Pitchfork’s Brandon Stosuy published his Top Twenty Metal Albums last month in his Show No Mercy column, and three of our favorite face-melters of the year made the cut!  Weighing in at number six is Enslaved’s Vertebrae on Nuclear Blast, brilliantly described as, “a smeary, tightly composed collection of progressive psychedelic post-black metal.”

At number ten we have Florida’s tech-minded prog metal elder statesmen, Cynic, with their first album in fifteen years, Traced In Air.  Released via French powerhouse Season of Mist, this reunion album is “a jam-packed, carefully orchestrated King Crimson-style tone poem.”

Darkthrone’s fourteenth long-player Dark Thrones and Black Flags is sitting pretty at lucky number thirteen.  Stosuy calls the Peaceville release “one hell of a strange and compelling blackened punk collection.”

Check out the full list, along with many of the artists’ own picks, right here.

Sune Rose Wagner /Juvenile Delinquent / BUY

Fans of Sune Rose Wagner’s dayjob — jointly fronting sleek noir-rock two-piece The Raveonettes — won’t be disappointed by this stripped down solo venture. That is, if they don’t mind foreign languages. Indeed, the Danish Wagner is offering up this record of vintage Specter pop and hazy half-shoegaze, all delivered in his native tounge. But Danish is a beautiful language, complimenting Wagner’s soothing coo perhaps even better than the English he’s employed on countless Raveonettes releases. The stand out here is the blissful “Beruset of Forhadt,” available for download below.

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The Holloways are a cheeky lil’ lot from North London who deliver light-hearted pop songs with a classically British flair. Despite having the attitude of a gang of skint kids just looking to have a good time, they’ve had four singles hit the UK Top 40 charts. Their latest offering, full of charming accent-heavy vocals, is the four song EP named after its lead-off track, Sinners & Winners. Playful and inviting, the songs bounce around with jubilant harmonies and infectious melodies. Their upcoming long-player, Tales From The Tarmac, will be released in February with a whole new batch of hopelessly catchy riffs.

Never ones to forget their true fans, The Holloways once played a show on top of their van for a mass of underaged kids who weren’t able to get into a gig. Respect.

This morning Wu Music Group, the newly formed label run by the administrative mind of Mitchell “Divine” Diggs and the creative force of Wu-Tang Clan’s chief architect “The RZA” (and home to all things Wu), announced The RZA Presents Afro Samurai: Resurrection. The album will be the second new release from Wu Music Group, following 2007’s 8 Diagrams.

But this isn’t just any Wu-Tang release. Afro Samurai: Resurrection is the soundtrack to the second season of Afro Samurai, an animated series executive produced by and starring Samuel L. Jackson as a black samurai hell bent on revenge. RZA soundtracked the first season in 2007 with collabos with the likes of Big Daddy Kane, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, and more. Afro Samurai: Resurrection continues the trend with tracks featuring members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Kool G Rap, Rah Digga, and new Wu Music Group proteges such as Boy Jones, the late ODB’s son. RZA’s streaming the first two singles on his Wu Music Tube right now, and the album hits stores on January 27th, the same day season two starts airing on SPIKE TV. True Afro Samurai fans can grab the Afro Samurai: Resurrection video game for PS3 or XBox 360 on the same day and the Afro Samurai: Resurrection DVD with extras on the DVD on February 3rd. Tour dates after the jump.

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Trustkill is the brainchild of its current president, Josh Grabelle.  Starting out as a hardcore punk fanzine, it quickly moved into the role of record label when Grabelle decided to release a compilation. The move turned out to be a good one, and Trustkill’s wide array of rock, metal and hardcore releases has now earned them the recognition of being one the most important hardcore labels out there, with such notable albums as Poison the Well’s “Opposite of December.”

So, we asked Josh to let us know what releases he couldn’t stop playing this year.

THE GASLIGHT ALBUM - 59 Sound
VOLBEAT - Rock the Rebel/Metal the Devil
FOUR YEAR STRONG - Rise or Die Trying
CHILDREN OF BODOM - Blooddrunk
HEAVAN SHALL BURN - Iconoclast
ANBERLIN - New Surrender
RISE AGAINST - Appeal To Reason
BRING ME THE HORIZON- Suicide Season
ALKALINE TRIO - Agony & Irony
BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE - Scream Aim Fire

And to refresh your memory, Trustkill put these records out in 2008:

STONERIDER - Three Legs Of Trouble BUY
THIS IS HELL - Misfortunes BUY
CRASH ROMEO - Gave Me The Clap BUY
WALLS OF JERICHO - Redemption BUY
BLEEDING THROUGH - Declaration
WALLS OF JERICHO - The American Dream BUY
TERROR - Forever Crossing The Line
ADVERSARY - Singularity

The glossy for contemporary media aficionados, Paste Magazine, spoke well of some of The Rind’s most cherished releases in their Best of 2008 album picks. The SF boys The Dodos, whose sound has been dubbed “acoustic troubadour meets freak-folk,” made the list with their Frenchkiss debut, Visiter. Icelandic one-man band Mugison got some love for his fourth cut, Mugiboogie. Indie pop favorites, Mates of State, came back for another acclaimed round with Re-Arrange Us, while The Raveonettes perfected their fuzzed out noir-rock on February’s, Lust Lust Lust. We’re also proud to see The Walkmen on the list, not only because of their stellar album, You & Me, but also thanks to their impressive charity efforts.

Take a look at the rest of the list here.

The Times recently published a month-by-month list of the best albums that grabbed critics’ ears in 2008, and we must say that they have some incredible taste in music! We’re proud to report that seven of the artists mentioned are part of The Rind family. Peter Broderick’s album, Home, was hailed for its raw power and clever delivery while Mugison’s Mugiboogie was praised for its passion and ferocity. Earlier in June, Joan As Police Woman released the moving To Survive, brimming with reflection and melancholy. Jim Noir gained respect with his self-titled Tower Of Love follow-up, which garnered comparisons to the Beach Boys and Badly Drawn Boy. The late great Jeff Healey received much praise for his platinum-selling grammy-nominated albums, and his final record, Mess Of Blues, is no exception. After a five-year hiatus, the fuzztone soul group, The Dirtbombs, rocked with doo-wop splendor on their last release, We Have You Surrounded. And never a group to forget, Nada Surf returned with their latest exploit, Lucky, which was regarded as hugely rewarding by our British friends.

It’s good to hear that the folks across the pond at The Times found some of our nearest and dearest to be the objects of their admiration. Check out their list in its entirety right here.

Death Cab For Cutie / Something About Airplanes [Deluxe Edition] / Barsuk Records / BUY

Ten years after its initial release, Death Cab For Cutie’s Something About Airplanes still sounds every bit as defining as it did in 1998. Predating the band’s meteoric rise to alt.weekly super-stardom (and a good seven years out in front of their Billboard conquering major label releases Plans and Narrow Stairs), this ten track offering is where it all began. Ben Gibbard’s plaintive vocals, Chris Walla’s unadorned guitar lines, and all the calling cards this little band from Bellingham built a throng of adoring fans on make appearances. The special deluxe reissue, courtesy of the fine folks at Barsuk Records, comes with a companion collection of performances from the February ‘98 live performance that marked the band’s Seattle debut. For completists and casual fans alike, not to be missed.

By now you know the story: former Death From Above 1979 member Jesse Keeler joined up with Al-P to form the ultra-ominous dance juggernaut MSTRKRFT , hitting the ground running in 2006 with a handful of singles and the smash album, The Looks . Since then the duo has been packing out dingy basement clubs with their seductive grooves and sweaty house beats, and their hyper-sexed disco services have been called upon to remix tracks from the likes of Block Party, Metric, The Gossip, Wolfmother, and John Legend. As colossal and bold as the title implies, their new album, Fist Of God , hits stores in March under the Dim Mak and banner. As the band told Billboard :

"We wanted to make a record that was more ideologically like a throwback to when rap and R&B production was old school; the line between that and dance was very blurry," he says. "We knew people were gonna hate, because idiots don’t like music because they like listening to it. They use it as a way of defining who they are. When it changes, it leaves them in a tough spot — ‘I can’t use this to create my identity anymore’ — and their reaction is negative."

Nothing but positive reactions over here, though. After all, it is a new MSTRKRFT record, and one that features contributions from N.O.R.E., Ghostface Killah, E-40, Lil’ Mo, and John Legend. In the meantime, enjoy some B.O.U.N.C.E.

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Frenchkiss Record ’s New Zealand new-wavers, Cut Off Your Hands are counting the days until liberating their debut LP in the US, You & I . And it would seem, everyone else is too. The press is buzzing after the Auckland quartet circled the globe on an international tour and added to their untameable reputation with all new antics (you know, like breaking a foot from a balcony jump at a London gig and continuing the show anyway). To keep frenzied fans happy after the initial success of the stop-gap Happy As Can Be EP,  the group premiered a new track from the album on Pitchfork last week. Satisfy that need for rapid-fire pop with a small taste but brace yourself for the full album release shortly after the passing of the new year.

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