It was a long year for Neill Jameson, aka Imperial, the man behind the seminal American black metal project Krieg. He had all that Blake Judd drama to deal with, then all that Thurston Moore drama, and then he quit his job at the record store. But here’s the thing: As a musician, Jameson had the best year of his life. The record he made with Moore (though most assuredly not with Judd), Twilight’s III: Beneath Trident’s Tomb, was far and away the best album ever released by the black-metal supergroup, due in no small part to Moore’s contributions, not to mention Jameson’s improved vocal attack. Then, Jameson’s primary band, Krieg, released their seventh full-length (and first in four years), Transient — one of the finest USBM offerings of 2014, and a breakthrough for Krieg. Transient is an album of shifting textures; it opens with the walloping “Order Of The Solitary Road,” a track that climaxes with one of the gnarliest black ‘n’ roll riffs you’ll hear this year, buttressed by sections that are hypnotic, ambient, almost ethereal. That balance is examined throughout the album, as violent blasts of sheer crust (“Return Fire”) lead into stretches of doomy melodicism (“To Speak With Ghosts”), and noise-rock skronks (“Winter”) precede moments of expansive post-rock (“Walk With Them Unnoticed”). True to its title, Transient rarely stays in one place too long, but it feels like a coherent statement, largely due to the man at its center. Jameson is a complex guy, and Transient is a complex album. It’s also a great album. –Michael [LISTEN]