Drum roll please … or maybe a hearty dose of blast-beats! Tis the season to commence the good, bad and ugly of 2014! Of course we’re talking about BravePicks 2014, where all the staff put their collective metal minds together to build the ultimate lists including individual Top 20s (new studio albums ONLY),  Top 5 Brave Embarrassments, Top 3 Concerts, What/Who Needs To Stop In 2015? and Metal Predictions For 2015.

BravePicks 2014

25) EYEHATEGOD – Eyehategod (Housecore)

“We’ve been through a lot in this band,” including numerous bassists, several record companies, drug addiction, jail time, and Hurricane Katrina, recalls Eyehategod vocalist Mike IX Williams to BraveWords scribe Aaron Small. However the death of their drummer, Joseph M. LaCaze, “was really the toughest; it’s pretty hard. But we tend to get through these things – I don’t know how we get through them? But we do. We manage.”

On August 23, 2013, a mere three days after returning to The States from a successful tour of The UK and Europe, Joey passed away in his native New Orleans. A long term asthma sufferer, LaCaze died of respiratory failure; he was 42 years old. Williams also suffers from asthma, yet the death of his bandmate didn’t make him look at life any differently. “Not really. I’m not one of those people that worries about my health that much – I probably should, but I don’t. Yeah, of course it makes you sit back and think for a minute… you never know what’s going to happen. The old, clichéd thing to say is, you might get hit by a bus tomorrow. I don’t really take care of myself as well as I should, and neither did he. I don’t think any of us really do. I don’t know man? It’s just one of those things… you’ve got to live your life. We can’t be scared to do things or scared to tour, you’ve got to go out and do it.”

When he’s not mangling six strings in Eyehategod, Jimmy Bower plays drums in Down. A pair of bands that have endured lengthy dry spells without releasing any product whatsoever, yet new music from both camps surfaced in the month of May. “Right - and Crowbar’s album came out the same day as the Eyehategod record. It’s three of the biggest local bands putting out their records, I think it’s cool man. It brings a lot of attention to the city (New Orleans) and what we’ve got going on here.” Eyehategod is only the fifth studio album for Williams and co., yet the band was formed in 1988 – that’s 26 years ago. Looking back, could they have been more productive? “No man, it is what it is. I don’t wish for anything. I don’t have any regrets – there’s personal things but as far as the band goes, no. The band is its own entity. What we’ve done is what we’ve done. A lot of people ask me in these interviews, ‘what’s it like to get back on the stage?’ I’m like, what the fuck are you talking about? We’ve been playing live constantly since… of course there were periods of ten months where we didn’t do anything, but we would always play local New Orleans at least. We’ve been to Europe tons of times. We’ve put out compilations, 7-inches. We’ve had other bands that have put records out. It’s not like we’ve been sitting around doing nothing; some people think that, I don’t know why.”

Read more here.

BravePicks 2014 Top 30

25) EYEHATEGOD – Eyehategod (Housecore)

26) STEEL PANTHER – All You Can Eat (Open E)

27) CALIFORNIA BREED – California Breed (Frontiers)

28) TESLA – Simplicity (Tesla Electric Co.)

29) PRONG – Ruining Lives (SPV/Steamhammer)

30) GAMMA RAY – Empire Of The Undead (EarMusic)