Well, I guess we’ve finally reached that moment, but before I reveal my favourite song and album of the year, I do want to give out consolatory honours to some albums and songs that, had I been ranking things this year, would’ve been right up there at the top, competing for bearded glory. I’ve already mentioned Black Mountain’s Wilderness Heart, Sweet Apple’s Love & Desperation, Dirty Sweet’s American Spiritual, and The Kings of Frog Island’s III, all of which should be highlighted, but I want to add the following albums and songs into their company…

High On Fire’s Snakes for the Divine, The Sword’s Warp Riders, Year of No Light’s Ausserwelt, Agalloch’s Marrow of the Spirit, Tweak Bird’s Tweak Bird, Souvenir’s Young America’s The Name of the Snake, and The Adjusters’ Reckless Relations. Every single one of ‘em is highly recommended.

Shit, I don’t think I can stop there. Okay, let’s also add Night Horse’s Perdition Hymns, Alcest’s Écailles de lune, Dead Trooper’s Cynicist, Brother Dege’s Folksongs of the American Longhair, Trap Them’s Filth Rations, the Melvins’ The Bride Screamed Murder, Electric Wizard’s Black Masses, Torche’s Songs for Singles, Violent Soho’s Violent Soho, Daughters’ Daughters, and Year Long Disaster’s Black Magic; All Mysteries Revealed. I could probably keep going, but these stand-outs will have to do.

As for songs, there was Black Mountain’s “The Hair Song” and “Sadie,” and Sweet Apple’s “Do You Remember,” and “Flying Up a Mountain,” but there were two others I had a tendency to play over and over again all year long, and those were Against Me!’s “Spanish Moss” and The Sword’s “Night City.”

But now, let’s just get this damn year-end thing over with…

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Night Horse
Perdition Hymns
Tee Pee

Even though they hail from the City of Angels, Night Horse carry themselves with that Americana swagger befitting East Coast brawlers, chucking big, dopey, boogie-fried riffs at you like ham-sized fists that leave deep, lasting bruises. Picking up where their 2008 debut, The Dark Won’t Hide You, left off, Perdition Hymns lays the Southern stoner rock on nice n’ thick, incorporating plenty of organ, slide, and 70s-infused boxcar blues to send you on a weed-eating nostalgia trip to Altamont and back. Sure, it’s got all the dusty charm of Skynyrd or the Allmans, and sounds like a nasty mix of Cracktorch and the ‘Crowes, but ultimately (and maybe it’s because of the way singer Sam James Velde howls at the blood red moon) the songs on Perdition Hymns come off as bastard inventions from an alternate universe where Danzig grows up a wayward cowboy and not Lucifer’s brawny spawn.

Listen to “Shake Your Blues” from Perdition Hymns!