Top 50 Albums of 2012

I think this year has held a lot more surprises for me than the last few have, with a lot of unexpected gems popping up in favor of some of the bigger and more pronounced releases. Unfortunately I didn't get to every album I would have liked to, but I'm going to try a little harder to prioritize things in 2013. Having said that, I'd like to thank some people for turning me onto more than a few releases on here. Thanks to Jon and the writers at The Inarguable, Harold over at Hammer Smashed Sound, Anthony Fantano at TheNeedleDrop, Jolocho, and then to all the labels, bands, and PR companies who have sent me stuff for review. On with the list!

Top 10 EPs of 2012

Here we go, my favorite EPs of this year. I have to be honest and say that this was a pretty tough list to compile because there were some really great EPs released this year. I thought about expanding this to a top 15 but wound up not going through with it (obviously). If I compromised my list, that'd mean that I would have to compromise reviews, and I just won't do that. But enough of that, let's get on with the list.

Top 5 Splits of 2012

Originally, I was going to do a top 10 splits but (honestly) I don't think I covered enough splits to justify that with a list that was ten releases long and that I could back without any regrets. I'm gonna try to cover even more splits next year but hopefully these releases will give you a nice window into some really solid smaller releases.

Netra - Sørbyen (2012)

Band: Netra
Country: Quimper, France
Style: Experimental Black Metal/Trip-Hop
Label: Hypnotic Dirge

About two years ago or so Netra released its debut full-length Mélancolie Urbaine into the metal underground to a pretty select audience. I don't mean that in a bad way, but it was a pretty interesting little album that was not for everyone. Now we have the follow-up to that album with a sound that mainman Steven Le Moan experimenting even further with the tricks of black metal.
I think it's fair to say that Netra's first album was a more honest fusion of trip-hop and black metal. It fused those two styles together in a way that was not done before and was very unique, if a bit uneven in spots. This new album is not as spiky as that album was in its fusion of the two genres and feels like a less true fusion of the two styles, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Though I hesitate to put this album into this category, it seems oddly appropriate to call this album progressive. The black metal side from the first album is definitely clearer and a lot more well honed in its use, and the trip-hop beats are used to create some rather well placed atmospheric moods, but there's a lot more going on in here than just those two styles, as I said before. There's quite a strong blues and prog-rock influence coming through in a lot of these tracks, especially in the vocal melodies and synth tones, perhaps no more so than on the power-ballad (sort of) Wish She Could Vanish. It's actually really interesting because the ideas are really solidly constructed yet being very fresh as well.
As an entire album, this album works a lot better than its predecessor did in the sense that that album was very uneven in its album structure. It was more that the track placement seemed to place more emphasis on the trip-hop side of the project than the black metal side. This new album really corrects that by not only making the fusion a lot more fluid, but allowing the ambient and trip-hop based tracks to stand alone in several tracks. It feels a lot more authentically put together where as the last one just felt like an assembly of tracks put together, at least in my opinion. Also, the songwriting on this album is far superior to that of the debut's. Not only are the vocal melodies on tracks like opener, A Dance With The Asphalt, and Crawling great and memorable, but they are also quite different from many other vocalists. Le Moan's screams remain as desolate as they were on the debut, which isn't a bad thing in my book. Obviously, a progressive influence is something I'm never opposed to in a project, and the later tracks on this album definitely demonstrate that Le Moan does have talent for writing progressive songs. I wouldn't have thought that blues guitar licks would go over trip-hop beats, but this album has certainly proved me wrong. The bass work is also very worthy of note on here as well, as it becomes especially jazzy in the last couple of tracks, hear closer I Shall Slay The Monkeys. Yet, it never feels like an exercise in fusing genres, as this album so obviously could have become. It all works together, and if only for that, my view of the album is positive.
I think this was a really strong piece of work and an album that really surprised me with how far ahead it beat out its predecessor. This is easily among one of the most surprising things I've heard this year. Definitely check this out if you're looking for some more experimental black metal projects/records.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: A Dance With The Asphalt, Concrete Ocean, I Shall Slay The Monkeys

Epitimia - Faces of Insanity (2012)

Band: Epitimia
Country: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Style: Ambient/Post-Black Metal
Label: Hypnotic Dirge

My relationship with Russian bands has really decreased in the last year. When I first started this blog, I remember that I covered a lot of really bad Russian one-man groups and last year I covered a handful as well, this year I don't think I've covered all that many. With Hypnotic Dirge releasing this album though, I did have faith that this would be worth hearing though.
Honestly, I wasn't quite sold on this album when I first listened to it. Maybe it was my prejudices towards Mother Russia or something, but it just didn't strike me as a group that was doing anything interesting. At the point where I am now, several listens later, I have to say that I'm pretty much in the same general area in terms of how I feel about this record. It certainly has it's good points, but there wasn't anything on here that ever connected with me, or even made me want to return for follow-up listens to be honest. These songs just didn't do anything I ever found all that interesting, and it's never a good sign if a listener's attention fades from the music, and my attention drifted quite a few times when I listened to this. It just felt so unoriginal and lifeless to me, the melodies were very uninspired, in my opinion, and I didn't care all that much for the vocals at all. I know this is coming off extremely negative, and I really wish I could be more positive, because I really wanted to like this album, but it just did not do anything for me and really only made me incredibly depressed while listening to it. I don't mean depressed in the sense that the music had power over me though, depressed that the music never took me anywhere I haven't already been to many times before.
The band's fusion of black metal with post-rock and classical melodies is well executed, but often leaves a lot to be desired in the realms of actual interest. Like I said above, I found my mind wandering many times while listening to this album, which is a shame since a melody like the one in Epikrisis IV: Jamais Vu is actually very good, it's just a shame that the majority of the song didn't actually go anywhere. The intro to Epikrisis V: Rorschach Inkblot, I thought, showed some promise and demonstrated a bit more of a strangeness to the group that I thought the track would embrace, but it really didn't do much with those ideas after the real track kicked in. With the concept that this album is said to embrace and explore I really thought it would have been a lot darker or more interesting, but in the end all I found was an album of pretty by-the-book post-black metal. It was not until DS: Shizophrenia where I found myself engaged with this album. The nine-minute long piece features some nice bass lines and guitar work, and is the most interesting piece on here. I still wasn't completely sold on the vocals on the track, but it stood out as the clear highlight of the disc.
Personally, I was really not into this record all that much, and I am disappointed by that. I can't vouch for a release I don't believe in but I can hope that those of you who listen to this record do find some connection with it. If you like post-black metal in any way, check it out.
Overall Score: 6
Highlights: Epikrisis I: Altered State of Consciousness, Epikrisis V: Rorschach Inkblot, DS: Shizophrenia

Blutmond - The Revolution Is Dead! (2012)

Band: Blutmond
Country: Olten, Switzerland
Style: Avant-Garde Black Metal
Label: Code666

As everyone who reads this site will have come to expect, I love experimental black metal. It's easily one of my favorite "sub-genres" to listen to and it's a genre that I tend to praise. This new record from Blutmond follows their 2010 effort Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days, which I actually wasn't overly positive on (though I still liked it).
Even though the term avant-garde can still be applied here, I will say that this is not so alienating or cerebral and weird that it would turn off those who like more melodic forms of metal. With this album Blutmond have essentially taken on board all the weirdness and eccentricities they need to stand apart from other groups while maintaining a pretty melodic and accessible sound. Tracks like opener Putting Hearts Together or Moonlit Chair™ contain their fare share of experimental tendencies, like a saxophone solo or , but they don't veer off course into straight-up jazz or electronic sections as one might expect. The record keeps that metal sound central, not deviating enough to really break up the flow so the record never comes off as jarring or schizophrenic, you decide whether or not that's a good thing. Having said all that, I do commend the group for throwing in various genre tropes into their sound and making it all sound cohesive, with ideas coming from the likes of jazz, blues, post-hardcore, electronic, among others. Making several tracks touch upon being straight-up melodic metal doesn't hurt them either, allowing their more experimental tendencies seem all the more bizarre when put alongside a more straightforward and catchy track.
I know the above paragraph probably comes off as rather unimpressed, but on the contrary, I actually really enjoyed this album. While it isn't the most ambitious of albums to carry that avant-garde tag, I admire the band for taking on board all things that are associated with that label stigma and doing things their own way. It's an uncompromising record in terms of how it plays things to the beat of its own drum. Plus, any band that manages to make thoughts of Mr. Bungle appear in my head automatically gets bonus points in my book, and the intro to Absolution Lies In Evolution definitely got my thinking of one of my favorite Bungle tracks. While I can get off on bands being solely weird and experimental and pretty much enjoy it for what it is, if not more than it should be appreciated for, when a band can actually be quirky and still pump out some consistently good and catchy songs, they're free to count me as a member of their fanbase. Personally, I felt like the first half of this album delivered a nice aggressive sound that will definitely be enough to draw in many people to this album, the second half is where I happened to feel like the band started showing off more of their experimental side. Pretty much from Breakdown 2012 onward, the band start bringing out more of a darker and creative set of ideas. Though the most melodic track on the entire album, Attention Whore! (Lost In Bliss), it still features a bit more of a dissonant and progressive slant that made it stand apart from the tracks on the first half. It wasn't quite as straightforward, which might sound a bit odd, but if you listen to the track I think you'll understand what I'm talking about.
After my not so pleasant introduction to the band with their last album, I think they really got it right on here. They're still not quite hitting all the high-notes in my book, but they're onto something special in here and I hope they continue moving forward as they did on here. If you enjoy experimental black metal, I suggest you begin looking into this album.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Pas De Deux, Birds of Prey, 21st Century Prophets

Sum of R - Ride Out The Waves (2012)

Band: Sum of R
Country: Bern, Switzerland
Style: Post-Metal/Drone
Label: Utech/Storm As He Walks

I received this a couple of months ago and was wondering exactly what kind of album it was. I knew it was a doom metal album because of the description I got along with the album, but it was being distributed (soon) by Utech, and is the first release of new, up-and-coming label Storm As He Walks. Utech doesn't put out metal albums too often, so whenever they do, it's worth looking into because it will be interesting.
Besides the fact that this was a doom metal album (yeah, like that's going to tell you a whole lot), I left myself completely open to whatever this album was going to sound like. I knew there was a video floating around of a song from the album, which I ignored, I knew there were some reviews for it, which I also ignored - for once, and I knew that from trying to find a picture of the whole band that they were a trio, aside from that, I tried to keep myself completely neutral on what I would hear. Seeing that this is quite the deviation from Utech's usual batch of releases and is the first release for a new label - which happens to be run by Todd and Crisne of Architeuthis Rex and Kapustin Yar, I did suspect that this wouldn't be the standard doom metal record, there's no way it would be with labels like those backing them. When I finally did get around to playing this thing, I can honestly say that I was surprised by the sound but somehow not totally amazed by it. And just to clarify, I mean that with the labels backing this record/band, I wasn't shocked by its less than standard approach to the genre.
The sound in particular on here is quite the treat. It's like someone took old-school doom and psychedelic rock and blended them together with some traces of krautrock, drone music, and ambient soundscapes. In a way, it's related to the whole post-metal genre, but it's a lot less reliant on a particular song format. Opener Growing Into Something Special does demonstrate that post-metal soft into loud structure, but Mist of Tears is a piece of pure, depressing of clean guitar noodling. While I know that doesn't sound like the most enticing thing in the world to hear, and personally, I'm not all that favorable towards the injections of amp noise scattered throughout the track, but the guitar lines themselves are actually quite well done. They set a mood and carry it through without sounding like it's just a soundcheck. But as you might expect, the album's highlight is quite clear, being the one-two combo of Echo/Captured Lightning. It's a track that, in my opinion, recalls the rawness and intensity of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, but compresses it into a much shorter piece, and makes use of less instruments. That may be setting the bar a bit high, but the track is good enough to at least match some of GY!BE's material in my opinion, and obviously, that's no small feat.
While I don't think it's a game changer as some other release from the doom genre this year, this is a very promising debut. I will look forward to future material from this duo based on what this album demonstrates. It's a great slab of post-modern doom that should not be missed if you're a fan of the genre.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: In The Fields of Trust, Echo/Captured Lightning