![Me and That Man – Songs of Love and Death [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Me-and-That-Man-Songs-of-Love-and-Death-01-768x768.jpg)
It always struck me as curious, that Nergal didn’t branch out with any other such notable side-projects. 2016 came and went, and with it Nergal’s single-minded dedication to Behemoth. But in 2017, his Me and That Man project saw fit to release Songs of Love and Death.” A very special episode of Nergal and the Man.
![Ancestral – Master of Fate [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/1000x1000-1.jpg)
“A couple of years ago, I did a favor for Underground Symphony Records, and they retaliated by sending me a package of OOP and/or hard to find old power metal CDs — much to my delight. Amongst those CDs was the 2007 debut of Sicily’s Ancestral, a work of rough-edged, chaotic, yet surprisingly aggressive and adept power metal. Skip ahead a handful of months, and the band was announcing its upcoming sophomore release on Facebook after a wait of nearly a full decade.” Italian treats minus the dairy.
![Troldhaugen – Idio+syncrasies [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/a2452319573_10-768x768.jpg)
“Are you ready for absolute fucking madness?! Troldhaugen sneaked into view in 2014 with their sophomore album Obzkure Anekdotez for Maniakal Massez, a madcap rollercoaster that blended insane genre-hopping avant-garde with a touch of folk into a spiraling descent through a parody of an asylum.” Insanity is clarity.
![Cascades – Cascades [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Cascades-Cascades-001-768x767.jpg)
“This might be difficult to believe, coming from an adult who pretends to be a Muppet and uses his free time to write about metal for $0.00/hr, but sometimes I make decisions which are… well, I won’t say ‘stupid’, as I’m a freakin’ genius, yo….But being of such mortal-mindset transcendence, I’ve been known to choose me a choice or two that made roughly zero sense to roughly everyone who wasn’t me. I walk the Oz-ian line of ideas most frequently when I’m out Bandcamping, where something as simple as a particularly fetching album cover can damn me to another week of poverty.” Live for art, not money.
![Blaze Bayley – Endure and Survive [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Blaze-Bayley-Endure-and-Survive-768x768.jpg)
“The true wisdom of age is learning when not to give a fuck anymore and just doing what works. Endure and Survive—which marks Bayley’s 8th solo album since 2000 and is a description of what he’s been doing all this time—is one more piece of Bayley’s gritty dedication to just playing heavy fucking metal.” He has the SPACE…madness!
![Redemptor – Arthaneum [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Redemptor-Arthaneum1.jpg)
“By technical death metal standards, Arthaneum is an odd but compelling beast that stands-out by operating outside the box, while holding all the trademarks avid listeners of the style have come to expect. The intricate and complex musicianship impresses in all departments, but there’s a more measured, controlled approach, rather than purely focusing on unrelenting barrages of speed and cramming as many notes and ideas into each song as humanly possible.” There’s no place like tech-death for the holidays.
![Pillorian – Obsidian Arc [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Pillorian-Obsidian-Arc-001-1-768x768.jpg)
“There is a river in us all. It flows a unique spirit through our veins, the life blood of individuality. It gives our identities health and life, and drowns the rest of the world. We float along our own rivers of inspiration, each current of catharsis unique to its respective sojourner yet universally binding us in our need to follow these fjords on a slow course to oblivion, until there is nothing left of us here. Dark is the River ov Muppet, not unlike the waves of Black Lake Ni∂stång which carried me through the falling snow of Maine’s dead winter days for years. What I’m trying to say is that I really, really miss Agalloch.” Join the club, bub.
![Amenra – Mass VI [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cover_1506107995932995-768x768.jpg)
“Sometimes life gets dark. I’m not referring to the bullshit in the news, the whore we know as world politics, or the hopeless struggle to remediate the things we’ve done to this planet. No, I mean things get dark. For how selfish it sounds, sometimes things happen to you that make all the worldly issues scatter across the floor, like mercury from a broken thermometer. No matter how you try, you don’t give a shit about anything as you fall deeper and deeper into yourself. That’s the power of depression.” Given to the falling.
![Counterparts – You’re Not You Anymore [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Counterparts-Youre-Not-You-Anymore-01-768x768.jpg)
“An old teacher once told me that the best poetry conveys a sense of longing. I would argue the best music does the same thing. Perhaps that’s what first drew me to Canadian melodic hardcore quintet Counterparts about four years ago, when life was growing difficult and the only solace was a long jog through the woods while listening to the group’s 2010 debut Prophets.” Fear and longing at AMG.
![Serenity in Murder – The Eclipse [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Serenity-in-Murder-The-Eclipse-01.jpg)
“There’s a special little subcategory of my year-end list this year that I’m tentatively dubbing “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Finnish!” With much of that country’s melodeath old guard either disbanded, commercialized, or in an ongoing slump, it makes sense that other countries are picking up the slack. And one of the finest examples of the faux-Finn sound you’ll hear this year comes straight from Japan.” Japan to the rescue.
