The Best Album of the Year By a Band That Broke Up After They Released It

I took on four albums this year that, barring any reunions down the road, were their respective bands last albums. These particular bands, for their own reasons, decided to call it day, and, believe it or not, I’m actually not that torn up about it. You see, I subscribe the the three-and-out theory, which simply means that I think most bands do their best work on their first three albums and should stop making music after that. Obviously some bands blow this theory apart, but most of them don’t, so it is with the utmost respect that I salute these bands for bowing out at the right time…and on a high note, which they all have done.

Of the four, The Kings of Frog Island left us with a dark and gloomy masterpiece, III, that almost makes me wish they weren’t leaving. The album always had an eerie air about it, but its somber reflections on death take on a whole new meaning now, and the mesmerizing psych-rock of many of the albums songs foreshadow the fall of a kingdom due to the death of its kings. And for that, III is the best album of the year by a band that broke up after they released it.

We also have to say goodbye to Dirty Sweet (I’m really gonna miss that beard), who made a huge fan out of me with their second and last album, American Spiritual, Dragontears, who dropped their third and final (or at least it’s supposed to be) album Turn On Tune In Fuck Off!! on us (looks like it’s back to Baby Woodrose for our friend Lorenzo), and Josiah (that’s two of Mat Bethancourt’s many lives), who signed off with Procession. All awesome albums.

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Black Sleep of Kali
Our Slow Decay
Small Stone

Debut album from Denver’s Black Sleep of Kali, which, despite its name, is a furious force of sludge metal devilry that’s more whack-a-mole doom than it is a slumbering death crawl. And it’s no easy feat keeping up that kind of  eternal energy with an average run time of six minutes for the eight songs laid down here, but I suppose anything is possible when you’re drawing your annihilation inspiration from a dark and violent goddess. Right, so it all rolls heavily along like an avalanche of Baroness worship, but the sonic assault of Our Slow decay isn’t without its groovy riffs, hardcore fluctuations, and punk metal aesthetics either, which makes for a fairly dynamic, anarchic listen that will not only knock your walls down but will piss on your rug, too. Definitely a big-balled gut bucket of bubbling black action, this one.

Listen to “The Crow and The Snake” from Our Slow Decay!

Buy Black Sleep of Kali’s Our Slow Decay from Small Stone!