BH Awards 2012 and All That Bollocks

Once again the snow is falling everywhere except for where I live and the year is drawing to a close.  Currently, at this instant, the turn of the new year, some of y'all are making some terrible decisions and macking on your married friends, some are currently blacked out and won't remember vomiting in the hot tub, others are upset because they missed the countdown while on the toilet with the taco shits, and there are probably even some of you sitting at home, quietly weeping into your hanky because you have as many friends as a half Orcish midget.  Did that make any sense?  Fuck no, but it's New Years and if I gave any less of a shit, I'd be taking one.  Also this could potentially be my last year end list for reasons I'll make clear when they become available, but just know this blog will be put on life support sometime during 2013.  Wow, this is a pretty dark opening, isn't it?  OH WELL let's quit moping about how my greatness will have to go on hiatus and how you're going to explain the hole you put in the basement door whilst falling up the stairs hammered, let's opine on some malted reveries and take a look back at what albums released in 2012 stack up as the cream of the crop.  Last year I ranked 15, and while I actually believe 2012 to have been an overall better year (to my surprise) than 2011, this is an awards ceremony and a "best of" list, not a wiki entry.  So I've compromised my list (read: ripped off my former colleague in Sargon the Terrible) and set it at 13 this year.  Yak yak yak let's go!

THE TOP 13 ALBUMS OF 2012

13: Black Breath - Sentenced to Life

These Seattle dirtbags got a lot of press early in the year, thanks largely to their presence on Southern Lord (how I hadn't heard of their previous album is anybody's guess), and damn if they didn't deserve it.  I know fuck all about crust, but Sentenced to Life, according to people smarter than I, is a gorgeous mix of crust, thrash, and death metal, and I'll just agree that that's probably correct.  The punk aggression underneath the layer of dried dirt makes for easily the dirtiest album on the list, and one of the best surprises out of Seattle since Russell Wilson.

12: Reinxeed - Welcome to the Theater

This is, surprisingly moreso than my hotly anticipated Luca Turilli's Rhapsody's Ascending to Infinity (which didn't make the cut), the perfect amalgamation of every corny cliche I love about over the top and exceedingly theatrical power metal.   Welcome to the Theater is a love letter to Hollywood, with each song representing a big blockbuster franchise.  Even before hearing this, I knew it would rule for one reason alone: there's a triumphant, bombastic, over the top and silly song about Back to the Future.  It would be illegal if this had turned out to suck.

11: Spawn of Possession - Incurso

I'm gonna be honest, I only got this album because the cover art reminded me of that underground boss from Ninja Gaiden II.   For my first Spawn of Possession album, I am thoroughly impressed.  This is a blend of the two styles of modern tech death I love; the Decrepit Birth style hypermelodicism, and the Neuraxis style riff writing.  Basically it's like Hour of Penance with a slightly more prevalent melody, and man what fan of Timeless Miracle doesn't want melody crammed into every style of music he listens to?  

10: Abnormality - Contaminating the Hivemind

This is pretty much the only good album I've ever heard come from Sevared records, and it's not merely "good", it's fucking incredible.  Everything about brutal death metal that should be, this is.  It's ear twistingly catchy, spine contusioningly heavy, brain falloutingly brutal, imaginaryadjectivingly well written.  Whereas so many bands on this roster use brutality as the end in of itself, Abnormality does it correctly and merely uses it as a tool to reach their chosen end, which is a great album instead of merely a brutal one.

9: Sectu - Gerra

The relatively unknown Sectu makes an appearance for the second straight year, this time with an even better album than last year's surprise of the year, Inundate.  Sectu continues their progression as a more surgically precise and melodically inclined reimagining of Immolation, and I couldn't possibly ask for more out of them.  This is a weird album because I haven't listened to it nearly as much as anything else on this list, but goddamn there isn't a single thing I would change about it.  You want to modernize OSDM?  This should be your bible.

8: Gargoyle - Niji Yuugou

The more I listen to Gargoyle, the more I realize there that they have a midas touch unseen outside of the likes of Running Wild's golden era.  Every album they produce ends up kicking me in the teeth with the force of twelve Mirko Cro Cops.  I'm on my eighth pair of dentures now.  I struggled with myself on whether this truly deserved to be on the list, considering there is no new material, and this is entirely made up of rewritten and rerecorded tracks from their early days.  But at the end of the day, it's one of the best of the year, it'd be an injustice to snub it.

7: Enabler - All Hail the Void

You may have noticed that I didn't specify this list was metal specific like I normally do, and that's because there are two albums that are so tailor made for metal fans and so good that I cannot in good conscience leave them off the list, and Milwaukee's Enabler is one of them.  This is maniacally high speed hardcore, brutal to the bone and probably loaded with crust influence since it reminds me of Weekend Nachos (though again I know nothing about crust so keep that in mind).  This is raunchy and violent and ear catching, and features the drummer from Fall Out Boy.  That's how good it is, I didn't even notice that last part until I'd been a fan for months.

6: Jess and the Ancient Ones - Jess and the Ancient Ones

And this is the other non-metal album that deserves a place on any metal fan's year end list.  This new wave of doomy psych rock and Blue Oyster Cult style music like Ghost, Year of the Goat, The Devil's Blood, and such has produced some good stuff (like the aforementioned), but JATAO just completely smokes the competition in my eyes.  If you can't appreciate the fiery call to the darkness in "Prayer for Death and Fire" or the absolutely haunting buildup of "Come Crimson Death", then your opinion simply does not matter anymore.  Also the vocalist for Demilich is the rhythm guitarist, how is that not awesome?

5: Dying Fetus - Reign Supreme

As much as I like Dying Fetus, I honestly never expected them to release an album of Top 5 quality like this, especially in a year as stacked as 2012, but by golly they did it.  Reign Supreme rivals their seminal, Misery Index backed Destroy the Opposition, and frighteningly frequently even manages to surpass it.  This is a more "normal" album for Fetus, but it works brilliantly.  The slams are there, the grooves and blasts and sweeps and everything that makes this band what it is is here in spades, but it's just the best it's been written and executed in over a decade.

4: Accept - Stalingrad

This new, Udo-less era of the band has been surprisingly stellar, hasn't it?  After the tragically flawed Blood of the Nations raised my expectations above their previous resting place of "none", Stalingrad stormed in and fixed every problem that plagued the previous album.  It's about three tracks and twenty minutes shorter, with more in your face rockers and less meandering plodders.  I can barely say anything bad about this album, and at one point in time it actually topped this list, which really only speaks to how fantastic the following three albums are.

3: Hour of Penance - Sedition

It's pretty much a given that any year Hour of Penance releases an album, it's going to make an appearance on my year end list.  These Italians have never slowed down and never changed their focus away from crushing the cross with as much vigor and resolve as a sentient jackhammer on 'roids.  These guys one-up themselves with each and every album, which nearly every band aims for and claims to do, but so few actually succeed in doing.  HoP is a special breed, and as long as they're doing what they do best (that is manically brutal tech death), this trend of seeing their name on my lists will not abate any time soon.

2: Cannibal Corpse - Torture

The first time I heard the preview track, "Demented Aggression", I called this as my album of the year.  This was back in February, and for only one album to come along since then to dethrone this is quite an accomplishment.   People give Cannibal shit all the time for never changing what they do, and Torture serves as a giant middle finger to those critics.  This is faster, more aggressive, and more frantic than anything they've done in years, and as a result is probably their best since Bloodthirst, maybe even the best they've ever done.  And in a discography that includes Kill, Tomb of the Mutilated, and the aforementioned Bloothirst, that's a bold statement.

And the winner is...

1: Sigh - In Somniphobia

You all knew this was coming, this doesn't surprise anybody.  Really and truly, no album deserves this honor more than Sigh's latest masterpiece, the inimitable and frankly flawless In Somniphobia.  I've gabbed on and on and on in what (if I remember correctly) is my longest review to date, so if you'd really like to know what makes this album leagues above everything else released since the early 90s when Painkiller was released, go on ahead and read that.  Believe me, Sigh completely owns the market on "weird" metal, and I maintain that no metal track has been as good as "The Transfiguration Fear" since as far back as 1984.  This album throws absolutely everything at you and it never once falls flat.  The long jazzy songs, the creepy nuances, the eerie jubilance, just everything that gets thrown sticks, every single idea hits a bullseye.  Albums like this happen once a generation and I'm glad I was able to see this one happen in its own time.  Easily my BH Award for Album of the Year 2012, and I'm just going to preempt it as my Album of the Decade as well.  

Honestly, this is the happiest I've been with a year end list since I started doing this as unofficial forum posts back in ~2006.  What I have here is solid, and unless I really somehow managed to miss a gigantically important album, I don't see this one changing too drastically.  And with all that said, it's time for the more minor categories, plus a new one I don't normally do!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Stormrider - The Path of Salvation: It sucked to leave this one off the list because I really like it and want to help give the band some exposure, but it was juuuuust a bit under the other ones I have up there.  This is what Iced Earth would sound like if Jon Schaffer never existed.  Instead of lazy dun dududh dun dududh dun riffs over and over and over, we're treated to creative song structures, wild basslines, out of this world riffs and a vocalist who could convince Matt Barlow that he was listening to himself.

Desultor - Masters of Hate: The spiritual successor to last year's Satan's Host album.  I love this new idea of extreme metal with soaring clean vocals, and I'm really, really hoping it catches on, and Desultor is pretty much the only band I've heard all year to do it, so they get mad respect from me on that point alone.  Keep it up, new bands!  I want more of this shit!

Cronosphere - Envirusment:  It's just thrash, that's all there is to it, but it's really good thrash.  It's the highest ranking pure thrash album on my full list of the ~140 releases I heard this year, so y'all should check it for that reason.  It's like if Chuck Billy fronted a band that wasn't boring as fuck.

Allegaeon - Formshifter: It was a great year for tech death, and this gets a mention for also blending itself with melodeath and doing it beatifully.

Running Wild - Shadowmaker: I HAVE TO BE CLEAR ON THIS: SHADOWMAKER IS NOT MENTIONED HERE BECAUSE OF HOW GOOD IT IS.  It isn't, it's pretty lame overall, but it's getting a mention because of how awful it really isn't.  I was expecting this to be a soul crushing disappointment, and the mere fact that there are threeish songs that I classify as pretty good means it absolutely shattered my expectations.  This isn't for fans of Running Wild, because it's basically just The Brotherhood part II, but it's still better than Rogues en Vogue.  Granted that isn't much of an accomplishment, but for an album that I had dead and buried the instant it was announced, it was a pleasant surprise to not want to throw it in a fireplace after first listen.

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Orden Ogan - To the End: This album isn't bad really.  It has some good songs and some not so good ones, and overall I'd consider it decent, not something to really avoid.  But the fact of the matter is that this album is blowing the socks off of nearly every power metal fan on the planet, with some relatively high profile ones proclaiming that this blows Blind Guardian out of the water, and for the life of me I can't fathom how one could hear this and come to such a conclusion.  It's not a bad album by any means, it's on the positive end of the spectrum, but god damn if you expect this to be as life affirming as so many others seem to feel it is, you'll be sorely disappointed like I was.

Ahab - The Giant: Call of the Wretched Sea is great.  It's baby's first funeral doom, but it's still a very well written and enjoyable album.  I'm in the minority who prefers The Divinity of Oceans, as the melodic bent works extremely well with their lighter style of megaslow doom.  The Giant, on the other hand, is just a great big flop.  It's more melodic, so it had potential, but it's life drainingly boring.  There are little to no interesting sections and it's just a huge disappointment after how much I enjoyed the previous album.

Wintersun - Time I: This didn't necessarily disappoint me on a qualitative level, as I was expecting this to be as bad as it was, but the disappointment comes from the brazen lack of respect for the patient fans who'd been waiting for this album for the past eight years.  You have to have quite a set on you to push back so long and so frequently and then only deliver half of the final product and wait god knows how long to release the second half.  It's a slap in the face to fans so monumental that even I, a non-fan, feel personally slighted.

Ensiferum - Unsung Heroes: Ensiferum is a very, very important band to me.  I have so many good memories tied to their music and they were seminal in helping my taste evolve to what it has become.  They were hinting at experimentation and a bold, ambitious new path they intended to blaze on From Afar... and then Unsung Heroes comes out and just takes a big smelly shit right on their legacy.  The fact that something this lazy and phoned in managed to pass the band's acid test shows me that their heart isn't in this anymore.

Striker - Armed to the Teeth: Keep in mind this is in my top third for the year, but after how hooky and fun Eyes in the Night was, this just feels tame.


Now, I didn't listen to as much non-metal this year as I usually do, so instead I'm going to indulge my dark side and present:

THE 10 WORST ALBUMS OF 2012

10: Manowar - The Lord of Steel

Do I really need to explain why a post-1988 Manowar album is shit?  Of course not, but this one earns bonus points for how awfully the release and reaction to criticism was handled.  First the album is given away with Metal Hammer magazine, and when everybody pointed out that the album is not only shit, but sound like it was exported from Guitar Pro, we get Joey DeMaio acting like he was some brilliant mastermind and cackled as he released the "real" version several months later, with an improved (muffled) mix and unimproved songwriting.  This was a buzzy mess and everybody defending it simply has bad taste.  No exceptions.

9: 3 Inches of Blood - Long Live Heavy Metal

It's amazing how everybody complained about the metalcore screamer, and then when he left the band the music suddenly got inexcusably lazy and boring.  This is right in line with the precedent set on Here Waits Thy Doom, dull, tired heavy metal tracks that can at least keep the tempo consistently high and the vocals always entertaining, but they can't write an interesting song to save their lives anymore.  Seeing the fourth installment of the "Upon the Boiling Sea" saga was pretty much an unnecessary slap in the face to me since that's a perfectly finished trilogy and feels like the band is needlessly teabagging Advance and Vanquish, which I consider a modern day classic to be revered in the future.

8: Kalopsia - Amongst the Ruins

I almost feel bad placing this here because there's nothing really and truly offensive to be found here, but there's really no better example of safe, bland, faceless, cookie cutter BDM with no interesting qualities within a galaxy's reach.  Perhaps I'm unfairly singling this out, and I'll admit to that, so just consider Kalopsia to represent the current modern, non slammy BDM scene as a whole.

7: Saratoga - Nemesis

This band apparently has a very lengthy history that nobody gives a fuck about, and if this exceedingly boring album is indicative of their normal output then I completely understand why.  Spanish power metal with an unbearably flat production and the least catchy choruses I've probably ever heard.  I can't even say much about it because it's just so goddamn dull.

6: Fields of Elysium - Capax Universi

I've been over this a thousand times so I'll just recap this really quickly.  Tech death is awesome when it's focused and contextualized, it's awful when it's a haphazard mess of unrelated sweeps and one second long blast beats.  Add in an unbearable amount of dissonance and this becomes just fucking painful to listen to.  It's like Dillinger Escape Plan, Behold the Arctopus, and Rings of Saturn all got super hammered together and decided to have a "who can make less musical music" contest.  Despite it being in the lower half of this list, it's one of the few that's actually painful to listen to.

5: Memoria - Inner War

This is tagged all over the internet as "heavy metal", and considering they're a Chicago band, that must mean I'd be pretty generous toward my hometown, right?  Fuck no, not in this case.  How this is simply heavy metal to so many people is a mystery to me, this is straight up 90s groovy metal/hard rock.  The vocals are lazy and reminiscent of... man I'm drawing a blank but it's some 90s grunge/hard rock band.  This is like if Prong was less interesting and Machine Head was less heavy.  Stick with High Spirits if you want killer trad metal from Chicago.  Also, cover art... Coma of Souls much?  You hacks.

4: Whitechapel - Whitechapel

I'm not one to shoot fish in a barrel (I prefer it to be in a suit, I think they appreciate the extra professionalism.  WAKA WAKA), but this really and truly is wretched.  Whitechapel has always been my textbook example of a great name being wasted on a terrible band, but really A New Era of Corruption wasn't that bad.  I won't want to rip my ears off if somebody puts it on, like I would with any Suffokate album.  But this is just falling off the deep end.  Almost full on into Emmure style nu-deathcore, and it's really, really awful as a result.  There are flashes of what used to make the band passable, but overall they are GONE.

3: All That Remains - A War You Cannot Win

I don't even want to think about this album anymore.  Phil's vocals are lazy and phoned in, the songs are lazy and phoned in, the solos aren't even entertaining anymore.  I can't even use the excuse that "Well at least Oli deserves to be in a better band" anymore because he really doesn't at this point.  I can just keep saying "lazy and phoned in" and that really sums all of it up.  What makes it even worse is that it was already lazy and shitty three albums ago.  All That Remains needs to just break up and disappear already.

2: Brute Forcz - Out for Blood

This album doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned, just read my review if you really want to know why it's so terrible.  What?  My review has no musical description and is merely a cavalcade of juvenile fat jokes?  Oh well, it's still better than the album.  I hate creators talking up their shit like it's something amazing, but really, saying you created something better than Brute Forcz takes essentially 1% effort.  I create something better than Brute Forcz after every meal.

AND THE WINNER (?) IS...

1: Permafrost - On That Side of Life

Believe it or not, there really was something worse than Brute Forcz that came out this year.  How bad is it?  Well Brute Forcz is still on my iPod, fucking Permafrost got deleted.  Not unchecked, deleted.  Not to make room for more music, just because it was so fucking bad that I didn't want to see it in between Pense and Perpetual Fire.  I barely remember anything about it other than it was beyond retardedly lo-fi brutal death metal that sounded like it was written on the fly and recorded in one take.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I trust my past self in assessing the merits of this album.  This only reinforces my belief that nothing good comes out of Russia (keep your weird obscure BM bands to yourself, that's a mood music for me and I much prefer Northern Europe and Scandinavia's brand than Eastern Europe's anyway).  Congratulations, Permafrost, on the dubious honor of actually being worse than Brute Forcz, be... proud I guess?

And there we have it!  It feels weird to actually get this out on time for once, and right at midnight too!  Working ahead is a good thing I guess.  I hope you've all had a wonderful 2012 like I did.  I was rather surprised at how awesome this year turned out to be for my taste in music, as all the pre-year hype seemed to be centered around black, doom, and sludge metal, the three subgenres I listen to the least.  Thankfully it looks like death metal really stepped up to the plate this year, whereas thrash was pretty inconsequential and many of the worst albums I'd heard were trad or power metal.  Who knows?  It seems like there wasn't a whole lot of creativity and instead a ton of safe mediocrity coming from those camps with less stellar standouts.  We can't win 'em all now can we folks?  

Anyway, I wish you all a happy and safe New Years celebration.  Don't do anyone I wouldn't do.  Actually, do do those whom I would not do so I can do those I would.  I get lonely around the holidays, okay?  Buy me a Sigh shirt!