Andrew's Top 10 of 2007 (and a little more)

It's impossible to really digest every hardcore, punk, metal – whatever genre – record that each year has to offer. So, while that should be a given when it comes to viewing year-end lists, I felt this year like I had an especially short amount of time to devote to a wealth of deserving records. I've even been scrambling in the past few months to somehow get my hands on releases that might go down as "best of 2007s," partly because I want to best represent my favorites of the year, and partly because I slept on stuff that I should have snatched up right away. So what's my point? Take my list, as well as any other, with a grain of salt – I don't hear it all, and these are what I consider the best of those I heard.

10. Darkest Hour "Undoing Ruin"
Likely featuring Darkest Hour's most graceful and confident songwriting to date, Deliver Us expands on 2005's Undoing Ruin with more melodies, guitar effects and textures. The record is rife with technical skill, and a testament to Darkest Hour's ongoing evolution.

9. 108 "A New Beat from a Dead Heart"
A New Beat from a Dead Heart carries 108's angular, metallic hardcore style into 2007 in striking, tense fashion. Clearly, this revived band still feels and knows hardcore, delivering an expectedly unique style, thoughtful lyrics and plenty of raw rage.

8. August Burns Red "Messengers"
I'm past being interested in most of the up-and-coming American metalcore bands but, with Messengers, August Burns Red proves that it can still be done with style. It's super tight, technical without being showy, massive, distinguished and in your face; it man-handles all the lame whiners and everyday deathcore bands.

7. Allegiance "Desperation"
Desperation will be Allegiance's last record, but it's safe to say that the band ended the same way it started in 2002: hard, heavy, raw and pissed off. I'll miss these guys.

6. A Wilhelm Scream "Career Suicide"
Three full lengths in, A Wilhelm Scream is yet to do anything wrong. Career Suicide is another batch of ripping, bitingly witty melodic hardcore punk songs, complete with guitar wizardry and slick production values.

5. Crime In Stereo "Is Dead"
Is Dead showcases a noticeably restrained Crime In Stereo, but the band's confident delivery of Brand New-influenced rock and melodic hardcore punk is natural and affecting. Not dead.

4. The Swellers "My Everest"
My Everest combines my favorite elements of late-90s Fat Wreck bands (fast speeds, strong singing, confident melodies) and modern-day guitar theatrics a la A Wilhelm Scream. It makes me feel young, it's got energy and feeling, and it's catchy. Score.

3. Shipwreck A.D. "Abyss"
Abyss is the story of one man's journey from the depths of the sea to the highest of peaks, set to a vicious, groove-y metallic hardcore soundtrack. Vivid imagery, loathsome, self-questioning lyrics and powerful musicianship abound.

2. Life In Your Way "Waking Giants"
Adding more melody and clean singing to the foundation that bands like Strongarm and Shai Hulud laid, Waking Giants packs a hefty punch, musically and emotionally, and plenty of well executed catchiness. For the record, "Salty Grave" goes down as the song I listened to more than any other in 2007.

1. Between the Buried and Me "Colors"
Colors is such an ambitious undertaking that it suffers from a few flaws and some unabashed indulgence, but it's an expansive, engaging, thoughtful and heartfelt exercise in prog-influenced metal with hardcore ethos. Seeing the band play it live in October sealed the deal.

Honorable Mentions:
Bad Religion "New Maps of Hell"
Blacklisted "Peace on Earth, War on Stage"
Ceremony "Scared People"
Comeback Kid "Broadcasting..."
Death Before Dishonor "Count Me In"
Die Young (TX) "Graven Images"
Go It Alone "Histories"
Lifetime "self-titled"
Municipal Waste "The Art of Partying"
Pig Destroyer "Phantom Limb"
Pulling Teeth "Martyr Immortal"
Seventh Star "The Undisputed Truth"
Soul Control "Involution"
Steel Nation "Soul Swallower"
Strung Out "Blackhawks over Los Angeles"
The Warriors "Genuine Sense of Outrage"
Wisdom In Chains "Class War"

Albums that probably rule that I didn't really listen to in time for making this list:
Modern Life Is War - Midnight in America
Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice
S.S.S. - Short Sharp Shock
Capital - Homefront
Gaslight Anthem - Sink or Swim