Jordan Itkowitz

Hard enough to pick from this year’s ridiculous bounty of excellent albums – even harder when your tastes run from black metal to tech-death to prog to sludge and beyond. The biggest change this year was the continued explosion of independent acts who found an audience via democratizing, easy-to-find streaming services like Bandcamp or SoundCloud. The underground has never been so alive.

Best of 2012
1. Wodensthrone – Curse (Candlelight Records)
Curse, much like its excellent predecessor Loss, is at once gorgeous, cinematic and savage, and packed with thunderous and highly melodic compositions. Its best moments, like my favorite track of the year, “Wyrgthu,” reach genuine and dramatic peaks unrivaled by most other metal genres. After only two full-lengths, Wodensthrone has joined the black metal elite.

2. Gorod – A Perfect Absolution (Listenable Records)
Still one of the most playful metal bands in existence, in any style, and this was the year’s most excellently composed and entertaining technical death metal. Plus no one else does blaxploitation + bossa nova + death metal mash-ups like these guys.

3. Cult of Fire – Triumvirát (Independent)
Cult of Fire certainly has a taste for the dramatic. Their explosive brand of black metal blends raw power, shaggy groove and ’70s occult atmosphere, and their visual persona and live performances have been calculated to match. Another fantastic band from the Eastern European scene, and one Hell of a new discovery.

4. The Faceless – Autotheism (Sumerian Records)
I already knew The Faceless could turn out excellent deathcore and tech-death, based on the quality of their first two releases. However, I didn’t expect this – an ambitious concept album that also pulls in progressive death and Faith No More-inspired theatrics, making it the year’s biggest leap forward for any band on my list.

5. Paradigm – Mind is Key (Independent)
This Australian outfit came out of nowhere and blew me away with their energetic blend of metalcore, djent and progressive metal, and tracks like “Wish Us Light” and “Written in Blood” have been high on my most-played list since I reviewed the album back in March. One of the year’s most addictive and melodic pleasures.

6. Katatonia – Dead End Kings (Peaceville Records)
Dead End Kings takes the delicate web of instrumentation, the fine-tuned dynamics and the unorthodox melody choices of Night is the New Day, and marries it all to one of my favorite batch of Katatonia songs yet – songs that flow, seduce, transport and soothe. Misery never sounded so good.

7. Anaal Nathrakh – Vanitas (Candlelight Records)
Seven albums in, and the ‘Thrakh’s mix of black metal, grind and industrial is as terrifying as ever. Yet it’s these guys’ accomplished ability to take that blood-spattered palette and use it to craft actual songs – grand choruses, gleaming hooks and even the occasional solo – that’s really impressive.

8. Xanthochroid – Blessed He with Boils (Independent)
2012 boasted a number of elaborate symphonic/avant-garde black metal releases from the likes of Borknagar, Ihsahn, Ne Obliviscaris and Carach Angren, but it was this independent group from California that really grabbed my attention. This release not only boasts swooping symphonics, lilting Diablo-like interludes and intricate, baroque compositions, but it’s also a full-on concept album with its own mythology and world map. Plus the vocalist does the best Ihsahn impression I’ve ever heard.

9. The Great Old Ones – Al Azif (Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions)
Otherworldly, Lovecraftian French black/doom that’s ominous, eldritch and surprisingly enchanting. Another great example of how black metal can span great emotional distances, from the depths of the sea to the stars above.

10. Temple – On the Steps of the Temple (Independent)
My top 10 closes out with another indie release, this time from a two-man instrumental sludge/doom duo from Phoenix. Instrumental metal is rarely my thing, but that’s because it’s usually not as awe-inspiring, monstrous or cinematic as this.

11. Chaos Inception – The Abrogation (Lavadome Productions)
Excellent hyperspeed death metal with a vortex of deadly riffs funneled into 30 minutes of destructive and entertaining songwriting.

12. Ensiferum – Unsung Heroes (Spinefarm Records)
Keep your long-awaited Wintersun epic; Jari Mäenpää’s former bandmates turned out a far more rousing and heroic album this year.

13. Les Discrets – Ariettes oubliées… (Prophecy Productions)
Metalgaze, shoegaze, post-rock, whatever – this was not only better than the debut, I thought it was superior to the new Alcest as well.

14. Enslaved – RIITIIR (Nuclear Blast)
A merely good Enslaved release is still a great release in the grand scheme of things.

15. Mgla – With Hearts Toward None (Northern Heritage)
No frills and no atmospheric add-ons, yet this raw Polish black metal release managed to be haunting and hypnotic all the same.

16. Blut Aus Nord – 777 – Cosmosophy (Debemur Morti Productions)
Vindsval’s imagination and his willingness to redefine not just his own aesthetic – but also the boundaries of what constitutes black metal – seems to know no bounds.

17. Dying Fetus – Reign Supreme (Relapse Records)
Best DF release since Destroy the Opposition. This thing just kills from start to finish, and more than that – it’s fun.

18. Züül – To the Frontlines (High Roller Records)
Now this is how you do kickass traditional/heavy metal in 2012. No gimmicks, no experimentation, just great songs and fist-pumping energy. The Frazetta-inspired album cover didn’t hurt, either.

19. Ihsahn – Eremita (Candlelight Records)
Visionary, soaring and at times downright scary, with some of his most avant-garde and challenging compositions yet.

20. Allegaeon – Formshifter (Metal Blade)
Melodic death rarely gets my attention anymore, but these Coloradans do it so well – and with so much technical aplomb – that it was impossible not to be impressed.

21. Nile – At the Gate of Sethu (Nuclear Blast)
Yeah, the production is as dry as an unearthed Pharaoh, but it’s still my favorite batch of songs since Annihilation of the Wicked.

22. High on Fire – De Vermis Mysteriis (E1 Entertainment)
It took a filthy, vaguely psychedelic release like this to finally make me pay attention to these stoner heroes, but now I’m converted.

23. Lord Mantis – Pervertor (Candlelight Records)
In this case, you should definitely judge a book by its cover. The sludge metal inside was equally as brutal, disgusting and mesmerizing.

24. Haiduk – Spellbook (Independent)
One-man thrash/death project that’s razor-sharp, relentless and listenable as hell.

25. Moonloop – Deeply from the Earth (Listenable Records)
Still bummed that Opeth has abandoned progressive death metal? Try these guys, who blend peak-era Opeth with a Gojira-like lurch. Great clean vocals too.

Best EPs
Witch Ripper – S/T
Former members of Iron Thrones out-Mastodon Mastodon.

Deathspell Omega – Drought
Their most focused release since Kenose, but still as dismal and disturbing as ever.

Revocation – Teratogenesis
Blistering prog/thrash/death for free from Scion A/V? Yes please!

Orchid – Heretic
One of the best new groups of Sabbath acolytes.

Best Tracks
Wodensthrone – “Wrygthu”
Paradigm – “Wish Us Light”
Enslaved – “Death in the Eyes of Dawn”, “Roots of the Mountain”
Gorod – “Varangian Paradise”
Katatonia – “Hypnone”
Temple – “Mountain”
Ensiferum – “In My Sword I Trust”
Khors – “The Last Leaves”

Best Black Metal Surf Rock Track
Hail Spirit Noir – “Against the Curse, We Dream”

Coolest Cover Art
Blut Aus Nord – 777 Cosmosophy
Enslaved – RIITIIR
Wrathprayer – The Sun of Moloch: The Sublimation of Sulphur’s Essence Which Spawned Death and Life
Cult of Fire – Triumvirát
Deathspell Omega – Drought
Testament – Dark Roots of Earth

Best Live Show/Venue
Slaughter on the Water 3, aboard the USS Hornet in Alameda, CA

New and Promising (Stuff I Need More Time With)
The Advent Equation – Limitless Life Reflections
Psilocybe Larvae – The Labyrinth of Penumbra
Inanimate Existence – Liberation through Hearing

Disappointments
Storm Corrosion – Storm Corrosion
Aside from the expansive and gorgeous opening track “Drag Ropes” (with an equally fascinating video), the rest of this album, like much of Heritage and Grace for Drowning before it, was too sleepy, too sedate and not really all that memorable. Pretty at times, but Akerfeldt and Wilson are capable of so much more.

Iron Thrones’ break-up
First Burst, then Isis, now Iron Thrones? Is the entire progressive metalcore/sludge genre doomed? Although the members have all moved on to other quality projects like Witch Ripper and Wolvhammer, I will always wonder what a full Iron Thrones discography might have sounded like after The Wretched Sun, my favorite release of 2010.

Lamb of God – Resolution
Randy Blythe’s incarceration and legal troubles were bad enough, but this release completed Lamb of God’s transformation into the Pantera bro-metal successors that the haters have always (incorrectly) pegged them to be. So much for getting another As the Palaces Burn one day…

Enslaved – RIITIIR
Yeah it’s in my top 20, but aside from career triumphs like “Death in the Eyes of Dawn” or “Roots of the Mountain,” the rest of the album features too much muddy prog and not enough genuine fire, making it my least favorite Enslaved release in more than a decade.

Best of 2011 Stuff That Still Got Lots of Playtime in 2012
Pagan’s Mind – Heavenly Ecstasy
Fleshgod Apocalypse – Agony
The Devil’s Blood – The Thousandfold Epicentre
Myrath – Tales of the Sands
Benighted – Asylum Cave

Most Anticipated for 2013
Ghost – Infestissumam
Enshine (former Slumber members)
Voices (former Akercocke members)
Omnium Gatherum – Beyond
Fen – Dustwalker
New releases by Opeth, Dream Theater and Dimmu Borgir

Already on My Best of 2013 List
Cult of Luna – Vertikal
Void of Sleep – Tales Between Reality and Madness