If I could set a day aside every week to spend listening to new music, I would. If I could tack two hours on to the end of each day solely for new music, I’d do that too. If I did, I still wouldn’t have time to listen to all the worthwhile new stuff that’s coming out every week. We’re drowning in splendor.
As much as I’d like to, I can’t set aside a day every week to wallow in promos. I work full-time, and when I’m not working, various other interests and necessities compete for my leisure time. I’m not alone—all of us IO folk are in this boat, along with most other music bloggers, I suspect.
So, inevitably, some excellent albums slipped through the coverage cracks this year. Whiffing on greatness can happen for a variety of boring logistical reasons: poorly-timed street dates, faulty promos, organizational muck-ups, and old-fashion time crunches.
So, in lieu of a personal year-end top 10, I’ve compiled a list of 10 outstanding metal albums that Invisible Oranges should’ve covered in depth, but didn’t. (I’m not a great believer in the value of ‘my favorite albums’-style lists anyhow; they tend to re-endorse albums that everyone’s been talking about all year anyway.) We’ve mentioned some of them in passing; others went unmentioned here. Our bad. Each one is worthy of your time and attention.
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Dodecahedron – Dodecahedron (Season of Mist)
This album inspired me to compile this list. When it came out in January, I was too zonked from the preceding month’s year-end calisthenics to absorb such a deeply strange record. It sat mostly untouched for the following two months. By the summer, it had become my clear favorite for the year. This Dutch debut (!) expands brilliantly on French avant-garde black metal, illuminating the darkness with psychedelic vamps and FX-drenched vox. Dodecahedron is genre-less and bottomless; I hear something new every time I spin it.
[Buy CD]
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The Catalyst – Voyager (Forcefield Records)
Metal, hardcore, and noise rock make for a fashionable fusion these days, but the union often lacks the charms of its ingredients. Voyager makes the combination work—it’s light-footed but heavy-handed. The Catalyst could be the next KEN Mode if they tour hard and reach the right ears.
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Bad Powers – Bad Powers (The End Records)
Brooklyn noise rockers Made Out of Babies became one of my favorite bands over their three-album run—they churned AmRep-style beneath singer Julie Christmas’s blood ‘n’ guts outbursts, until she split and MOoB died. Bad Powers is the same band plus new singer Megan Tweed, who matches Christmas’s dynamic vocals through a slow-burning set of tunes written with Christmas in mind. Some exciting guest spots (Eugene Robinson of Oxbow, Lisa Papineau of Air) round out this promising rebirth.
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Burning Love – Rotten Thing to Say (Southern Lord)
It’s difficult for a vocalist who screams instead of sings to dominate an album. Chris Colohan, the veteran frontman of Cursed, Left For Dead, and The Swarm, manages the feat here. Burning Love’s blues-gnarled hardcore (think The Suicide File) provides film stock for Colohan’s highlight reel of aphorisms. One of Southern Lord’s best hardcore-years releases.
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Diskord – Dystopics (No Posers Please!)
In death metal, “technical” and “old-school” usually describe opposite ends of a spectrum. Both adjectives apply to Norway’s Diskord. The band marries two aesthetics—Dystopics features analog tones and a label stamp that says “No Posers Please!,” but the band members have short hair, and the album cover blares bright and un-br00tal colors. The compositions follow suit, oozing Autopsy-style through weird chord voicings and jazzy rhythms. Hard to find Stateside, but worth the effort.
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Diskord – “Entropic Death”
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Nekromantheon – Rise, Vulcan Spectre (Indie Recordings)
I only sort of understand what octane is, but you don’t need to be a fuel chemist to know that Rise, Vulcan Spectre has lots of it. Norway’s Nekromantheon play reverbed-out, Slayeresque thrash that’s a blastbeat away from black metal. This shit is fast; my picking hand hurts just thinking about their band practices. Throwback thrash is usually a chore, but Rise, Vulcan Spectre slices straight through the cynicism.
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Nemertines – SCD (self-released)
It doesn’t get any more thoroughly modern than Nemertines. This one-man Russian djent outfit has released two albums and three singles this year alone, all exclusively through Bandcamp. They vary in quality, but SCD hits the hardest. It neatly sidesteps djent’s two most common failings—overblown musicianship and terrible vocals—by sticking to eerie, instrumental heaviness. This is the closest I’ve heard a Meshuggah devotee come to approximating Nothing’s otherworldly vibe.
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Nidingr – Greatest of Deceivers (Indie Recordings)
Nidingr gets my pick for under-the-radar black metal album of the year. Norwegian BM lifer Teloch (Mayhem, The Konsortium, Ov Hell, etc.) and an impressive supporting cast combine ear-slicing dissonance with taut songwriting and stoic precision. Greatest of Deceivers isn’t as expansive as some of the French stuff it’s clearly modeled on, but it hits hard and makes a home for itself in your head. Plus, one of the band members is named Blargh. How can you go wrong? My favorite of Indie Recordings’ 2012 crop, which also includes Nekromantheon and God Seed.
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Nidingr – “The Worm is Crowned”
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Sectu – Gerra (ViciSolum Productions)
Technical death metal had a crummy year. It’s a dowdy style right now, and most of its leading lights spent the year hibernating or touring on their 2011 releases. A few worthy efforts bubbled to the surface, though. The sophomore album from Sweden’s Sectu is probably the best of them—it glues the usual legato runs and pristine blasting together with tarry grooves, redolent of mid-period Morbid Angel. This album seems to have reached few ears on this side of the pond. Shame; the North American tech death scene should be snapping up copies.
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Sectu – “Nightwraiths”
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Stagnant Waters – Stagnant Waters (Adversum)
Usually, “avant-garde black metal” means “black metal, plus some unconventional elements.” Stagnant Waters inverts the ratio. Most of these songs have some black metal components—elusive riffage and Fleurety vocalist Sven Hatlevik’s hollering, most often—but these components drift in a sea of weird. Jazz, IDM, and dark ambient go spanging off each other on virtually every one of these tracks. It’s the atmosphere of hostility that keeps Stagnant Waters metal.
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Stagnant Waters – “Algae”
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[Buy CD]
Not really “overlooked” because it just came out last week, but the new Circle Takes The Square is ridiculously good after an 8 year absence…everyone should grab it while it’s “pay what you wish” over at their bandcamp page!
Also, technically not “metal”, but Justin Greaves continued to channel Pink Floyd’s best attributes on Crippled Black Phoenix’s “(Mankind) The Crafty Ape”…insanely good, yet I haven’t seen much coverage of this fantastic album from earlier in the year!
I came close to writing up that CTTS album, but holiday scheduling interfered. That band could use some PR help.
Agreed, the only place I’ve seen mention of it was (gasp) lambgoat…hopefully it get more coverage/exposure when the physical copies materialize!
Also, the Dodecahedron record was criminally overlooked virtually everywhere it seems, which is sad because it’s a monster.
The new Lustration album really needed more love: deeply weird black/thrash in the vein of early Absu and Spear of Longinus. Also, anything that Muknal produced this year was worthy of remembrance.
Wow that Diskord is blowing my fucking mind. In a way it reminds me of Vuvr, especially their more death metal oriented demo before their full length, Pilgrimage. Sectu also made my list! I tried to cover albums I didn’t feel got a lot of press. Check it here:
http://www.nocleansinging.com/2012/12/29/the-best-of-2012-lists-from-austin-weber/
King Giant put out one of the best stoner metal records I’ve ever heard for free last year and almost nobody even mentioned it.
Personally I found that Dodecahedron record to be a sterile, empty and overblown turkey that did little more than hang on to the coat-tails of The Axis of Perdition and Deathspell. Very overrated in its little circle. Didn’t think much of Sectu either.
Good call on Diskord and Stagnant Waters though. Enjoyed them a lot.
Vassafor’s The Obsidian Codex came out really late but goddamn I wish it came out earlier this year. Phil Kusabs (ex-Diocletian/live-Blasphemy) made the most killer black metal album of the year that never got any coverage. New Zealand sure killed it this year with Vassafor and Witchrist at the helm. New material from Diocletian is in the works for 2013 too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgNx6a-qDM
Am I seriously the only one who loved Pallbearer’s Sorrow & Extinction? I guess because it came out back in February no one remembers it. Blame it on ADHD!
See IO’s #1 album of the year. Or go on pitchfork.
Great call on Burning Love. I was very skeptical towards this album but it turned out to be my favorite hardcore release of the year.
you forgot “Joint Ventures” by The Odious
EHNAHRE – OLD EARTH
insanely underrated!!!!! why did this album get so little press??
I heard it and liked it, but not as much as some of their earlier stuff. All about The Man Closing Up.
A lot of people slept on Undergang’s Til Døden Os Skiller this year. Sick death metal from Denmark that sounds like it’s more American influenced but with a Danish crust twist. Still pissed I’ve never seen them live, although it was rad meeting David Torturdød in Berlin last year.
http://undergang.bandcamp.com/album/til-d-den-os-skiller
Bad year for tech-death? You have to be kidding, right? New albums from Gorod, Spawn of Possession and the amazing debut from Sophicide all made this a banner year for tech-death. Sectu’s Gerra is a criminally overlooked album, but as a tech release it pales in comparison to the other three I just listed. As a brutal death album, it’s an instant classic, and upholds the Polish tradition of grooving brutality in the Vader/Decapitated tradition.
Szron – Death Camp Earth. The best orthodox black metal record of the year. Cold, lo-fi, hateful, and it could be from Scandinavia circa-94. And even though the Aldebaran record got press, it somehow got lost amidst the sea of other doom records that came out this year.
I didn’t think it was nearly as good as the last Szron. For good orthodoxy, check out the new Kaevum.
Nobody has mentioned the new Make A Change… Kill Yourself. Same dude as Angantyr, but now it seems Make a Change is putting out the better material. Totally hypnotizing album, and better than all other dsbm that came out this year.