’s less about which seems like an immediate landmark, touchstone, whatever, than it is about what sets up and effectively begins that development going forward, though striking a chord in the present never hurts either.

To that end, here we go:

The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 Debut Albums of 2015

1. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
2. Death Alley, Black Magick Boogieland
3. Cigale, Cigale
4. Kind, Rocket Science
5. Fogg, High Testament
6. Crypt Sermon, Out of the Garden
7. CHRCH, Unanswered Hymns
8. With the Dead, With the Dead
9. Demon Head, Ride the Wilderness
10. Sacri Monti, Sacri Monti
11. Stars that Move, Stars that Move
12. Chiefs, Tomorrow’s Over
13. Sunder, Sunder
14. Ecstatic Vision, Sonic Praise
15. Bison Machine, Hoarfrost
16. Serial Hawk, Searching for Light
17. Cloud Catcher, Enlightened Beyond Existence
18. Khemmis, Absolution
19. Sumac, The Deal
20. The Devil and the Almighty Blues, The Devil and the Almighty Blues

Honorable Mention

By way of honorable mentions, first I have to give a nod to Foehammer‘s self-titled debut EP, which would be on this list probably in the top five if not the top three were it not for the fact that, as noted, it’s an EP. Its list will come. The 2015 release of Horsehunter‘s self-titled on Magnetic Eye was killer as well, but since the album initially came out in 2014, it didn’t seem fair to include it in the list proper.

Releases from Killer Boogie, Snowy Dunes, Sweat Lodge, Planes of Satori, DoctoR DooM, Lasers from Atlantis and Lords of Beacon House (I heard the EP, not the LP) also provided thrills a-plenty, and while I recognize that sounds like sarcasm, please rest assured it’s not. I’m sure there are others, and as always, I reserve the right to tweak mentions and numbers over the next however many days, weeks, years, etc.

Notes

There wasn’t much mystery to this one for me. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth held onto that top spot for most of the year, and it seemed like no matter what came along, the wall of sound that Tad Doyle and company built on that record simply would not be torn down. As oppressive in tone as it is in atmosphere, it was a long-awaited debut that produced devastating results the ripples from which I expect will continue to resonate well into 2016 and beyond.

Brothers of the Sonic Cloth is one example of a veteran presence finding a new home, as several did this year. See also, Sumac with former members of Isis, Ecstatic Vision with players from A Life Once Lost, With the Dead with members of Cathedral and Ramesses coming together for the first time, Kind drawing its lineup from the likes of Roadsaw, Milligram, Rozamov and Elder, and even groups like Sunder, who previously released an album together under the moniker The Socks before abandoning that project in favor of the current one, as well as Sacri Monti, with a member from Radio Moscow in tow, Cigale, who had two members from Sungrazer, Stars that Move which sprang from Starchild, and Death Alley with members of Mühr, Gewapend Beton and The Devil’s Blood showcased how one band flows out of another and out of another, and so on.

That Death Alley debut had charm worthy of its title — which was also my favorite of the year — and showed the potential of that band to set up a real stylistic range going forward. I hope they continue to expand, get a little weird and freaked out and keep that core of songwriting and forward drive that makes Black Magick Boogieland so propulsive. For new bands, Cigale‘s self-titled was beautiful, but would later become tinged with tragedy following the death of guitarist/vocalist Rutger Smeets earlier this year. Not to mention friends and family, his is a significant loss for European psychedelia as a whole, and while that was inarguably one of the low points of 2015, the album itself remains a gorgeous statement.

Young acts like Fogg, Demon Head, Bison Machine, Sunder, Cloud Catcher and even Sacri Monti showcased varied takes on classic heavy, some more into boogie and jams and some looking for something a little rougher edged. Cloud Catcher‘s progressive take was a particularly pleasant surprise, while Sunder‘s psychedelia teemed with melody and a cohesive presence born out of what could’ve been unhinged otherwise. Between these, the heavy riffing of The Devil and the Almighty Blues and Serial Hawk, the formative fuzz of Chiefs, the resonant doom of Khemmis and the righteous traditionalism of Crypt Sermon, the notion of genres and subgenres as an ever-expanding universe seemed to be playing out on a weekly basis.

This, invariably, leads to new extremes, which in turn brings me to CHRCH. Like Foehammer, whose EP is in honorable mentions, the Unanswered Hymns long-player from CHRCH was a bright spot especially for how little light it seemed to let escape its abyssal grasp. They’re an easy bet for a band to catch on because they’ve garnered a formidable response already, but what sticks out to me most about them is the sense of pushing established parameters into fresh territory. What they’ll do in the months and years to come of course remains to be seen — they could break up tomorrow; it happens — but where a group like Primitive Man are almost singularly based on extremity of pummel and brutality (not to take away from them), CHRCH have the space in their sound for a multi-faceted progression, and that’s a huge part of what made Unanswered Hymns so encouraging.

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I know there were many more debut LPs than these released this year, and even more debuts that were EPs and demos of note and things like that. The reason I single out debut albums for a list is because it’s among the most pivotal offerings a band can make. You’ll never get to release a second debut record. Some bands never live theirs down, some never attain quite the same level again and struggle with it for decades. Either way, it’s no small thing to get a group together and bring it to the point of putting out a first long-player, and that accomplishment in itself, regardless of the results, is worth highlighting.

No doubt I’ve left a few excellent offerings out. I hope you’ll let me know in the comments what debut albums landed hardest with you in 2015. In any case, thanks for reading.

 

“Let’s get into something heavy,” croons Fogg bassist/vocalist Brandon Hoffman to begin “Mountain,” though by the time they get around to that organ-infused cut at the start of side B to their sophomore outing and Tee Pee Records (tape and LP also through Under the Gun Records) debut, High Testament, the chilled-out Fort Worth, Texas, power trio — Hoffman, guitarist Chase Jowell and drummer Ethan Lyons — have long since covered that ground. The follow-up to their late-2013 debut, Death, the new LP stands strong at 40 solid minutes of trippy neo-fuzz, all air push on the low end in Hoffman‘s tonal glory, the Geez running strong in his fills, and righteously swinging in Lyons‘ jam-propelling cymbal work while Jowell tears into solos with that young-dude-about-to-embarrass-a-bunch-of-old-dudes-by-playing-old-dude-music-the-way-young-dudes-play-it vitality. Opening duo “Joy of Home” and “You are Welcome” on side A live up to their names, preaching clear to the converted with just enough acid in their pH that when they shift into acoustic/Mellotron vibing with “The Garden” it’s still easy to follow along.

The album’s longer stretches prove particularly sure-footed despite a ranging breadth of boogie, “Joy of Home,” “Seasons,” “Mountain” and closer “Grass in Mind” all cruising at over six minutes and the latter approaching 10. “Seasons” serves as the centerpiece of the tracklisting and finds the three-piece rooted deep in Witch-y rolling and Fuzzy turns, but Hoffman‘s vocals keep a keep a shoegazing echo to them that ensures the laid back feel holds together no matter how active the material actually gets, “Seasons” getting plenty active in its name-brand Sabbath-worship tightness of swing in the second half, that momentum carrying over to the calmer start of “Mountain,” which has a build of its own and stands out all the more thanks to the organ guest spot from Ryan Lee, not that High Testament was hurting for a classic feel as it was. I’m not sure it’s fair to call this stuff ’70s-style or retro anymore since it’s also so much the sound of right now, and Fogg are warm-toned but not especially “vintage”-sounding, but whatever tag you might want to lay on them, the tracks hold up in performance and construction, and the flow across each side of the record is seamless.

With “Hand of the Lord” serving as a companion piece to the acoustics of “The Garden,” that leaves “Grass in Mind” with the task of drawing the various sides and elements at work throughout High Testament together, and apart from a second organ appearance, the song does precisely that, with a rolling groove given a sense of chaos through Lyons‘ drums and an especially blown-out fuzz from Hoffman and Lee. Quick-turning rhythms betray some of the band’s youth, but it’s worth noting how crisp Fogg are while sounding so loose. “Grass in Mind” rumbles through three stages, opening with a verse and chorus feel like the bulk of its predecessors before moving into a less-structured but still plenty swinging proto-prog jam and finally turning around the seven-minute mark to sweeter acoustic minimalism to end a mostly raucous outing on a fairly contemplative note. Maybe they’re hinting at further complexity to develop in their sound, or maybe that’s just the only place that part fit. I wouldn’t want to speculate. Either way, as a first outing for Tee Pee and thus a first exposure to many who’ll take them on, myself included, High Testament boasts striking cohesion in its purpose and the methods by which that purpose is executed. Harder to believe than how together these cats are is that they’re not from San Diego or Santa Cruz, as their sound seems primed for California’s current psych revival.

One can only assume they’ll get there eventually and find welcome when they do. Regardless of geography, however, Fogg‘s vibe and immediate chemistry remains palpable. The album is out today on Tee Pee and can be heard in full on the player below.

Hope you dig it:

Fort Worth, Texas power trio FOGG will release its new album, High Testament, June 23 via Tee Pee Records. The record is the follow-up to the group’s 2014 debut, Death. High Testament will drop on cassette via Under the Gun Records, who will co-release the LP version of the album in conjunction with Tee Pee.

FOGG worship at the altar of the almighty riff, conjuring leaden tombs of amp-destroying sound. The warped riff-riders — who have been burning up the southern heavy music scene — crank howling psychedelic? metal and 70’s biker doom topped with gnarly shredding and strangely unique vocals that hover distantly over landslides of chest-rattling bass and drum tumble. High Testament deals heavy quantities of hazy hooks and woozy timbres, which combine to paint a dreamy aesthetic; a hazy, neon form that sounds like metal chords trapped in a never-ending film dissolve.

Fogg on Thee Facebooks

Fogg on Instagram

Fogg at Tee Pee Records

Under the Gun Records

Click Here to Download

 

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The second hour starts a little early this time around, and what I mean by that is when you’re like five minutes into hour two and trying to figure out on the tracklisting below what improv-sounding brilliant cut you’re hearing, pay careful attention to when hour one ended. Just 11 seconds from the start of the second half of the podcast. So yeah, that 18-minute wonder gets filed under hour one instead, but it comes with a wink and a nod. I just couldn’t bring myself to file something under hour two without a one at the front of the time stamp, which shows you how sad and compulsive I am because I’ve only been time-stamping these podcasts for two months now. What a dork.

It’s good stuff this. Always is, I suppose, but starting out with Goatsnake into The Machine and then on from there, it builds a flow that makes some sense one into the next in a way that, listening back to it after I put it together, was especially satisfying. Hopefully you agree as you make your way though.

As always, hope you enjoy:

First Hour:
0:00:00 Goatsnake, “Grandpa Jones” from Black Age Blues
0:04:36 The Machine, “Coda Sun” from Offblast!
0:09:55 Galley Beggar, “Pay My Body Home” from Silence and Tears
0:18:51 Steve Von Till, “Night of the Moon” from A Life Unto Itself
0:25:48 Venomous Maximus, “Through the Black” from Firewalker
0:29:42 Black Pyramid, “Open the Gates” from Dead Star 7”
0:34:59 Ape Skull, “A is for Ape” from Fly Camel Fly
0:39:54 Sunder, “Deadly Flower” from Demo
0:43:53 Eternal Fuzz, “Sea Change” from Nostalgia
0:47:37 Geezer, “Long Dull Knife” from Long Dull Knife
0:53:31 Fogg, “Joy of Home” from High Testament
0:59:49 Shiggajon, “Sela” from Sela

Second Hour:
1:18:07 Blown Out, “Thousand Years in the Sunshine” from Planetary Engineering
1:34:01 Les Lekin, “Loom” from All Black Rainbow Moon
1:47:14 Undersmile, “Knucklesucker” from Anhedonia

Total running time: 1:59:00

 

Thank you for listening.

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