Welcome back! We’re now onto part three of the annual Rock Sins end of year awards. After kicking off with Fran (read hers here) and James W (who’s awards you can read on this link here), it’s the turn of another new contributor to Rock Sins. Katie is joining the team primarily as a photographer but she was more than happy to contribute to Rock Sins end of year awards for 2014, so here’s what she thought of the year just gone…
Album of the year: Steel Panther – All You Can Eat
After 2011s mighty ‘Balls Out’ had such an incredible reaction from their audience, it was no surprise that 2014s ‘All You Can Eat’ rose to popularity so quickly. With bangers like ‘Party Like Tomorrow is the End of the World’ and the rather explicit ‘Gloryhole’ this album tops any other releases of 2014 for me. Good for those who enjoy light hearted catchy rock about incredibly NSFW subjects.
Honourable mentions:
Bloodshot Dawn – Demons
Slipknot – The Gray Chapter
Whitechapel – Our Endless War
Song of the year: Stick To Your Guns – Nobody
After their last album release in 2012 it came as a bit of a surprise to some when Stick To Your Guns released new song ‘Nobody’ towards the end of 2014. Lyrically and musically this song is incredibly catchy, with frontman Jesse Barnett’s vocals being unique and amazing, ‘Nobody’ is just as amazing as any other Stick To Your Guns classic – Not surprising at all, almost all releases are incredible!. Hardcore at its finest.
Honourable mentions:
Bring Me The Horizon – Drown
Video of the year: A Day To Remember – End of Me
For this pop punk outfit, the usual music video release involves quirkiness and silly themes, however for the popular song ‘End of Me’ off 2013s ‘Common Courtesy’, A Day To Remember had other plans for this video. With obvious intentions for the music video to be hard hitting ‘End of Me’ paints the picture of a young man watching himself grow old, constantly repeating the same actions day in day out fuelled with alcohol and abuse and loved ones becoming tired and walking away. The ending shows his younger self looking on as the present day old man that he has become is carried from his house by paramedics, pronounced dead, with the realisation that he has wasted his life and lost the only people who cared.
Gig of the year – Lamb of God
Lamb of God never fail to put on an amazing show and January 2014 proved this point completely. Finishing off a hectic 3 year world tour in 2014 for the 2012 release ‘Resolution’ supported by Decapitated and Huntress, the groove metal gods took to Manchester Academy to once again stun an almost sold out venue. Kicking off their set with the absolutely filthy ‘Desolation’, the crowd were immediately going wild. So much passion and chemistry took over the venue that night and it was incredibly unforgettable.
Honourable mentions:
Suicide Silence
Parkway Drive
Festival performance of the year – Megadeth (Bloodstock 2014)
There was no doubt in my mind when it came to choosing a band for this category that it had to be Megadeth. After touring in 2013 supporting their new album ‘Super Collider’ the boys came back hard and heavy the following year taking on the Sunday headlining spot at Bloodstock and took the festival by storm, turning the audience into a mass of crazed lunatics with massive hits such as ‘Sweating Bullets’ and ‘Holy Wars… The Punishment Due’.
Megadeth may not be everybody’s cup of tea, nor frontman Dave Mustaine’s voice, but they certainly pleased the thousands attending Bloodstock festival that night, with the majority leaving with smiles on their faces.
Honourable mentions:
Bloodshot Dawn
Children of Bodom
Amon Amarth
Most disappointing album of the year: Decapitated – Blood Mantra
As sad as it is to say, ‘Blood Mantra’ had to be the most disappointing album of the year for me. Unlike previous albums ‘Blood Mantra’ seemed to have so much less effort put into it, with only a couple really good songs such as ‘Exiled in Flesh’ and ‘The Blasphemous Psalm to the Dummy God Creation’. After heavy anticipation the expectation for this album was massive, hoping it would top 2011s ‘Carnival is Forever’, unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a disappointing flop.
Band of the year: Bloodshot Dawn
For Bloodshot Dawn, 2014 was a year of pure pride. Releasing the heavily anticipated ‘Demons’, taking on the main stage at Bloodstock after playing the Sophie Lancaster tent in 2012, thoroughly touring the UK and Japan and acquiring a massively deserved rather large fan base along with it.
But despite all the glory that the band has been given, they have remained a bunch of level headed lads, always staying passionate about the music they make and their adoring fans. I truly hope they’re proud of themselves!
Worst sound engineering of the year: Dimmu Borgir (Bloodstock 2014)
Bloodstock’s sound engineers seem to become worse at their jobs every year, however Dimmu Borgir’s ‘performance’ if you could call it that, really was the cherry on top of a deafening weekend. Attempting to kick off their set with ‘Allegiance’, Dimmu were not even half way through the song when things had already managed to fall apart and it became clear to the audience that by now the band were becoming angry with the way things were being handled. With an 8 song setlist cut short to around 4 songs, frustrated frontman Shagrath ended the set exclaiming, “That’s how it is when you work with incompetent people”.
Oops.
If you enjoyed Katie’s choices or if you want to discuss them with her you can look her up on Twitter at @LambofDeth. Stay tuned for the next installment of the Rock Sins 2014 end of year awards either tomorrow or Monday!
