Two thousand and seven was a golden year for the people who share our musical tastes. The expected rash of copyists of the out-of-the-blue successes of recent times (such as the big-rock of The Sword or the neo-folk of Circulus) failed to truly materialise - instead, innovators continued to uncover new ground whilst more familiar influences were utilised in bigger and better ways. Encouragingly, British input into the collective rock pool of stoner and doom and their like has scaled heights never seen before both in quality and quantity. Huge resurging returns of the mighty established names (Orange Goblin, Electric Wizard, Taint, Josiah) pitted their grooves in competition for needle space against plucky newcomers (Winters, Threads, Gentlemans Pistols, The Freezing Fog), as well as those at every stage in between (End of Level Boss, Suns of Thunder, Blood Island Raiders, Atavist, Ramesses....)
To top that off, the label of the year, with an astonishing eight of the combined top twenty albums of the year below, is surely London based Rise Above. It looks almost embarrassingly like we have been bribed, but only those who have not heard any of these albums would even dare venture such a wicked accusation, such is the blatant enjoyment they have generated. Rise Above weren't the only consistent label throughout the year. The American pair of Tee Pee and Kemado helped usher in a new wave of space rock with the likes of Danava and Titan. Exile on Mainstream released album after album of brilliant German alternative rock alongside stoner heavyweights from the US and the UK. Invada gained real momentum and supplied the All Tomorrow's Parties festival with the best line up in its history and Calculon Records and Sound Devastation provided much needed assistance to the underground UK sludge and post-rock scenes respectively. A final word should go to Meteor City, who celebrated ten years in existence - I know I owe them a debt of gratitude for their influence on my early stoner rock discoveries - so congratulations to them.
In the live environment, there seemed to bigger, better and more frequent un-missable gigs across the land - and abroad, with the intimidating scale of the Roadburn festival 07 line up luring hordes of people towards the airports and ports destined for Tilburg. There was the spectacle of Sunn 0))) and Boris combining to perform 'Altar' in London, supported by Earth none the less, and Neurosis made their annual trip to the capital. I had the pleasure of witnessing Boris play a chapel in Salford - an experience I will never forget, and one I constantly remind my friends of who could not attend. The ninehertz promoted gigs were the best we have ever had the fortune to be involved with - putting on bands, from home and abroad, such as Beehoover, Dexter Jones' Circus Orchestra, Toner Low, Josiah, Agent of the Morai or End of Level Boss - with the grand centre piece of our gig-promoting year being the all-dayer featuring bands from our forum, despite the exhaustion we all had to be treated for afterwards.
All in all it was by far the best twelve months for albums that I can ever remember. The contenders for our top ten, when we first sat down to fight over what deserved to be held above its peers in our humble opinions, were numerous, and the outcome was opaque until the end. The votes for the reader's choice came in in their hundreds, yet the result again was so close, to the point where the last vote we received managed to alter the result at the last.
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