Circle of Animals

100 Unheralded Albums from 2010

Among the thousands of under-appreciated or under-publicized albums that were released in 2010, hundreds became our favorites and were presented in ALARM and on AlarmPress.com. Of those, we pared down to 100 outstanding releases, leaving no genre unexplored in our list of this year’s overlooked gems.

Gnaw Their Tongues

The Metal Examiner: Gnaw Their Tongues’ L’Arrivée De La Terne Mort Triomphante

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Gnaw Their Tongues: L’Arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante (Crucial Blast, 9/7/2010)

Gnaw Their Tongues: “L’Arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante”
[audio:http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Gnaw_Their_Tongues_LArrivée_De_L.mp3|titles=Gnaw Their Tongues: “L’Arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante”]

L’Arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante is the new five-song full-length under the Graw Their Tongues moniker, the creation of Mories, a man with a history in the Dutch extreme-metal scene dating back to the early ’90s.  From the start, it intends to put listeners on edge by presenting sheer sonic terror — towering, string-infused sheets of noise, riffs, and chaos, with just enough melody lurking beneath it all to make it especially uncomfortable.

Circle of Animals

The Metal Examiner: Circle of Animals’ Destroy the Light

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Circle of Animals: Destroy the LightCircle of Animals: Destroy the Light (Relapse, 10/12/2010)

Click here to download Circle of Animals’ “Poison the Lamb”
[audio:http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Circle_of_Animals_Poison_the_Lamb.mp3|titles=Circle of Animals: “Poison the Lamb”]

Producer/multi-instrumentalist Sanford Parker (Minsk, Buried at Sea) and saxophonist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) have long and assorted ties in and around Chicago, where the two reside and contribute to the city’s vibrant underground.

Parker, in addition to his main gig in Minsk, has produced the likes of Pelican, Rwake, Unearthly Trance, Jai Alai Savant, Lair of the Minotaur, and Nachtmystium, and Lamont, outside of Yakuza, recently finished recording a solo album and regularly plays with other experimental metal and noise outfits (Decayist, Sick Gazelle) as well as improvised-jazz players (Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, Dave Rempis).

Each man’s résumé is a mile long, and now the two have come together to pay tribute to Chicago’s late-’80s and early-’90s Wax Trax! industrial scene with their new project, Circle of Animals. A diverse and widely recognizable cast of drummers rounds out the lineup on this release, with names like Dave Witte (Discordance Axis, Municipal Waste), John Herndon (Tortoise), John Merryman (Cephalic Carnage), and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) lending their talents.