TranscendNoise

40. Gas – Rausch  Like many albums of this year´s list, Rausch represents a way to channel the recent Zeitgeist in sound. Gas build Rausch to grapple with the ideas of home, nationalism and right-wing sentiments, hijacking them for their absurd politics for a visceral thump that overrides any sense of comfort and meaningful discourse. The best description there is, is placing yourself, sonically, on the fringes of a Volksfest and experiencing the same sounds and affects as Rausch in its 60-minute runtime. The instinctive stomp, the musicality of feet marching lurking in the back all the time, surfacing for acute minutes of semblance, horror, even warmth to die out again and get lost in the miasma of sound that Wolfgang Voigt creates. Rausch evokes two distinct feelings and collapses them for a political and social statement: The feeling of ecstasy and the feeling of stark discomfort that can only exist in traditionalism and the untraceable affect of your environment going sour...

90. Lingua Ignota – Holy Is The Name (Of My Ruthless Axe) Kristin Hayter first made an impression through her work with the body. The at once beautiful and violently commanding strenght of her voice gave rise to many of the finest moments of the newest output of No One Deserves Happiness and I Have Fought Against It . Her solo work as Lingua Ignota is as pressuring to be comprehended and positions toward in the same way. Self-released in 2017, Profound Lore gave All Bitches Die a major release this year and thus it is only right to highlight the intensity of “Holy is The Name (Of My Ruthless Axe”. Closing an album of industrial electronics mixed with metal and operatic vocal styles, “Holy Is The Name” is a nocturnal and transcendental conclusion. Hayters performance opens towards the operatic and ecclesial music while still grappling with rape and sexual violence in the framework of vengeance. It brilliantly captures the exhaustion of laying down between cold bodies of your aggre...