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!
Kevin Ellis
Top Ten of 2012:
1) Meshuggah – Koloss (Nuclear Blast) It may sound cliché to place them at the top, but the kings are back and have reclaimed their throne with a vengeance
2) Napalm Death – Utilitarian (Century Media) Another band that seems to defy age and stagnation while staying true to their roots
3) Dying Fetus – Reign Supreme (Relapse) So far this list is reading like a who’s who in the metal world, but so many greats continued to up the ante 2012
4) Cattle Decapitation – Monolith of Inhumanity (Metal Blade) They keep adding to the death/grind formula with new twists and fresh takes on the ever increasing ferocity of their sound
5) Pig Destroyer – Book Burner (Relapse) Another band that keeps breathing new life into grind, a genre that can get real old, real quick
6) Abnormality – Contaminating the Hive Mind (Sevared) Killer death metal album, and a female growler to boot
7) Kreator – Phantom Antichrist (Nuclear Blast) They age like a fine wine and continue to show the new-age thrash bands how the old guys get it done
Hour of Penance – Sedition (Prosthetic) A 30 minute kill fest that throttles you from the beginning and never lets up
9) Omnihility – Biogenesis (Sevared) Little known band that can hang with the aforementioned Hour of Penance and Origin with their intensity
10) Grief of Emerald – It All Turns to Ashes (Non-Serviam) Phenomenal keyboards and solid musicianship that has shown me I need to dig deeper into the black metal genre
Most Disappointing of 2012:
1) All That Remains – A War You Cannot Win (Razor & Tie) Read my review for all you need to know about this sorry excuse for a metal album
2) Nile – At the Gates of Sethu (Nuclear Blast) Nile is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I REALLY wanted to like this album, but something about it was just off. First Nile album I never purchased a physical copy of
3) Cryptopsy – Cryptopsy (Century Media) It’s a step back on the right path, but another album that could have been so much more than it was
4) Fear Factory – The Industrialist (Candlelight) One of the best bands in the history of metal used a fucking DRUM MACHINE on their new album? No thank you.
Best Deathcore Album:
Whitechapel – Whitechapel
Best Brutal/Slam Death Album:
Relics of Humanity – Guided by the Soulless Call
Best Songs:
Pig Destroyer – “The Diplomat”
Relics of Humanity – “Depriving of Sacred Blindness”
Meshuggah – “Demiurge”,”Behind the Sun”
Best Show:
Meshuggah hands down. First time I have seen my favorite band live, and the show was mind blowing
Needs a New Album in 2013:
Full Blown Chaos – I read they were going to have one this past year, but alas it never showed up
Most Anticipated of 2013:
Devourment and Hatebreed
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