TeethoftheDivine.com’s Staff Picks for 2012
UPDATE-CONGRATULATIONS TO PALLBEARER, WHO BY A SERIES OF COMPLEX FORMULAS AND CALCULATIONS WON THE TOTD STAFF ALBUM OF THE YEAR WITH ‘SORROW AND EXTINCTION’. ANAAL NATHRAKH’S ‘VANITAS’ TOOK SECOND PLACE, WITH DYING FETUS TAKING THIRD WITH ‘REIGN SUPREME’.
. Another year, another winter spent threatening physical violence upon the staff here to get their year-end picks in. Now that the dust has settled, here are the results – the definitive list of critical picks of 2012’s best and worst releases. It’s all here: top albums, top EPs, top songs, biggest letdowns and the woulda shoulda coulda’s, as hand-picked by the TOTD staff. Feel free to comment, critique and tell us your own favorites for 2012. Thanks to all you guys for reading our little site in 2012 and here’s to another epic year of metal in 2013. Salut!
Luke Saunders
1. Royal Thunder – CVI (Relapse Records). Ambitious & compelling.
2. Pallbearer – Sorrow and Extinction (Profound Lore Records). Dense, emotional & addictive.
3. Daylight Dies – A Frail Becoming (Candlelight Records). Brooding and melancholic.
4. Be’lakor – Of Breath and Bone (Kolony Records). Melodic death with class and style.
5. Witchcraft – Legend (Nuclear Blast). A cracking evolution for the Swedish rockers.
6. Sophicide – Perdition of the Sublime (Willowtip Records). Superb debut of catchy tech-death, with a dash of melody.
7. Ihsahn – Eremita (Candlelight Records). Another restlessly experimental and creative offering.
8. High on Fire – De Vermis Mysteriis (E1 Music). Consistent and powerful.
9. Pale Divine – Painted Windows Black (Shadow Kingdom Records). A quality slice of classic doom.
10. Hooded Menace – Effigies of Evil (Relapse Records). Catchy death/doom with an abundance of killer grooves.
11. Ahab – The Giant (Napalm Records). A balance of beauty and heft.
12. Dying Fetus – Reign Supreme (Relapse Records). Their best album since Destroy the Opposition.
13. Enslaved – RIITIIR (Nuclear Blast). Evolved veterans fire again.
14. Windhand – Windhand (Force Field Records). Low-key debut of engagingly fuzzy doom.
15. The Sword – Apocryphon (Razor & Tie Records). Always consistent.
Top-notch albums I didn’t spend enough time with: Incantation – Vanquish in Vengeance, Diskord – Dystopics, Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay, Beyond Terror Beyond Grace – Nadir, Stagnant Waters – Stagnant Waters
Best EP(s): Down – Part 1 – The Purple EP (Down Records/ILG), Revocation – Teratogenesis (Scion A/V)
Biggest Letdown: Spawn of Possession – Incurso (Not so much a bad album but after such a long wait it failed to live up to expectations)
Honorable Mentions: Meshuggah – Koloss, Pig Destroyer – Book Burner, Gorod – A Perfect Absolution, The Levitation Hex – The Levitation Hex, Witch Mountain – Cauldron of the Wild
Best Reissue: Death – Spiritual Healing
Band to watch in 2013: Void of Sleep
Find more articles with: 2012, Blog, Staff Picks
Hey! Where’s Dane Prokofiev’s Top 10???!!!!!
I like what that guy has to say even thought some people give him a hard time for no reason.
Dane, please dial your top 10 picks in! (even if they’re a bit late….)
Thanks.
on Jan 1st, 2013 at 20:55He is no longer on our staff as he left after 3 reviews and a few interviews- im sure hes got a list at one of his other blogs /sites
on Jan 1st, 2013 at 21:37Based on some formula and calculations I did- Pallbearer’s Sorrow and Extinction is the TOTD staff album of the year!
on Jan 2nd, 2013 at 12:58hm, Pallbearer was only in 2 guys’ top 10 and 2 guys’ top 15 – sounds like less of a ringing endorsement to me and more an illustration that no one’s top 10 looked remotely the same or featured the same bands.
which is great for the growth and creative health of metal overall, that 13 different TOTD reviewers (who collectively listened to hundreds and hundreds of albums this year) had wildly different tastes and couldn’t agree on anything :)
on Jan 2nd, 2013 at 14:29yeah it was hard tallying wildly different lists- but with my formula- Pallbearer came out on top-cos it was on 2 top 10 and 2 top 15s- barely. Belakor was 4th by .5 of a point. Jordan- i added 3 more guys lists since the article went up guys lists – did you count those- had it on 5 lists total?
on Jan 2nd, 2013 at 16:44Yep Pallbearer was just pipped for the number 1 spot on my list and it keeps finding its way into my listening rotation. Of course I was late to the party for Anaal Nathrakh, Haiduk and various other killer bands/albums that had I discovered earlier might have made their way onto my list.
on Jan 2nd, 2013 at 18:58No one likes Sylosis? One mention of Allegaeon? Ditto Ne Obliviscaris, Swallow the Sun and Cattle Decapitation? Mors Principium Est? In Mourning?
on Jan 3rd, 2013 at 05:04I figured more peeps would have put Cattle Decapitation on their lists too. I liked Ne Obliviscaris but Xanthochroid won out in that battle. And I didn’t even know In Mourning had a new one, sweet!
on Jan 3rd, 2013 at 14:37Cattle decap was on my list. One of the few if not the only one of us that did.
on Jan 3rd, 2013 at 16:10Mors Principium Est released so late in the year that it’s practically a 2013 release.
on Jan 7th, 2013 at 01:12My list: http://www.abismoblogzine.com/2013/01/los-mejores-discos-del-2012-sebas.html
on Jan 10th, 2013 at 12:26Cheers
I checked out Disfiguring the Goddess back when Stacy reviewed it and kinda dug it, despite my general disdain of death core. Since he named it his #1 I’ve gone back to it and it has taken hold like a horrible fungus in my sack. Been playing it pretty often, just ordered a copy.
on Jan 17th, 2013 at 17:41