I love me some EPs.  While the line between EP and LP is arbitrary, EPs have a typical run time between 20-30 minutes.  They are a nice short burst of music where you can get a full album experience without as big of a time commitment.  Here are my favorites of 2016.

10) Behold...The Arctopus - Cognitive Emancipation

This technical instruMETAL band is weird...even for my tastes. From the time signatures, to the notes, to the rhythms, it all sounds so random and would be a nightmare to learn to play. It's atonal, doesn't really have the structure, and there really isn't anything you can grasp onto.

On Bandcamp they've tagged this album with "notmusic" and they've got a point.  You won't hear anyone humming these tunes.  I've tried singing Skullgrid while home alone and my dogs think I'm crazy.

Yet, there's just something about it that keeps me coming back. I love the way dissonance sounds, and the randomness makes it unpredictable.  Throw this on at your next party when you want everyone to leave.  If anyone's still left, put on Merzbow.

9) Raze the Void - Obsolescence

This debut EP from proggy melodic death metallers Raze the Void has me excited.  With just 3 tracks and none of them under 8 minutes, each song is truly epic.  The clean vocal passages remind me of Soilwork and Scar Symmetry.  

As good as this EP is, I say it has me excited because I can't wait to see where this band is headed.  There's a lot potential here for the band to really get comfortable with their sound, and I hope that one day they writing an absolute masterpiece of an album. 

8) Dynatron - The Rigel Axiom

Surprise, more synthwave!  Like Perturbator and Gost, there are elements of sci-fi and horror.  However, The Rigel Axiom is much slower, atmospheric, and moody (synthgaze?).  

Listening to this feels like drifting through space while watching the needle in the oxygen gauge slowly move to E.  No wonder this stuff appeals to metalheads.  

7) Imperial Triumphant - Inceste

Imperial Triumphant sound downright NASTY.  As dark and evil as the genre is, they play a brand of avant garde black metal that actually SOUNDS disturbing and unsettling.  From the uneven tempos, to the straight up chaos and dissonance of the notes, it will have you squirming in your seat.  

Somehow, their 2015 full length, Abyssal Gods, completely escaped me.  I listened to it after Inceste and it's also just a purely insane cacophony of dissonance.  I love this band and I regret missing them when they came through Oakland this year. 

6) Lettuce - Mt. Crushmore

Mt. Crushmore is an EP made up of Lettuce's B sides from their excellent 2015 release, Crush.  It doesn't sound like these songs were lacking anything in quality.  Technically, you could fit all of Crush and Mt. Crushmore, but a runtime of 75 minutes is a little heavy.

Since the songs were from the same sessions as Crush, they have the same retro funk vibe to them.  The lead single off of this EP features Alecia Chakour of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, and it sounds like it could come straight of a Tarantino flick. 

5) The Algorithm - Brute Force: Overclock

Overclock is the DLC (cute) for the full length album Brute Force.  The EP is made up of four tracks, three of them new songs, and one of them a remix.  

The Algorithm's fusion of progressive metal and EDM sounds really odd on paper, but it just works so damn well. At only 16 minutes, there isn't much on here.  I'll take as much new Algorithm as I can get!

4) Ghost - Popestar

This is a mostly covers EP from throwback metal band Ghost.  It seems sacreligious to place a mostly covers EP in the top 10, and then ranking it so high as 4.  

The real reason this is so high is because of the only non cover song on the EP, Square Hammer.  I'm an album guy, but this damn song is just so infectious and has just seeped into my soul, that I can't help but sing it and listen to it over and over again.  

On Monday Night Football, they also use a portion of this song as a lead in to commercial breaks.  The first time I heard it I just nerdspazzed all over the place while my wife gave me the old side-eye Chloe.

The music video is a brilliant throwback to old school Bela Legosi vampire horror flicks.  Couple that with the catchy as hell song, singing about Satan has never been so much fun.  

3) Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust

Gorguts' Pleiades' Dust is a single track EP that clocks in at a whopping 33 minutes, similar to Meshuggah's I. It's an action packed, dense, and challenging listen.  

So many tech death bands sound so perfect and robotic.  It's refreshing that Gorguts has this unevenness that gives the music such an organic feel.  

I think it was on a podcast where I heard Luc Lemay say that they record live in studio without a click track.  I've recorded live before, but they were short 3-5 minute funky rock songs. Recording a 33 minute technical death metal masterpiece in one take is just mindblasting.

2) Protest the Hero - Pacific Myth

Originally released one song per month for bandcamp subscribers, Pacific Myth finally gets a regular release for the rest of us.

Pacific Myth doesn't venture into any new territory musically. It's the same shreddy-without-sounding-protentious brand of progressive metal that we all know and love.  Their fresh subscription based approach to how they released their EP is the real story here.

However they decide to release their next album, I hope they progress in some way and move their sound forward.  

1) Maladie - Symptoms

Another single song EP, but Unlike Pleiades' Dust, this is broken up into 8 tracks.  With a runtime of 41 minutes, can this even be called an EP?

This german black metal band currently consists of a whopping eight members.  I don't know what everyone does but there's a saxomophone in there somewhere.  

The EP starts off a bit slow, but it really kicks into gear on the third track.  Black metal is in such a great place right now, with so many forward thinking bands such as Maladie continuing to push the genre forward.

Honorable Mentions

Since there were less EPs than albums, I'll include them here instead of a separate post.

• Enigma - Stars Misaligned - Totally spaced and forgot this was an EP.  Let's call this my #11
• Autopsy - Skull Grinder - Technically a 2015 release, Spotify didn't get it until 2016.
• Piss Vortex - Future Cancer - 6 track EP totaling 11 minutes.  I love grindcore.
• Sarvas - The Throne EP - Sludgy McDoomyDoom.
• Nails / Full of Hell - Split - 4.5 minute EP that’s like a quick punch to the balls.
• Nine Inch Nails - Not the Actual Events - Neat.
• Krallice - Hyperion - Avant black metallers dropped a surprise EP.
• Aborted - Termination Redux - Dependable Belgian death grinders doing what they do best.
• Voivod - Post Society EP - Veteran (proggy) thrash/punk and roll. 
• Pallbearer - Fear & Fury EP - Mostly covers, but dooooooooom
• Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion Side B - Shutup, don't judge.
• Mute the Saint - s/t - Sitar progressive metal.