40.
Inverloch: Dusk I Subside [Relapse]
39.
Primitive Weapons: The Shadow Gallery [Prosthetic]
38.
Bosse-de-Nage: III [Profound Lore]
37.
Incantation: Vanquish in Vengeance [Listenable]
36.
Nachtmystium: Silencing Machine [Century Media]
35.
Anhedonist: Netherwards [Dark Descent]
34.
Krallice: Years Past Matter [self-released]
33. Saint
Vitus: Lillie F-65 [Season of Mist]
31. Aluk
Todolo: Occult Rock [Ajna Offensive]
30.
Paradise Lost: Tragic Idol [Century Media]
29.
Winterfylleth: The Threnody of Triumph [Candlelight]
28. Farsot:
Insects [Lupus Lounge/Prophecy]
27.
Martyrdöd: Paranoia [Southern Lord]
26.
Liberteer: Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees [Relapse]
25.
Horseback: Half Blood [Relapse]
Horseback's
proper follow-up to 2009's The Invisible Mountain finds Jenks Miller, also a
member of Mount Moriah, recasting his blackened blues as moody post-rock. The
record features a series of drone pieces with "Hallucigenia" in their
titles: three peyote-drenched closers reminiscent of the free-form moments on
Miller's collaboration with fellow Southern metal experimentalists Pyramids.
Horseback: "Arjuna
"
24. Vattnet
Viskar: Vattnet Viskar [Broken Limbs/Century Media]
The New
Hampshire band's immense three-song debut features propulsive, atmospheric doom
you can tell grew out of hardcore even if you haven't seen them live or read
band-related Twitter feeds discussing veganism. On the strength of the EP's 27
minutes, Vattnet Viskar signed a deal with mammoth metal label Century Media.
Smart move: This feels like the future of black metal in the United States.
Vattnet Viskar: "Barren Earth"
23. Bell
Witch: Longing... [Profound Lore]
The Seattle
band, featuring Samothrace bassist Dylan Desmond also handling vocals, add a
few wrinkles to the usual doom format on their 60+ minute debut. They're a duo,
and they don't go out of their way to pretend they aren't: This is spacious,
spare music. Offering a mesmerizing performance, Desmond does funeral bellows, Om-like
chants, and soaring (and peaceful) psychedelia in ways that redefine the role
of "doom vocalist."
Bell Witch: "Bails (of Flesh)"
22. Royal
Thunder: CVI [Relapse]
Fronted by
Miny Parsonz, a bassist and singer who really sings, this Atlanta quartet's debut
features a Southern rock atmosphere and plenty of actual songwriting. Time and
again, it's Parsonz who brings it all together-- and over-the-top-- with her
sun-cracked, Robert Plant-style howl. If any band on my list were to crossover
to classic rock radio, it'd be Royal Thunder.
Royal Thunder: "Blue"
21.
Samothrace: Reverence to Stone [20 Buck Spin]
Featuring a
rhythm section that includes members of Book of Black Earth and Bell Witch, the
Seattle (via Kansas) quartet's two-song sophomore album arrived four years
after their excellent three-song debut, Life's Trade. Mixing doom, crust,
magisterial guitars, and Brian Spinks' raw howls, they're a disarmingly
compositional band who can sound anthemic even when they're in a barely audible
stretch.
Samothrace: "When We Emerged" (via
SoundCloud)
20. Early
Graves: Red Horse [No Sleep]
Early
Graves' founding vocalist Makh Daniels was killed in August 2010 when his band
was involved in a car accident while on tour with the Funeral Pyre. Two years
later, the San Francisco group has a new singer, close friend John Strachan of
the aforementioned Funeral Pyre, and a ferocious, life-affirming new record. It
doesn't need "thrash," "hardcore," "punk," or
"death" affixed to it.
Early Graves: "Red Horse"
19. haarp:
HUSKS [Housecore]
On the New
Orleans quartet's second proper album, they play filthy minimal sludge
reminiscent of Harvey Milk's A Small Turn of Human Kindness. Amid the
down-tuned Southern-swamp guitars (there are some grooves here), Shaun Emmons'
I-will-kick-your-ass vocals take on a death metal cast. It's bracing music, but
across these three patient songs with titles that match the naturalist cover
art, it's hard not to think of HUSKS as elegant, no matter how violent it gets.
haarp: "bear"
18. Black
Breath: Sentenced to Life [Southern Lord]
When you
listen to the Seattle-via-Bellingham quintet's second full-length, an
all-around upgrade from their debut, you're as likely to hear early East Coast
hardcore acts like Cro-Mags and a variety of European crust punks as you are
Slayer, Disfear, or Entombed. You're also going to hear 10 amazing anthems. In
many ways 2012 was the year mid-tempo died: drop the Black Sabbath and dig into
the Discharge, Mob 47, Anti Cimex, and your own past as a hardcore kid. Black
Breath helped lead that charge.
Black Breath: "Mother Abyss"
17. Satan's
Wrath: Galloping Blasphemy [Metal Blade]
The Greek
blackened thrash duo, fronted by ex-Electric Wizard bassist Tas Danazoglou,
blend 1980s NWOBHM, unholy atmospherics (whips, lashes, hells bells, moaning),
and satan worship (see: "One Thousand Goats in Sodom", "Hail
Tritone, Hail Lucifer") into an anthemic combo worthy the collection's
name. You may be reminded of Nifelheim, Venom, or back when you were in high
school and thought Iron Maiden were sort of scary.
Satan's Wrath: "Between Belial and
Satan" (via SoundCloud)
16. Grave:
Endless Procession of Souls [Century Media]
The seminal
early-90s Swedish death metal band's 10th album marked their return to Century
Media. Though vocalist/guitarist Ola Lindgren is the only original member at
this point, each of Endless Procession's huge, pristinely filthy songs and
death trash riffs feels like a tasteful update on the classic Swedish sound
Grave helped pioneer with 1991's In the Grave and 1992's You'll Never See.
Grave: "Passion of the Weak" (via
SoundCloud)
15. Evoken:
Atra Mors [Profound Lore]
Minus
founding guitarist Nick Orlando, the Lyndhurst, NJ, funeral doom band's fifth
LP found the group threading more keyboards into their sound. That move, along
with strings and pianos, offered airy, open counterbalance to the massive
claustrophobic swamp of down-tuned guitars and founding vocalist John
Paradiso's bowel-quaking growls and piercing screams. They even took the time
to pen a ballad of sorts (see below). Another example of old dogs learning new
tricks in 2012.
Evoken: "Descent Into Chaotic Dream"
14. Pig
Destroyer: Book Burner [Relapse]
Pig
Destroyer's fifth proper album was the quartet's first with Misery Index's Adam
Jarvis on drums, as well as the first recorded in Scott Hull's new home studio.
It felt like a return to the Virginia band's earlier, purer grind, but with the
huger sound of 2007's Phantom Limb. Per usual, JR Hayes remains one of extreme
metal's best vocalists and sharpest lyricists, while Hull puts together complex
riffs that
stick with
you after one listen.
Pig Destroyer: "The Diplomat"
13.
Atriarch: Ritual of Passing [Profound Lore]
The
Portland quartet's 2011 debut, Forever the End, mixed funereal doom and black
metal-style eruptions. Their second LP finds them moving into a sweaty, crusty
brand of deathrock. Charismatic vocalist Lenny Smith, an anarchist who
describes Atriarch's music in terms of ritual, told me the goal of the band is
to "give dark souls something to relate to and find comfort in," and
Ritual of Passing often has the life-changing energy of something you'd find on
a college radio station as a kid.
Atriarch: "Altars"
12. Gaza:
No Absolutes in Human Suffering [Black Market Activities]
Following
2009's excellent He Is Never Coming Back, the Salt Lake City, Utah, quartet's
even better third album offered a twisting, warping spin on hardcore-infused
grind'n'roll with songs that hit like grenades exploding all around 6'7"
throat-shredding vocalist Jon Parkin. Like more than a few of the year's best,
it was recorded and mixed by Converge's Kurt Ballou.
Gaza: "The Vipers"
11.
Mutilation Rites: Empyrean [Prosthetic]
Featuring
onetime Tombs drummer Justin Ennis and current Today is the Day bassist Ryan
Jones (also of Wetnurse), this Brooklyn quartet play raw black metal with
elements of dark doom and darker crust. It's stately and epic at the same time
that it's feral and booze-soaked. As I've said in the past, it's a sound that
brings to mind late-period Darkthrone vomiting the youthful version of
themselves onto the crowd at a filthy DIY space. Except, in 2012, these guys
write better, hungrier punk athems about about disease, drugs, and depression.
Mutilation Rites: "Realms of
Dementia"
10. Bereft:
Leichenhaus [The End]
The Los
Angeles band featuring Sacha Dunable of Intronaut and Graviton, Derek Donley of
National Sunday Law and Graviton, Charles Elliott of Abysmal Dawn, and ex-the
Faceless vocalist Derek Rydquist first gained noticed because of that lineup.
More interesting, though, are these 45 minutes of sludgy, feedback-heavy doom
that brings to mind early Cathedral and My Dying Bride with their amps turned
to 11. The atmosphere goes well with the cover image of bells tied to a
corpse's hand, a trick morticians used in 19th century Germany to make sure the
people they were burying were definitely dead.
Bereft: "Withered Efflorescence"
09. High on
Fire: De Vermis Mysteriis [eONE]
The Oakland
stoner metal trio's sixth LP featured a convoluted storyline about a time
traveling Jesus, but the bigger deal here was that Matt Pike, Des Kensel, and
Jeff Matz dropped the glossy sheen of the Greg Fidelman-produced Snakes for the
Divine in favor of a warmer, scrappier, looser Kurt Ballou-helmed sound.
And, as I
wrote in our review of the collection: "High on Fire are making the best
music of their career just as Sleep's in the midst of a reunion (which began in
2009) and getting set to reissue their 2003 one-song stoner classic,
Dopesmoker...[on De Vermis Matt Pike and co.] found a way to be ambitious while
also elemental, a difficult trick that Sleep pulled off on Holy Mountain and
Dopesmoker, and one that High on Fire have nailed here."
High on Fire: Fertile Green
08. Ash
Borer: Cold of Ages [Profound Lore]
Ash Borer's
second album-- four songs stretching to more than an hour-- finds the Arcata,
Calif. black metal quintet creating their own exhilarating, punk-infused stamp
on USBM. Focusing on "decay, dissolution, and terror," Cold of Ages
is an icy trek through gentle atmospherics and rabid harsh passages; each song
is packed with more riffs and ideas than any number of lesser USBM acts layer
into entire albums. (Worm Ouroboros member Jessica Way's vocal contributions
add a calm before each new storm.)
Ash Borer: "Removed Forms"
07.
Neurosis: Honor Found in Decay [Neurot]
The
ever-evolving Oakland sludge pioneers' Steve Albini-produced 10th album added
new wrinkles to their sound: It felt like the singer-songwriter solo projects
of vocalists Steve Von Till and Scott Kelly joining forces with their day jobs
for the first time. Clanging electronic details meld with their crusty
anthemics, cinematic organ parts, and those aged-in-whiskey voices of the
aforementioned. In a way, like Johnny Cash with an arsenal of electric guitars,
Neurosis have moved beyond their roots to create a unique spin on American
music.
Neurosis: "At the Well"
06. Pinkish
Black: Pinkish Black [Handmade Birds]
On their
self-titled debut, the Forth Worth, Texas, drum and analog synth duo mix
deathrock, drone, dark punk, Birthday Party nods, and a fondness for Suicide.
Despite the downcast cloud surrounding the group-- they got their name from the
color of the blood on the bathroom ball where onetime bassist Tommy Atkins'
body killed himself-- their hooks go to soaring, melodic places. (In a live
setting, surrounded by his keyboards and other noisemakers, Daron Beck proved
to be one of the year's most compelling vocalists.)
Pinkish Black: "Bodies in Tow"
o5. Asphyx:
Deathhammer [Century Media]
The Dutch
death metal group's eighth album is their second since reuniting in 2007. It's
an expertly produced collection that combines doom-infused old-school gallops
and syrupy stoner-paced breakdowns, Martin van Drunen's raspy bark blending
perfectly with Paul Baayens' clear, endlessly catchy riffs. (I'm not one to
talk about "tone," but... that tone.) 2012 was a good year for death
metal old timers; this was the best example of updating a classic sound without
sacrificing its core. Impossible not to headbang to this, even if you're
usually not one of those people.
Asphyx: "Deathhammer" (via
SoundCloud)
04. Blut
Aus Nord: 777 - Cosmosophy [Debemur Morti]
Last year,
the French multi-instrumenatlist Vindsval released the first two installments
of his avant-garde black metal 777 trilogy, the "rock"-oriented
Sect(s) and the tripped-out The Desanctification: The combined 90 minutes of
music topped Show No Mercy's 2011 list. Despite the increased accessibility, he
still rarely gives interviews and won't play live.
In 2012,
Vindsval completed 777 with Cosmosophy, a dense pop-oriented metal album that
nobody could've expected when he started his harsh black metal project in 1994.
From its chiming group melodies, psychedelic guitars, swirling beds of
electronics, and post-metal hooks that caused at least on person at Pitchfork
to mention the Deftones, these five lengthy, trippy pieces found BAN burrowed
into a weirder singularity. If Swans pummeled with repetition, BAN found a way
to create some of the year's heaviest lullabies.
Blut Aus Nord: Epitome VII
03.
Baroness: Yellow & Green [Relapse]
Baroness'
third studio album, Yellow & Green, is their grandest collection to date.
As you may have heard, it's also their most stripped-down, spare, and
"non-metal." The 75-minute double LP indeed finds the band with a new
bassist, new homebase, and a new approach to singing and songwriting, but it's
not any less heavy for it.
When I
spoke with vocalist/guitarist John Baizley shortly before the album's release,
he discussed the ways the veteran band's redefined heaviness for themselves
over the years: "The Baroness-circa-2012 definition of heavy [is] not a
tuning and it's not necessarily a volume; it's more of a feeling or an idea or
some goal post that we're headed towards." That feeling was even more
intense when, on the morning of August 15, the group survived a tour bus
accident that could very well have killed them. Instead, it inspired deep
thoughts and sentiments from Baizley & Co., and further proof that this is
a band aging gracefully.
Baroness: "March to the Sea"
02.
Converge: All We Love We Leave Behind [Epitaph]
After their
guest-heavy 2009 collection Axe to Fall, an album that topped my 2009 year-end
list, Converge streamlined their approach for album eight. All We Love's a
streamlined, live-sounding collection recorded and mixed by guitarist Kurt
Ballou; he and the core band handled all aspects of the production without
"artificial distortion, triggers, or Auto-Tune." As a result, it
sounds like the band in a live setting-- only bigger.
Amid the
chaos of the technical playing and hyperspeed blues, it has an emotional
resonance. When I spoke with vocalist Jacob Bannon about the album, he told me
the title track was inspired by the death of his beloved dog, Anna Belle:
"I missed a lot of her life because I was traveling. That concept really
sank in with me when I was holding her as she passed on." From there, he
looked closely at growing older while maintaining a hardcore lifestyle, and
Converge's most intense album to date found its heart.
Converge: "Shame in the Way"
01.
Pallbearer: Sorrow & Extinction [Profound Lore]
Upon its
release in February, the Little Rock, Ark., quartet's debut Sorrow and
Extinction immediately felt like a classic. A month later, they played it from
start to finish as part of the 2012 Show No Mercy SXSW showcase; it was a
relief to see they were a real, good-beyond-their-years band, and that the
record was as elegantly triumphant in a living setting.
Close to a
year later, Sorrow's five extended tracks-- uplifting vintage doom fleshed out
with psychedelia, prog melodies, and subtle ambient keys-- are as fresh as they
were on that first spin. Piloted by Brett Campbell, a singing
vocalist/guitarist who straddles a sweet spot between young Ozzy and Geddy Lee,
Pallbearer have a rare ability to write emotionally resonant guitar parts and
epic dynamic arcs that don't lose their ability to give goosebumps, even after
you've worn out your vinyl.
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