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!
Erik Thomas
Teethofthedivine reviewed almost 400 albums in 2012. I reviewed over 150 of them. Here are the highlights and a few low lights as well.
1) Binah – Hallucinating in Resurrectre (Dark Descent Records). Best label right now.
2) B’elakor – Of Breath and Bone. (Kolony Records). So smoothly heavy and somber.
3) Gorod – A Perfect Absolution. (Listenable Records). Catchy tech death done right.
4) Anaal Nathrakh – Vanitas (Candlelight Records). Vicious return to form.
5) Beyond Terror Beyond Grace – Nadir. (Willowtip Records). Best style shift in recent memory.
6) Downfall of Gaia – Suffocating in the Swarm of Cranes (Metal Blade). Great new band.
7) Horrendous – The Chills (Dark Descent Records). Better than Asphyx’s Deathhammer.
8) Liberteer – Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees (Relapse Records). Napalm who?
9) Indesinence – Vessels of Light and Decay (Profound Lore Records). Good year for Binah lads. Amazing packaging too.
10) Stagnant Waters – Stagnant Waters (Adversum). Utterly insane brilliance.
11) Pallbearer – Sorrow and Extinction (Profound Lore Records). Gorgeous melancholy.
12) Chaos Inception – The Abrogation (Lavadome Productions). Did Nile better than Nile.
13) Revel in Flesh – Deathevocation (FDA Rekotz). FDA is Europe’s Dark Descent.
14) Ævangelist – De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis,(I, Voidhanger). Nasty.
15) Daylight Dies – A Frail Becoming (Relapse Records). US doom metal’s best kept secret.
16) Incantation – Vanquish in Vengeance (Listenable). Reclaiming the throne indeed.
17) Desolate Shrine – The Sanctum of Human Darkness (Dark Descent Records). Finnish death metal is killing it.
18) Pseudogod – Deathwomb Catchechesis (Hells Headbangers). Filthy.
19) The Great Old Ones – Al Azif(Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions). Blut Aus who?
20) Eis – Wetterkrutz (Prophecy Productions). glorious rise from the ashes of Geist.
21) Murder Construct – Results (Relapse Records). Good year for Travis Ryan with this and Cattle Decapitation.
22) Dying Fetus – Reign Supreme (Relapse Records). So consistent.
23) Black Breath – Sentenced to Life (Candlelight Records) Early 2012 release almost made me forget about this.
24) Gorephilia – Embodiment of Death (Dark Descent Records). Got lost in Dark Descent’s awesome slew of releases
25) Dordeduh – Dar De Duh (Prophecy Productions). Not Negura Bunget.
26) Cult of Fire – Triumvirát (Demonhood Productions). Wicked 70s laced black metal.
27) Sophicide – Perdition of the Sublime (Willowtip). More tech death with killer melodies.
28) Maveth – Coils of the Black Earth (Dark Descent Records). See Desolate Shrine, Gorephilia
29) Krallice– Years Past Matter. How was this self-released? Did HHH fuck it up for everyone else?
30) Finsterforst – Rastloss (Napalm Records). Epic.
2011 Releases that would have been on 2011 list if I had heard them sooner: Cormorant– Dwellings, Omit – Repose, Beaten to Death – Xes and Strokes
Most Notable Omission: Between the Buried and Me
Best Reissue: Desecrator– Subconscious Release
Awesome Album that I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in the US who heard: Desert Beneath the Pavement – Transit
Best LP: Bréag Naofa – Bréag Naofa(Panic Records), Panopticon – Kentucky.
Best Label : Dark Descent Records- seriously, look at the above list. And then realize they also released albums by Father Befouled, Paroxsihzem, Weregoat, Anhedonist, Coffin Texts, Emptiness and the Timeghoul, Morgion and Cianide compilations.
WTF??????: Sigh – In Sominphobia (Candlelight Records).
Best EP: Spectral Lore/Locust Leaves, Warseid – Where Fate Lies Unbound.
Biggest Letdowns: Nile, Wintersun, Necrovation, Undergang
Enjoyable but overrated : Napalm Death, Blut Aus Nord, Asphyx, Neurosis.
Time to Hang it Up: Grave. Funeral Whore did Grave better than Grave.
Guilty Pleasures: Beyond All Recognition – Drop=Dead, The Acacia Strain – Death is the Only Mortal, Whitechapel – Whitechapel.
Best Reunions/Comebacks: Dehumanized/Antropofagus. Comatose Music killing the death metal comebacks.
Worst Album of 2012: Babylon Mystery Orchestra – Poinium Cherem. Seriously- google that shit, its comically bad.
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