Century Media Records artists dominate Decibel Magazine’s “Top 40 Albums of 2014”

Currently on newsstands featuring cover stars MASTODON, Decibel Magazine’s new issue (#123 // January 2015) contains the publication’s annual year-end “Top 40 Albums” list– with four Century Media Records artists earning top honors in 2014! See below for Decibel’s Top 10 picks:

Decibel Magazine’s “Top 10 Albums of 2014”
1. PALLBEARER – Foundations of Burden
2. AT THE GATES – At War With Reality (CENTURY MEDIA)
3. HORRENDOUS – Ecdysis
4. TRIPTYKON – Melana Chasmata (CENTURY MEDIA)
5. GODFLESH – A World Lit Only By Fire
6. THOU – Heathen
7. YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend
8. VALLENFYRE – Splinters (CENTURY MEDIA)
9. PANOPTICON – Roads to the North
10. MORBUS CHRON – Sweven (CENTURY MEDIA)

For the full list and more, be sure to purchase Decibel Magazine’s new issue in stores or online: http://store.decibelmagazine.com/collections/back-issues/products/january-2015-123

Recorded with the classic line-up of their latest masterpiece, Slaughter Of The Soul (1995), At War With Reality marks AT THE GATES’ first new release in 19 years. Never compromising their vision, this is an album that once again captures the honesty and integrity that has defined AT THE GATES, making them one of the most significant extreme metal names of the past 25 years. True devotees have always been excited by the band’s willingness to be diverse; this new effort continues that tradition after 19 years of anticipation. With this album, “the greatest Swedish Death Metal band ever reclaims their rightful throne” (Decibel Magazine).

Created in May 2008 to further develop the darkness invoked by its immediate precursors, seminal black/extreme metal pioneers HELLHAMMER and CELTIC FROST, TRIPTYKON evolved from a CELTIC FROST side project initiated by Tom Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom Gabriel Warrior), the group’s singer, guitarist, and main songwriter.

Best known as a founding member of UK gothic metal pioneers PARADISE LOST, Greg Mackintosh transformed the anger and sadness ensuing the loss of his father into VALLENFYRE’s death/doom/crust debut, A Fragile King (2011). This heartfelt and cathartic release is now followed-up by the even more abrasive and extreme second full-length, Splinters. Inspired by the likes of HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST, AUTOPSY, ANTISECT, DISCHARGE, NIHILIST, early NAPALM DEATH, early BATHORY, and CONFLICT, VALLENFYRE continues to dig deep into the roots of extreme music– yet due to Greg’s infallible song-writing skills, as well as the crushing sound courtesy of producer Kurt Ballou (CONVERGE, BLACK BREATH, BEASTMILK), Splinters is far from mere nostalgia.

With Sweven, MORBUS CHRON continues to develop the sound that they explored on the critically acclaimed Sleepers In The Rift (2011) and A Saunter Through The Shroud (2012), intertwining dark death metal with progressive song structures and melodies that are reminiscent of bands such as ATHEIST, VOIVOD, CORONER and late-DEATH. The end result is still, without a doubt, an extreme metal album, but it’s much more than that. The (often scarcely used) tormented voice of MORBUS CHRON’s mastermind Robert Andersson, the warm, yet gripping production of Fred Estby (ex-DISMEMBER, DAGGER), the psychedelic harmonies, and the overall complexity of Sweven sets the band apart from the rest. This is not your regular dose of death metal.