The Number One album of 2017

The Number One album of 2017

We are approaching the deadline for your lists for the Top 20 Countdown of 2019. That deadline is early December 13… So, if you want to contribute, send them now, send them HERE! But before we start the Countdown of 2019 we look back at those past 10 years of Stoner HiVe. Indeed, we celebrate 10 years. 10 years of heavy riffs, romps and stomps! 10 years of heavy magic! That all started back in 2009 when the blog started, just so we would have a vehicle to count down the best 20 albums of 2009. The edition of 2017 had 76 lists to tally, a first decline in sent in lists since 2009, but it still made the outcome more valid then when we started back in 2009. That list, deduced out of the lists sent in by 76 heavy music fiends,  started with no less than three albums on Number 20! Those three were: Royal Thunder – Wick, Radio Moscow – New Beginnings & The Devil And The Almighty Blues – II. It featured Ufomammut and their 8 album on Number 3 and the amazing Rust album by Monolord on Number 2. For the entire Top 20 of 2017, visit the Countdown So Far post on Stoner HiVe… But what album ended up on the Number One position back in 2017... Well, that’s when we wrote:

“We have arrived at the Number One spot. The Gold Medal. The Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown that started on December 13th ends today, on the First of January of 2018. We jump another seventy points from Monolord and their amazing Rust album on Number Two to reach the top position. An album by a band that has made the Number One position every year they released an album. (Well, since 2011) So, they must be doing something absolutely right for all you lovely freaks out there. You gals and guys voted this album to be the best one released this year. As you did back in 2011 and in 2015. Well. There is no need to beat around the bush here, we all know what is coming. The Boston trio released another thrilling album that kept us spinning the record until the needle ran through the groove. Their mixture of psychedelic rock, heavy stoner and epic metal has you soaring through all the marvelous dreams they evoke. The progressive nature of the music they create has them searching for new boundaries every time again. Hence, guest spots were filled during the making of this album and the trio became a quartet or even a quintet. Adding extra guitar, keys and pedal steel to the sound, and adding vibrancy and lushness to a sound that already seemed to have everything. It is riff-awesome, tasty melodic, soulful and catchy metal. But above all, the tectonic tension arcs that we know this band to deliver have evolved into something other worldly. It seems to reflect something completely different and perhaps upside down. So yes, there can be only one, and now,  right before everyone around the globe has celebrating the coming of 2018 we present to you the Number One Spot, The Gold Medal according to all the lovely freaks that voted... Here it is... “

Yes, it is the third time we revisit an Elder album. But is it really revisiting when it is only two years old and you still play it regularly enough? And is it, looking back at all three, as good as  Dead Roots Stirring or Lore? That will probably be just a matter of taste? Or perhaps it will take another few years before we can really say which made the bigger splash, had the largest impact or had the most musical mojo. Personally, I have Lore and Dead Roots Stirring both on such a high pedestal that Reflections falls a tiny bit short of competing with those two. Perhaps because the leap forward was there, but not as big as when Lore came out? It merely cemented their position as one of the interesting bands out there…

Elder - Reflections of a Floating World

(For the rest of the Top 20 of 2017, visit the Countdown So Far post on the blog...)