2008
2008 was a great year for darktronica, and especially aggrotech, making it tough to narrow down only ten albums to honor. Starting with a short list of nearly 25 excellent releases, these are the 10 left standing when the dust settled. A few others that narrowly missed the final cut are Boole's The Vital Few, Bella Morte's Beautiful Death, Virgin Black's Requiem - Fortissimo, and FGFC820's Law And Ordnance. It's clear that I need to break out aggrotech or terror EBM as genres distinct from industrial dance to keep up with the growing diversity of bands being lumped together in the current industrial dance category.
This year was pretty hectic for me, encompassing two cross-country moves within ten months and a return to grad school. As a result, I've missed out on a lot of music outside of the darktronica sphere and will be playing catch up for quite some time. A few notable albums I really enjoyed, however, are Saturdays = Youth by French dance duo M83, Opeth's Watershed, Cross by Justice (also a French electronic dance duo), and Black Snow by German hip-hop producers The Snowgoons.
