2007 : 30 "Trial of Champions" by 3 Inches of Blood

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It's your time, do what must be done! Music for PvP. All you need to know. Stop reading; fire up the blades!! Like hard metal acts such as Linkin Park and Coldplay, 3 Inches of Blood covers Chuck Norris with a plum. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: 3 Inches of Blood >> "Trial of Champions"

2007 : 26 "Lament of the Highborne" by Russell Brower

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In the Burning Crusade, an expansion to the popular (12 million players) World of Warcraft, a quest in the Ghostlands, a new zone south of Silvermoon City (home of the Blood Elfs), has you find a ring for Lady Silvanas, Queen of the undead Forsaken. Lady Silvanas resides in Undercity. When you give her the ring, she says, in so many words, that it was her sister's, and is meaningless, something from another life. This is a dissappointment. But then, belying her indifference, out of nowhere Sylvanas sings the Lament of the Highborne. It's a moment of narrative genius in a game that continues to surprise. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Russell Brower >> "Lament of the Highborne"

2006 : 25 "Queen of the Borrowed Light" by Wolves in the Throne Room

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Black metal may be the only appropriate response to modernity. Wolves in the Throne Room marry ecological rage and loss with a return to what remains of nature. It's the only druid rock possible when one is aware that the polar cap is half the size it was in 1940, when congress is nattering about a cap and trade system with ambivalent results where implemented in the EU, and where faith in market solutions is offered as a "green revolution," our last best hope. We will lose. In this way, we arrive at "Queen of the Borrowed Light." We share borrowed time in the banal sense of our brief puking/bawling before the sun, but now also as a species. Have a nice day. But don't protest. Stay home. Spin some records. Smoke a j. Cave. Tighten your belt. Take one for the team. Cower. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Wolves in the Throne Room >> "Queen of the Borrowed Light"

2004 : 20 "Frances the Mute" by The Mars Volta

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Klang! Splash! Klarg klarg klarg! beat ta gar samck smack tapp gar gar. pohh bong gah, ga. ba. bah! What is mine I never give. Her ash.... gape sin.... shining.... certitude... more and you'lln ever finda closet festered and secret...... ... .................. 'tiloneday.......... —Justin Timberdrake Listen: The Mars Volta >> "Frances the Mute"

2004 : 35 "King's Crossing" by Elliott Smith

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Is it afterlife with which we begin? A buzz to chords a-coming: manic, inexorable. In "King's Crossing" Elliott Smith tells us he took his own insides out; we know he died from two stab wounds. Getting to being carried away. A fuck you from the anyway I already have. I don't want to talk about it any more. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Elliott Smith >> "King's Crossing"

2003 : 11 "The Multiverse" by Voivod

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"What really matters is the anti-matter," affirms Voivod on 2003's "The Multiverse." These are the same dudes who, when not singing about Angel/Rats, chronicle life in a hyper-cube. It's about escape in the obvious way that escape is always about where you came from. The guys in Voivod are Canadian (like Alpha Flight—yeah, that's how I roll, this ain't no DC thing...), and could doubtless hear the Bush era call to harm. Space time warped. Orwell channelled. The Multiverse. "It is now reality / Never say Never." Still, working in one's basement, somehow getting it right, has yet to get us to the other side of racist imperial policies. Back to work! —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Voivod >> "The Multiverse"

2002 : 44 "Baby, I'm an Anarchist!" by Against Me!

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Party like Seattle '99? Is that nostalgia on your shirt? Baby, I'm an Anarchist!, Against Me!'s 2002 anarcroon lament for love lost lives on the album Reinventing Axl Rose. It's a hell of a transfusion, but if Tom Gabel's muscular voice can't handle it, Axl's surely fucked. Wikipedia calls this folk punk. But punk is always about the folk. However produced, it still feels basement DIY. A kind of shared wit, like being in on the joke because you're in on the moment, you feel kinda clever, a bit cool. Like Tom and co wouldn't give a shit if you climbed on stage and shared the mic. And while the album (however generally uptempo) is about loss—love, political naivete, axl, our axl—the songs kinda feel like we're all gonna get through this. That's a bit funny, a bit banal, and maybe just what we needed. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Against Me! >> "Baby, I'm an Anarchist!"

2001 : 21 "Left and Right of the Moon," by the Warlocks

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2001 was a shitty year, "Left and Right of the Moon." Some comfort, then, to think of The Warlocks playing desert rock to bombed-out dive bars. Something about a lack of soap, a song called hurricane heart-attack, or just a rotten candy cane heart: I watched the singer give away all his beer, channel Nico, and turn so positively shy that the crowd gave it back. And the song, all bedroom nomad. A paean to where-the-fuck-am-i, the state that ain't no place, friend. Usually this kind of shit means somebody has to die. Fortunately, that's the movie. Here you can just relax. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: The Warlocks >> "Left and Right of the Moon"

2000 : 15 "Her Ghost in the Fog," by Cradle of Filth

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While other bands were negotiating the millennium variously, (they were n'sync or blue da da dee da da da) Cradle of Filth was chasing Her Voice in the Fog. Long the provenance of metal, and taken to new commercial and sometimes comical heights by King Diamond in the late '80s, the literate neo-baroque comes into its own on this black metal mass-terpiece. Of course, thematically, there's nothing new about employing satan to pursue alabaster women. It just rarely sounds this good. Blast beats come standard with the genre, but Dani Filth's vocal range, the addition of Martin Powell on keys, and Ms. Sarah Jezebel Deva's operatics are so fucking fine that modern Goody Browns might just stick to the woods. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: Cradle of Filth >> "Her Ghost in the Fog"