Top Dead Celebrity S/T
Accidente Exotic Payday
Diesto Isle of Marauder
Like Edward Norton in Fight Club, I’ve never been in a fight. However, I assume getting punched in the face is pretty similar to listening to these three albums from Utah-based Exigent Records.
Honestly, how many good metal albums begin with faux-wind sounds? It should be a metal prerogative—warning listeners of the audio-apocalypse that cometh. Still, no amount of warning could prepare you for Top Dead Celebrity’s brutal assault. After a brooding intro, singer Jeff Anderson kicks it out with a blood-curdling scream on the aptly titled “Lucifer’s Hammer.” And the album never lets up. Between fist-pumping verses and heavy breakdown-choruses, each song on Top Dead Celebrity finds new hells to throw listeners in without sounding monotonous (a rare feat in metal). While many of their counterparts are happy with growling vocals, Anderson isn’t afraid to sing high—which makes a song about dinosaurs extra threatening (“Hey little miss dinosaur/ what do you think of my asteroid?”).
