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MS Awards 2018 - Staff Picks!!


Written by: ScreamingSteelUS
Published: 17.03.2019


Another edition of the Metal Storm Awards has come and gone. Names were taken, votes were counted, and that whole blood-soaked month passed in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, leaving us with another bevy of democratically selected champions by which to remember the year 2018. Of course, democracy is for rubes, which is why we, the staff, elites, and contributors who run this place, have once again taken it upon ourselves to share some wisdom and show the world who the true winners of the MSAs are.





2018 Metal Storm Staff Picks




Alternative Metal
Antimatter - Black Market Enlightenment

Ambient / Drone / Noise
Wolvennest - Void

Avantgarde / Experimental Metal
Sigh - Heir To Despair

Black Metal
Funeral Mist - Hekatomb

Death Metal
Chapel Of Disease - ...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye

Djent / Math Metal
Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It

Doom Metal
Messa - Feast For Water

Extreme Doom Metal
Et Moriemur - Epigrammata

Extreme Progressive Metal
Shining - X - Varg Utan Flock

Folk / Pagan / Viking Metal
Primordial - Exile Amongst The Ruins

Gothic Metal
Tribulation - Down Below

Grindcore
Mammoth Grinder - Cosmic Crypt

Hard Rock
Wytch Hazel - II: Sojourn

Hardcore / Metalcore / Deathcore
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want

Heavy / Melodic Metal
Dee Snider - For The Love Of Metal

Industrial / Cyber / Electronic Metal
Author & Punisher - Beastland

Melodeath / Extreme Power / Gothenburg Metal
Nekrogoblikon - Welcome To Bonkers

Melodic Black Metal
Necrophobic - Mark Of The Necrogram

Metalgaze
Møl - Jord

Post-Metal
Sinistro - Sangue Cássia

Power Metal
Visigoth - Conqueror's Oath

Progressive Metal
Voivod - The Wake

Sludge / Stoner Metal
Somali Yacht Club - The Sea

Symphonic Metal
MaYaN - Dhyana

Thrash Metal
Deathhammer - Chained To Hell

Debut
Gaerea - Unsettling Whispers





As you can see, there is some overlap between the general MSA results and the real results, but also a healthy amount of distinction. I, for one, am disappointed to see that not even my fellow staffers heeded my advice to vote Chthonic in Folk (I specifically told everyone at the start of the MSAs), but it's already well into 2019 now, so who is even still thinking about music from 2018 anymore? It's almost time to start work on the MSAs 2019! We'll see you soon enough for another round. Until then, we hope you've gotten the most out of this Awards season; have fun listening.






Written on 17.03.2019 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct.


Comments

Comments: 13   [ 1 ignored ]   Visited by: 238 users
17.03.2019 - 11:38
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Sometimes its beter be silent
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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17.03.2019 - 13:39
nikarg

Preposterous.
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18.03.2019 - 09:17
Ball Fondlers

It's a much better list than the actual winners for sure, which had way to many default winners (Soulfly,Immortal...). Most of these staff picks were my first or second choice
I'll give some of these another listen, such as Deathhammer and Wytch Hazel. Maybe Dee Snider too. I'll pass on Nekrogoblikon though
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18.03.2019 - 23:57
musclassia

Rolo Tomassi FTW, all is well!
So I picked 11 winners in the regular awards and 5 here, turns out I'm more mainstream than I thought
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20.03.2019 - 14:19
Kuroboshi

Yeah I like these picks. I'm glad that you observed Møl as well, which for me was the album of the year. Necrophobic was really rad, too.
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20.03.2019 - 15:45
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
For the record, I was sober when the decision to put Daughters in Hardcore happened
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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20.03.2019 - 20:55
nikarg

Written by Auntie Sahar on 20.03.2019 at 15:45

For the record, I was sober when the decision to put Daughters in Hardcore happened

Yeah man, what the fuck were we thinking
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20.03.2019 - 21:50
WorpeX
Made of Metal
Dee Snider over Firepower and Queen Of Time? Yikes. I dunnooo about that one. Sure it was a better album than any of us could have ever expected but its still pretty cheesy and lacking lyrically. Kinda feel like the staffers just wanted to be different and go against popular opinion there.
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20.03.2019 - 22:51
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Written by nikarg on 20.03.2019 at 20:55

Yeah man, what the fuck were we thinking

Not quite sure in retrospect, but industrial or even alternative would've been a much better fit for it. A lot of times in the MSA when I see users complaining about "WTF is X album doing in Y category," I normally ignore those comments as them simply blowing hot air, but this time around the grievances with the Daughters placement are totally spot on.
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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21.03.2019 - 09:40
Ball Fondlers

Written by WorpeX on 20.03.2019 at 21:50

Dee Snider over Firepower and Queen Of Time? Yikes. I dunnooo about that one. Sure it was a better album than any of us could have ever expected but its still pretty cheesy and lacking lyrically. Kinda feel like the staffers just wanted to be different and go against popular opinion there.

It seemed like more of a candidate for "Biggest Surprise", but it didn't even get a look in there. I remember when the album came out one of the staffers was really really impressed with it, but I still don't see how it beats the other two mentioned.
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23.03.2019 - 09:28
Tryss

I guess that's because it's Dee Snider, so there's some string attached. I say that, because I'm "guilty" of the same : if it was a first album by someone unknow, I would probably enjoy it a bit less. Life is unfair, and our brain are full of biais.

But in any case, I think we can all agree that it was a pleasant surprise and a solid album
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25.03.2019 - 22:19
MetalManic

Antimatter - Black Market Enlightenment. Despite it's dumb name, the album fully deserves it's status on the staff picks and quite honestly should have been the winner as chosen by fans.

Pretty cool. My personal top 10 included 4 of these (CoD, Trib., Roo, Anti.) Thanks for this list. Will be digging more
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04.04.2019 - 04:18
kaskadian

Glad to see Messa get props in the doom category.
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