The Best Of 2021

Celebrating new music is important. In the subculture, we are constantly faced with a chorus of people who will tell you that the genres are dead and that there is nothing good coming out anymore. This opinion alone indicts how out of touch a person can be. There is a deluge of incredible new music coming out every year and it is important to take the time to praise the work of those who contribute to the subculture's sonic archive.

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Best Hardcore / Punk LPs

1.) The Chisel - Retaliation (La Vida Es Un Mus)

2.) Gauze – 言いたかねえけど目糞鼻糞 (XXX)

3.) Ekulu - Unscrew My Head (Cash Only)

4.) Quarantine - Agony (Damage United)

5.) Section H8 - Welcome To The Nightmare (Flatspot)

6.) Rudimentary Peni - Great War (Sealed)

7.) Goodbye World - At Death's Door (Youth Attack) 

8.) God's Hate - God's Hate (Closed Casket Activities)

9.) Koma - Internment Failure (La Vida Es Un Mus)

10.) C-4 - Chaos Streaks (Triple-B)

11.) Rata Negra - Una Vida Vulgar (La Vida Es Un Mus)

12.) Scowl - How Flowers Grow (Flatspot)

13.) Porvenir Oscuro - Asquerosa Humanidad (La Vida Es Un Mus)

14.) Dead Heat - World At War (Triple-B)

15.) Tower 7 - ...Peace On Earth? (Roachleg)

Honorable Mentions

Jarhead Fertilizer - Product Of My Environment (Closed Casket Activites)

Hologram - No Longer Human (Iron Lung)

Nag - Observer (Self-Released)

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Best Metal Releases

1.) Gauntlet Ring - Upon The Wings Of The Black Eagle (Blood And Crescent)

2.) Pan-Amerikan Native Front ‎– Little Turtle's War (Self-Released)

3.) Dream Unending - Tide Turns Eternal (20 Buck Spin)

4.) Fellwinter ‎– Loyalty, Honor, Darkness (Self-Released)

5.) Worm - Foreverglade (20 Buck Spin)

6.) Gauntlet Ring - May The Skies Rain Blood Upon The Earth (Self-Released)

7.) Frozen Soul - Crypt Of Ice (Century Media)

8.) Gatecreeper - An Unexpected Reality (Closed Casket Activites) 

9.) Lamp Of Murmuur - Submission And Slavery (Black Gangrene)

10.) Stress Angel - Bursting Church (Stygian Black Hand)

11.) Antichrist Siege Machine - Purifying Blade (Profound Lore) 

12.) 200 Stab Wounds - Slave To The Scalpel (Maggot Stomp)

13.) Mortiferum - Preserved In Torment (Profound Lore)

14.) Hulder - Godslastering Hymns Of A Forlorn Peasantry (Iron Bonehead)

15.) Enforced - Kill Grid (Century Media)

Honorable Mentions

Genocide Pact - Genocide Pact (Relapse)

Hooded Menace - Blood Ornaments (Season Of Mist)

Full Of Hell - Garden Of Burning Apparitions (Relapse)

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Best Rap / Hip-Hop Releases

1.) Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (Age 101)

2.) Young Thug - Punk (YSL / Atlantic)

3.) Tyler, The Creator - Call Me If You Get Lost (Columbia)

4.) Benny The Butcher & Harry Fraud - The Plugs I Met 2 (Black Soprano Family)

5.) Westside Gunn - Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Sincerely Adolf (Griselda)

6.) Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales (RCA)

7.) Dave - We're All Alone In This Together (Neighbourhood)

8.) Boldy James & The Alchemist - Bo Jackson (ALC)

9.) Key Glock - Yellow Tape 2 (Paper Route EMPIRE)

10.) Conway The Machine - La Maquina (Griselda)

11.) Kanye West - Donda (GOOD Music)

12.) Peewee Longway & Cassius Jay - Longway Sinatra 2 (MPA BandCamp)

13.) Nas - King's Disease II (Mass Appeal)

14.) Maxo Kream - Weight Of The World (RCA) 

15.) Polo G - Hall Of Fame (Columbia) 

Honorable Mentions

Skepta - All In (Boy Better Know)

Mach-Hommy - Pray For Haiti (Griselda) 

Moneybagg Yo - A Gangsta's Pain (Roc Nation)

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Best Releases In Open Competition

1.) Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee (Dead Oceans)

2.) PinkPantheress - to hell with it (Parlophone)

3.) Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime (Matador)

4.) Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg (4AD)

5.) Dean Blunt - Black Metal 2

6.) Lil Ugly Mane - Volcanic Bird Enemy And The Voiced Concern (Self-Released)

7.) Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny haha (Secretly Canadian)

8.) Chubby And The Gang - The Mutt's Nuts (Partisan) 

9.) Chvrches - Screen Violence (Glassnote)

10.) Dawn Richard - Second Line (Merge)

11.) Sturgill Simpson - The Ballad Of Dood And Juanita (High Top Mountain) 

12.) Turnstile - Glow On (Roadrunner)

13.) Snail Mail - Valentine (Matador)

14.) Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon ● I (Epitaph)

15.) BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory (XL)

Honorable Mentions

Joy Orbison - Still Slipping Vol. 1 (Hinge Finger)

Iceage - Seek Shelter (Mexican Summer)

Lingua Ignota - Sinner Get Ready (Sargent House)

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Best Hardcore / Punk EPs

1.) Electric Chair - Social Capital (Iron Lung)

2.) Dollhouse - The First Day Of Spring (Toxic State)

3.) Never Ending Game - Halo & Wings (Triple-B)

4.) Chain Whip - Two Step To Hell (Neon Taste)

5.) The Chisel ‎– Enough Said (Wardance)

6.) Spy - Habitual Offender (Triple-B)

7.) Reek Minds - Rabid (11PM)

8.) Suffocating Madness - Suffocating Madness (Roachleg)

9.) Sunami / Gulch Split (Triple B)

10.) Ztuped - Are You Stupid? (11PM)

Honorable Mentions

Mess - Innercity (Offside)

Taqbir - Victory Belongs To Those Who Fight For A Right Cause (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Final Gasp - Haunting Whisper (Triple B)

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Best Demos

1.) People's Temple

2.) 80HD

3.) Sociedad Bastarda

4.) Indre Krig

5.) The Anarchy

6.) Kontaminate 

7.) Nisemono 偽者

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Best Sets 

1.) Warthog @ Undisclosed Location on July 30th 

2.) Public Acid @ Market Hotel on August 28th 

3.) Hank Wood And The Hammerheads @ Saint Vitus on September 23rd

4.) Skourge @ Meanwhile Brewing Company on July 10th 

5.) Cave In @ Saint Vitus on December 1st

6.) Nothing @ Elsewhere on October 15th

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