Hierophant Nox | Feature

Hierophant Nox Crew Yearlists 2009
Before we’d even got fully into the swing of the yearlist game, the cheating began. Paul sent me a very strict Top 10 of the year, and then tacked on his ‘but also…’ section. Sneaky. Satanic Muttley messaged me in the dead of night (ok, about 10pm, I go to bed early) to ask whether a Top 20 was surely not a meatier treat for the reader than a Top 10. Helvetia asked how much room he had for explanatory notes. And I’ve just had to argue myself out of awarding the Editor the privilege of having a Top 30. Weird when we all agree that we loathe this painful and thoroughly subjective task…
Reading other people’s yearlists over the, er, years, I’ve always got the impression that the thought-process that goes into their creation could be rendered thus:
Thought 1. I loved this album
Thought 2. This band deserve more credit
Thought 3. This band will make me sound cool
Thought 4. This band bought me beer
Thought 5. All the other zines will include this album
Thought 6. I can’t remember what score I gave this first time round so I’d better include it
Thought 7. I can’t remember what this even sounds like but they played tracks from it at that festival where it was sunny. I had an ice cream!!

Rampant cheating aside, I’ve been impressed by the Hierophant crew’s ability to disregard this meandering method of compiling a list, and also by the diversity of their passions. Maybe in the future we’ll do this collectively and by genres so that I have space beyond my black metal obsession to showcase some of the excellent experimental and ambient work I hear … or maybe we’ll continue to think that genre is a dirty word. Maybe we’ll think about it nearer the time, it’s only January for fuck’s sake.

Here you go then, for our personal and no-doubt flawed recollection of the awesome year that was 2009:

amorphis.jpg (46354 bytes) beherit.jpg (19421 bytes) skitliv.jpg (23361 bytes)

ELLEN SIMPSON’S YEARLIST
1. Amorphis – Skyforger (Nuclear Blast)
2. Beherit – Engram (Spinefarm)
3. Skitliv – Skandinavisk Misantropi (Season of Mist)
4. Ruins of Beverast – Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite (Van)
5. Pantheon I – Worlds I Create (Candlelight Records)
6. Vreid – Milorg (Indie Recordings)
7. Absu – Absu (Candlelight Records)
8. Slagmaur – Von Rov Shelter (Osmose Productions)
9. Arkona – Goi, Rode, Goi (Napalm Records)
10. Ava Inferi – Blood of Bacchus (Season of Mist)
11. Foscor – Groans to the Guilty (Temple of Darkness Records)
12. Von Thronstahl – Sacrificare (Cold Spring Records)
13. Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars (Candlelight Records)
14. Skaldic Curse – World Suicide Machine (Dark Essence Records)
15. Osman Arabi – Burning Sigils (FracturedSpaces Records)
16. Wardruna – Gap Var Ginnunga (Indie Recordings)
17. Infernal Stronghold – Godless Noise (Forcefield Records)
18. De Magia Veterum – Migdal Bavel (Transcendental Creations)
19. Shining – Klagopsalmer (Osmose Productions)
20. Nordvargr – Pyrrula (Cold Spring Records)
And if I could use my wishes for three more wishes…
Arckanum – ооооооооооо, Drudkh – Microcosmos, Lifelover – Dekadens, Vomitory – Carnage Euphoria, All Hail the Transcending Ghost – AHTTG, Sagittarius – Songs from the Ivory Tower, Fen – The Malediction Fields, Hellsaw – Cold, Urna – Iter ad Lucem, My Dying Bride – For Lies I Sire, Cobalt – Gin, Ensiferum – From Afar, Ahab – The Divinity of Oceans, <code> - Resplendent Grotesque, Nazxul – Iconoclast, Laudanum – The Coronation, Immortal – All Shall Fall, Bergraven – Til Makabert Vasen, Destroyer 666 – Defiance, Wolves in the Throne Room – Black Cascade, Paradise Lost – Faith Divides Us Death Unites Us, Kadaver – Molested Into Form, Moloch – Depression of Surtr.

I never told you I WOULDN’T cheat as well…


SATANIC MUTTLEY’S YEARLIST
1. The Devils Blood – The Time Of No Time Evermore (Van)
2. Sunn o))) – Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord)
3. Gnaw – This Face (Conspiracy Records)
4. Splinterskin – Wayward Souls (Cold Spring Records)
5. Dalek – Gutter Tactics (Ipecac Recordings)
6. Chickenfoot – Chickenfoot (Redline Entertainment)
7. Enablers – Tundra (Exile on Mainstream Records)
8. Shrinebuilder – Shrinebuilder (Neurot Recordings)
9. Current 93 – Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain (Coptic Cat)
10. Katatonia – Night Is The New Day (Peaceville)
11. Steven Wilson – Insurgentes (KScope)
12. Cobalt – Gin (Profound Lore)
13. Zu – Carboniferous (Ipecac Recordings)
14. All Hail The Transcending Ghost – All Hail The Transcending Ghost (Cold Spring Records)
15. Napalm Death – Time Waits For No Slave (Century Media)
16. Portal – Swarth (Profound Lore)
17. Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydrahead)
18. Drudkh – Microcosmos (Season of Mist)
19. Crucifist – Demon-Haunted World (Profound Lore)
20. Grey Machine - Disconnected (Hydrahead)

Satanic “My Monstrously Impressive And Unfeasibly Enormous 20” Muttley!!!



PAUL KING’S YEARLIST
Here is my Top 10 for 2009…they are meant to be in order.... but I keep changing my mind.

1. Shining – Klagopsalmer (Osmose Productions)
2. Anaal Nathrakh - In The Constellation Of the Black Widow (Candlelight Records)
3. Behemoth – Evangelion (Nuclear Blast)
4. Devin Townsend - Ki (InsideOut Music)
5. Madder Mortem - Eight Ways (Peaceville Records)
6. Alestorm - Black Sails At Midnight (Napalm Records)
7. My Dying Bride - For Lies I Sire (Peaceville Records)
8. Blood Tsunami - Grand Feast For Vultures (Candlelight Records)
9. Xerath – I (Candlelight Records)
10. Chthonic - Mirror Of Retribution (Spinefarm)

Close calls included Candlemass- Death Magic Doom, Mastodon- Crack The Skye and Heaven And Hell- The Devil You Know.

Disappointments included Sepultura- A-Lex (to be honest, it's not even Sepultura anymore) and Skyclad- In The All-Together.

Also here are some other albums I've enjoyed which are probably just outside the scope of Hierophant:
Senser - How To Do Battle
Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way To Blue
Clutch - Strange Cousins From The West



HELVETIA’S YEARLIST
1. Auspice – Ars Longa Vita Brevis (Unclassed Media)
2. Skitliv – Skandinavisk Misantropi (Season of Mist)
3. Mamiffer – Hirror Enniffer (Hydrahead)
4. Belphegor – Walpurgis Rites (Nuclear Blast)
5. Behemoth – Evangelion (Nuclear Blast)
6. Shining – Klagopsalmer (Osmose Productions)
7. Endstille – Verfuhrer (Regain Records)
8. <code> - Resplendent Grotesque (Tabu Recordings)
9. Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars (Candlelight Records)
10. Foscor – Groans to the Guilty (Temple of Darkness Records)



WEBMASTER LUKE’S YEARLIST
1. Amorphis – Skyforger (Nuclear Blast)
2. Alestorm - Black Sails At Midnight (Napalm Records)
3. Evil Scarecrow - Sixty-Six Minutes Past Six (Self Released)