Best Album

Made Out Of Babies: The Ruiner
The End Records


An honourable mention should go to Funeral For A Friend’s Memory And Humanity which saw the Welsh screamos deliver on several years of much-hyped potential.

But… good God. Where did this come from? An ungodly hybrid of PJ Harvey, Machine Head and Kate Bush, the New Yorkers’ third album doesn’t sound like any metal I’ve heard this year. In fact, I’m not sure if it’s metal at all.

It is loud, guitar-based and, mostly, aggressive, but it offers few of the rhythmic certainties associated with hard rock and the performance of singer Julie Christmas is positively unhinged. And she looks so sweet…

It is the raw power of the songs that initially attracts, but repeated listenings reveal rich veins of melody and the satisfaction that comes of having discovered a band that really doesn’t sound like any other.




Best Concert

Ace Frehley
Astoria
11 April

It’s been a very good year for live shows, has 2008, particularly if you consider the re-emergence of heavy rock in all its diverse forms to be a good thing.

Both young tyros The Sword and superannuated veterans Budgie played storming sets at The Underworld, Slipknot, Motorhead and Journey (yes, Journey are a proper hard rock band) mightily impressed punters in Hammersmith and Ace Frehely reminded the Astoria that Kiss was always a great band by the simple expedient of playing their songs without the make-up, pyrotechnics or that pillock Gene Simmons cluttering up the stage.

Alright, he did have a guitar that lit up, but other than that this was a stripped-down, bare knuckle performance of his back catalogue that shoved the man’s irreverent wit and killer song writing skills to the fore.