ninehertz

ninehertz is 20 years old, from the time it went live online, sometime in October or November 2004. Twenty years. When the core five of us - Amy, Ben, Carey, Mike and myself - started talking about this about a year earlier, we were aged between 18 and 23. It simply doesn't feel real that we're still at it. It's a part of us now, a core element of who we are, something we owned and shared and loved and toiled with for around half our lives, the majority of our adult lives.

We've been crap at promoting ourselves over the years, worse still at celebrating big dates such as this. On our 4th anniversary we put on a gig with some of our favourite bands (Chickenhawk, The Death of Her Money, Agent of the Morai, Breaking Colts and Beserkowitz); in 2014 I wrote an article for our tenth birthday. This article may be all we do for our 20th, although hopefully the group of us who started this journey will go out for a few drinks and fond reminiscence.

I thought it'd be interesting to chart the years through a list of our albums of the year. Our AOTY approach has changed year on year, with some big gaps where we didn't do it, some where we have individual choices, others chosen by our once active forum - so as it's my article, I've taken liberties and as such this is more my choice than the sites as a whole. I've tried to go with the releases loved most at the time, not in retrospect, to give a true flavour of the evolution in the site and of our scene.

2004 - The Hidden Hand - Mother Teacher Destroyer

We didn't end our first year with any AOTY lists, so I've gone back to what we reviewed, much of which (including Orange Goblin and Clutch reviews) was to feature in the abandoned paper zine we attempted before going online. But from all the reviews, the most enthusiastic that I wrote is for Wino and crew, an album I haven't listened to in a long time now but can still sing Magdalene in my head quite contentedly.

2005 - Clutch - Robot Hive/Exodus

Our first Album of the Year list polled writers and readers. Clutch came in the top two of both. When we started ninehertz, I loved Clutch. I barely even listen to them nowadays. Robot Hive was, to me, their last great album, the end of a streak of seven albums (if you include Slow Hole to China, as you should) that started with the self titled, which are all outstanding, a run I can barely think has been bettered by any band, certianly for so long. Robot Hive is still such fun, Clutch completely at ease with themselves by this point and the album oozes class and joy.

2006 - The Melvins - A Senile Animal

An incredible year - reading the AOTY article we wrote that year, the staff and readers' lists also include Kylesa, The Sword (Age of Winters!), Witch, Isis, Scissorfight, the Sunn O)))/Boris collab and Om. In amongst that company I reckon the Melvins are overplaced, in retrospect, but it was fun to see them being rejuvenated simply by consuming the entirety of the superior Big Business.

2007 - Witchcraft - The Alchemist

Another sparkling list - it was truly an incredible era of the music we are into - the staff top 10 list is all sublime, all but one (Russian Circles, presumably voted in by others) albums I still adore (including Here Come the Waterworks, Misanthropic Alchemy, The Sun Behind the Dustbin, Project:Death, Gentlemans Pistols and Witchcult Today). This time, I can't argue with the choice for number one. A glorious, timeless, beautiful record that still holds strong today.

2008 - Beehoover - Heavy Zooo

The first of four years where we didn't even bother doing any end of year review, so I'm making this up and can't help be influenced by retrospect... but there's no doubt for this choice - now and back then I'd say the same thing. It came out on vinyl only a month or so ago - telling that there's still demand for it so many years later - and it is no surprise. It is an album of weirdness and absolute wonder, perfect in so many ways, a crowning achievement of a band who deserve wider acclaim but have the love of so many of us who have been lucky enough for it to click.

2009 - Kylesa - Static Tensions

Is this even their best album? Hard to tell, some will argue for To Walk a Middle Course, others Time Will Fuse Its Worth. But what is undoubtable is just how essential this band were, and that run of albums, past Static... and up to Spiral Shadows at least, was heavy music at its most life affirming. They were in a group of U.S. bands in my mind - including Torche and Big Business - that found new spaces in doom, sludge and extreme music in general, and no-one has filled that void since Kylesa split.

2010 - Conan - Horseback Battle Hammer

We were fairly quiet around this time, little in the way of reviews and certainly no end of year lists. I've chosen Conan's debut because of its historic relevance - certainly in the narrative I told in my 2013 Doom Britannica article, it was their lead that spurred on the incredible rise of the modern doom scene in the UK that followed shortly after.

2011 - Meth Drinker - Meth Drinker

I possibly came to this late - after 2011 - so definitely stretching in the fallow ninehertz-content years here, but nonetheless, its good to get some pure sludge in this list, as the genre is as much beloved to us all as stoner rock or doom. Plus, Meth Drinker sounded like the end of the world as described from the gutter, so I'll happily pick it here.

2012 - Torche - Harmonicraft

This was the year ninehertz pulled back from the abyss, when we were close to calling it quits but got back on it, reviews, AOTY lists and all. There's no definitive winner, just a collection across multiple reviewers, but it'd be wrong to not pick Torche, a band of so much happiness, joy, riffs and most of all, top tunes. Sky Trials, Walk It Off, that outrageous album artwork... a worthy placing.

2013 - Blood Ceremony - The Eldritch Dark

This is a surprise, I knew I liked and listened to this band a fair bit back then, but can't remember holding it in this much regard. Yet it clearly states it as my album of the year, written by my hand. I got totally consumed by the proto doom rebirth, a fire lit by Witchcraft and then kept alight by Graveyard, Kadavar (whose second album also made my list this year) and seemingly Blood Ceremony. Listening back for the first time in a long time - it is good, the flute is a most excellent addition, but I'm still surprised at myself, and at, more to the point, of my memory.

2014 - Black Monolith - Passenger

Many other albums from '14 have stayed with me longer - Yob, Bast, Mantar - but I thought this band we're destined for big things and I recall being totally moved by this at the time; and perhaps its stock has dropped purely because there was no follow up, I'm not sure. Listening back, it is fantastic - doom and atmospheric black metal merging in this terrifying noise, it is a shame now to think they never went on.

2015 - Wiegedood - De Doden Hebben Het Goed

From black metal inflections the year before to straight up black metal in 2015, my tastes hadn't shifted as such, just broadened, and for a few years really embraced the darkness. And it wasn't the originators, the second wave, that got me, it was the fresh blood and none more so than this, just four tracks but end to end majesty.

2016 - Haast's Eagled - II

When I wrote the UK doom scene article three years previous, when I spoke of the vast promise of our undergound, it was because of the hope of songs like Pyaaz Bhonghi, which stills gives me shivers whenever I listen nowadays (as I do often), as much as it did back then.

2017 - Satan - Un Deuil Indien

This hasn't stayed with me as much as others further down my list that year (Ufomammut and Coltsblood in particular), but I do recall loving the base blackened punk thrill this provided. It is also telling due to its label - it was the era where Throatruiner Records ruled all, everything they put out was golden and pushed at genre boundaries and redefined extreme music to me.

2018 - Jotnarr - Jotnarr

A combined podcast of Mike and my top ten tracks each, I seem to remember being too drunk when we originally recorded - the recording was fine, but I was way too over the top with my swearing exhubarance declaring everything "fucking amazing". We had to do it again later the same week. Mike chose Mol for his number one slot, I went with Jotnarr. It didn't even properly come out until the following year. But it is such a great album - if we were to make a list of favourite albums from across our history, this may come out top for me.

2019 - Torpor - Rhetoric of the Image

Listening back to this AOTY podcast it's not totally clear which was my favourite, but it feels like I'm leaning most towards Torpor, despite a lot of love for Opium Lord and Blind Monarch, proof that doom in the UK was still going strong. With Blind Monarch's triumphant return in 2024, and Torpor blowing my head off once more in the live setting a few months back, there's no sign of it going away. Torpor have epitomised that all, a band that started off high and have risen steadily ever since.

2020 - Hey Colossus - Dances/Curses

I yield this pick to Mike - we didn't name a single album of the year, and my choice was likely the Emma Ruth Rundle/Thou collaboration - but it'd feel wrong not to feature Hey Colossus on this list. Not only because of how good they are, not only for their longevity, but they're a band who we feel entwined in our history (from our side at least). They started a year before ninehertz did, and right from the start they were the band we listened to, from Mike getting me into them with II, to Project:Death soundtracking our summer as all ninehertz members hung around together, right through to Dances/Curses and beyond, we have loved this band for as long as we have being doing this.

2021 - Atvm - Famine, Putrid and Fucking Endless

The culmination of my plan to utilise lockdown to get into death metal was in the discovery of London's Atvm. Death metal eluded me all my metal life, but my 100 albums in 100 days article for ninehertz opened it up to me, and to the glorious joy of music like this. The opening song, Sanguinary Floating Orb is crazy, wild and absolutely perfect.

2022 - Friend - Champion

This is exactly why I love having ninehertz as an avenue for my love of the world of doom and beyond - because it has shaped my musical listening approach, and broadened it so I'm always looking for new things. And when I come across a release like Champion, it is an absolute thrill. Doom and sludge and noise rock and hardcore from three Geordies with a smile on their face, I am impatiently eager for their follow up.

2023 - Jotnarr - Rotten Fucking Planet

Mike and I picked five releases each for the end of year podcast - only one was on both lists, Jotnarr. The only band to feature twice on here is evidence of their consistent greatness, in our eyes at least. What more can we say that we haven't before? And how many times can we big this band up? Very little - and as often as they are around and creating music that makes both Mike and I grin like fools.