BEST OF 2010 (albums) #3 Twilight - Monument To Time End (Southern Lord)

In the most 'what the fuck?' moment of the year for heavy metal, Twilight's groundbreaking and brilliant "Monument To Time End" was nowhere to be found on Year End lists. I intend to make up for that, because no other album reinvented black metal so exquisitely as "Monument" did. You can keep your Emerson Lake and Palmer, I mean Deathspell Omega, I'll take Twilight any day of the week, thank you very much. This was black metal reconstituted and writ large, bringing in influences from industrial to post-rock without ever losing its grim edge. In the end, "Monument" was one of the most complex and mind blowing metal releases in years. Many of the songs combined variant strains of metal, particularly Neurosis inspired post-metal, with blackened elements to great effect. The songs are not only intensely heavy, but are surprisingly, dare I say, oddly beautiful at times. There is something powerfully uplifting about these tracks, regardless of their dark origin. They sound like victory after immense struggle, and given the history of this USBM supergroup of sorts, it is a well won victory. Full review here.