this years #1, Gutbucket's Flock, is one of the greatest albums I've ever heard in my life.
#2, Blotted Science's new EP comes right after. so, these two releases only would have been alright for me to enjoy 2011. #3, the debut by Sonne Adam and the latest effort of Protest the Hero on #4 are "extremely great", Hella on #5 is "very great" and Puteraeon on #6 is "great".

The rest is "very good" to "nice". the ranking from #7 to #15 was pretty spontaneous chosen. (Execration, Opeth, Blitzen Trapper, Cheer-Accident, John Zorn, Maim, Revocation, Cianide, Virus)

A: Tell me about Gutbucket.

B: Cheer-Accident? From Chicago? Holy shit! I haven't thought of those guys in years! They used to have a TV show on a Local Access Cable channel -- a bizarre music/sketch kinda thing that I would watch all the damn time in my pre-children days. It was so awful, that it was compelling. Thymme (pronounced: "Tim") and I have some mutual friends, too and have hung out (briefly) on a couple of occasions. That is, if these are the guys that I'm thinking of.

I think they basically are. There's not many founding members left, I think it's the drummer and the one guitarist. the others are way younger. and they have a lovely girl singing these days. I saw them here in a tiny club and afterwards we sat together with the band almost all night. that was a great day.

similar to Gutbucket, also on Cuneiform, still my favorite label by far.
what can I say. supergroovy jazzrock, with more weight on jazz actually. saxophone as the lead instrument, electric upright bass, e-guitar and drums. the saxophone dude is ridiculously brilliant. the band plays loose and tight at the same time. it's no technical prog or something, it sounds a bit sloppy, although the patterns are complex and hard to play. it's like the perfect understatement.

I saw them in a small basement jazz club in dresden seated (not me, but all the others. older crowd), one day later they played a show in berlin's supamolli. the opposite on all levels: rotten, punkish, dark, smell of spilled beer.
after that dresden show we were hanging out in the club with a couple of beers and talked about Cuneiform, the old jewish conservative (sic) hippie, who runs the label and doesn't want to sell the music as mp3's...

looking forward to hearing your #1 and #2

Sounds amazing.

Nice list. Need to check out some of those.

Great selection berliner! CIANIDE!!!!!!!!!

I think I may go to the Kings of Black Metal Fest in Alsfeld in April.