Uncle Meat’s Top Ten Movies of 2017

1. I, Tonya
2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
3. Jim and Andy : The Great Beyond – Featuring a very special, contractually obligated mention of Tony Clifton
4. Baby Driver
5. It
6. Justice League
7. Gilbert
8. Logan
9. Get Me Roger Stone
10. ESPN 30 for 30 – Ric Flair: The Nature Boy

 

 

Uncle Meat’s Top Ten Albums of 2017

 

I must admit that it was hard doing this list, for the simple reason that Uncle Meat rarely likes anything new.  Call me a Fuddy-Duddy…call me stuck in the glorious past…But you cants call me Johnson.  Considering I am using a very old reference to the David Steinberg show, maybe I should just get on to 2017 instead.

 

10)  Queens of the Stone Age – Villains  – The first track on this album called “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” came out and literally kicked me in the face…pun intended.  But the rest of the album drags and is kinda forgettable.  However the aforementioned track might be my song of the year so it makes up the bottom end of this list.

 

9)   Pallbearer – Heartless   – Not as blatant as my number 10 entry, but again this is based mostly off one track. The song pointed out by Dr. Dave,  “I Saw the The End”, seems to have so many intentional or unintentional “nods” within it they are hard to count.  I have heard it reminds people of Queensryche, Iron Maiden, King’s X…etc.  But the rest of the album doesn’t seem to live up to that glorious track.

 

8)  Deep Purple – InFinite  – Yet another solid output from Morse-era Deep Purple.  Steve Morse has been in the band so long now it seems weird to keep referring to the “Morse era” anymore.  Ian Gillan is writing vocal lines that seem to better suit his limited vocal range right now.  I really like the keyboards on this album.  Even Frank put one of the tracks as his song of the year.  Listen to Frank.

 

7)  Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – The Nashville Sound  –  Someone has to mention something other than “Heavy Metal Bullshit” on this site.  2017 may have been a bit of a Metal resurgence year for me, but Jason Isbell’s 2017 offering needs to be on this list.  His lyrics are reminiscent of the great John Prine on this album.  He also rocks out a little bit more here, which is good because I found some previous album to be way too mamby-pamby and not enough guts.  Plenty of guts and beauty on this record.

 

6)  Mogwai – Every Country’s Sun  – This band was introduced to me by Doctor Doom a few years ago.  Always appreciated what they do but found it hard to get into.  A few listens of Every Country’s Sun, and it’s diverse song styles have made me more than appreciate them. It is really quite simple.  I need to hear more Mogwai.

 

5)  Steve Earle and the Dukes –  So You Wanna Be an Outlaw  – I have only had a couple listens of this in full, which just is not enough to really dig into a Steve Earle album.  But what I have heard I have loved, as per usual.  You just cant go wrong with Mr. Earle.

 

4)  Power Trip – Nightmare Logic – Was introduced to this album by a review on Banger TV (highly recommended You Tube channel run by Sam Dunn).  It was compared to Slayer’s Reign in Blood both in overall style and the album’s short running time.  Once again the past draws me in as it definitely is “old school Thrash Metal”.  Not an album I could listen to a lot, but hard not to elicit a reaction anytime it comes on.

 

3)  The Necromancers – Servants of the Salem Girl – Iron Tom Sharpe or whatever he calls himself here on this blog introduced me to this French band that totally rocks.  Sounds like an oxymoron I know, but it indeed rocks.  I really find they remind me of Orange Goblin at times, which is a high compliment in my world.  I have found myself in the rock guitar pose frequently with this album playing.  Frank would like it.

 

2) Elder – Reflections of a Floating World  – Elder came out of absolutely nowhere for me about a month ago. Kicked my fucking ass…and soul.  Reflections of a Floating World is absolutely the greatest collection of music I heard in 2017.  I couldn’t put it number one which will be explained shortly, however it is so fucking good I would say this might be my favourite “Metal” album in many many years.  Years ago I wanted so bad to find a truly Progressive Metal band, and the closest thing I could find was Dream Theater.  But they continually had this gloss and sparkly side to them which turned me off a lot of the time.  If Pink Floyd and Kyuss had a baby, and it grew up listening to nothing but Gabriel Genesis albums, you would get Reflections of a Floating World.  The singer kinda reminds me of Perry Farrell, which seems like an odd fit but works perfectly.  No barking on this record.  The second track, “The Falling Veil”, is a song I have went to many times within the last month.  If you like good music, and have the patience to appreciate it, soak yourself in this record.  Do it, Frank.

 

1) Five Alarm Funk – Sweat  – Do I think this is the best album of 2017?  As mentioned earlier, that goes to my number 2.  However this was by far my favourite album of this year as well as my favourite band of this year.  Five Alarm Funk is Canada’s best keep secret, but subsequent albums never really captured what it was like to see this band live.  They did release a great live album in 2016, but what FAF have created with Sweat seems to be taking the energy of their live shows and writing appropriate music to suit their show.  The song “Iceberg” is as many parts Zappa and “Heavy Metal Bullshit” as it is a funk song.  Many other tracks have this groovy girth to them.  If you hear about Five Alarm Funk playing a show near you…you owe it to yourself to see Canada’s hardest working band.  The band will kick your ass and back again while you are dancing to it.  But this album will do in a pinch. Love these fucking guys.

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And we love you, fuckin’ Meat!