It's here. It's finally here. I've waited all year for it, and it's finally time for The 2016 Jester One Music Top 20 Countdown. We've got old bands coming back, we have new bands making splashes, and we have a ton of music from my home state of Ohio, so without wasting too much time on the intro, let's go ahead and kick the door down with some songs that had a good run but ultimately did not make it into the Top 20 in 2016. There are actually 5 songs here that came from bands who previously charted on countdowns, and I feel that is a good sign for music going forward.
Raubtier - Bothniablod
Raubtier are a frantically heavy Swedish industrial metal group that constantly provide heavy and electronically distorted songs with punishing Swedish lyrics (the album title Bärsärkagång literally means berserk rage). The song tells the tale of wolves hunting in the northern Bothnia region of Sweden. It's thunderous and probably the heaviest song that had a chance to make it this year, but it just didn't have enough steam at the end of the year. I did enjoy the majority of this album despite the song not making the final 20.
The Moth & The Flame - Live While I Breathe
The Moth & The Flame are a relatively young group with a penchant for using upside-down ampersands. I guess we all have to have something, right? I remember first hearing this song on one of my TuneIn rock channels and thinking they had a great alternative dynamic going for them. It's a fun and easy song about living life to the fullest. I wasn't overly impressed by anything else I heard from them but I do enjoy this song quite a bit.
Born of Osiris - The Other Half Of Me
Born of Osiris just missed returning to the countdown after laying a sonic assault on 2013 with their album Tomorrow We Die ∆live and the #5 track that year
"M∆chine". I thought for sure that this song or "The Sleeping and The Dead" would surely crack the 2016 countdown, but they find themselves on the outside looking in. It's still a good album but I wouldn't call it an improvement on their previous effort. It's more of the same, which is less exciting to me right now. Either way, this is a solid track.
After the Burial - Collapse
There is a lot of metal showing up in the just missed discount bin here at J1. After the Burial are another djent-metal band following the likes of bands like Periphery and Veil of Maya except that they find themselves just outside of our countdown. They endured the death of their rhythm guitarist Justin Lowe and put out another solid disc which rose to #1 in the Billboard Rock chart and #50 on the Top 200. Great song, great dynamic, good groove.
Beartooth - King of Anything
Beartooth landed at #13 in 2014 with "Beaten in Lips" and almost cracked into 2016 with "King of Anything". The Columbus boys released an album that raced up the rock charts but was not as well critically received as their debut effort. They're still my boys and I'm hoping to see them next time they come back home. "King of Anything" is a softer effort than their usual sound but I found it worked well with what I was going through at the time.
Honorable Mention: Her Echo - Bigot; Foo Fighters - Saint Cecilia; Chevelle - Get Burned; Vesperteen - Shatter in the Night; Meg Myers - Lemon Eyes; My Dear Addiction - A Promise; Everything in Slow Motion - Coma; Before Their Eyes - It's Always Dark Inside With You; Daymare - What You Wanted; Garbage - Sometimes.
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