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!
Grimulfr
A list
Marduk – Serpent Sermon – (Century Media)
Sear Bliss – Eternal Recurrence – (Candlelight Rec.)
Dordeduh – Dar de Duh – (Prophecy Productions)
Secrets of the Moon – Seven Bells (Lupus Lounge)
Lunar Aurora – Hoagascht – (Cold Dimensions)
Carach Angren – Where the Corpses Sink Forever – (Season of Mist)
Reverence – The Asthenic Ascension – (Candlelight Rec.)
Enslaved – RIITIIR – (Nuclear Blast)
Eïs – Wetterkreuz – (Prophecy Productions)
Kreator – Phantom Antichrist – (Nuclear Blast)
Unleashed – Odalheim – (Nuclear Blast)
B list
Behexen – Nightside Emanations – (Debemur Morti Productions)
Enthroned – Obsidium – (Agonia Rec.)
Black Messiah – The Final Journey – (AFM Rec.)
Weapon – Embers and Revelations – (Relapse Rec.)
Vesperian Sorrow – Stormwinds of Ages – (The Path Less Traveled Rec.)
Dark Forest – Land of the Evening Star – (Bleak Art Rec.)
Impiety – Ravage & Conquer – (Pulverised Rec.)
Adorned Brood – Kuningaz – (Massacre Rec)
Anaal Nathrakh – Vanitas – (Candlelight Rec)
Napalm Death – Utilitarian – (Century Media)
Albums that I hoped would make the A or B lists
Deiphago – Satan Alpha Omega – (Hells Headbangers Rec.)
Sigh – In Somniphobia – (Candlelight Rec)
Borknagar – Urd – (Century Media)
Belenos – Yen Sonn Gardis – (Northern Silence Productions)
Merrimack – The Acausal Mass – (AFM Rec.)
Vintersorg – Orkan – (Napalm Rec.)
Baptism – As the Darkness Enters – (Northern Heritage Rec.)
Forgotten Tomb – …and Don’t Deliver Us from Evil – (Agonia Rec.)
Worth the wait
Sear Bliss – Eternal Recurrence – (Candlelight Rec.)
Behexen – Nightside Emanations – (Debemur Morti Productions)
Grand Reunion (Too bad they have split up again)
Lunar Aurora – Hoagascht – (Cold Dimensions)
Out with a whimper
Candlemass – Psalms for the Dead – (Napalm Records)
Exceeds expectations (that were not very high)
God Seed – I Begin – (Indie Rec.)
Top form after returning from near death
Eïs – Wetterkreuz – (Prophecy Productions)
Sear Bliss – Eternal Recurrence – (Candlelight Rec.)
Most disapointing
no new Mercyful Fate
Favorite DVD
Watain – Opus Diaboli – (His Master’s Noise)
Best album that made me regret skipping their last few albums
Reverence – The Asthenic Ascension – (Candlelight Rec.)
About time they released an album (at least it wasn’t seven years again)
Waylander – Kindred Spirits – (Listenable Rec.)
Well-oiled machine cranks out another (every two years without fail)
Unleashed – Odalheim – (Nuclear Blast)
Best Debut full length
Wild’s Reprisal – Cascadia Rising – (Independent)
Best Rerecording
Catamenia – The Rewritten Chapters – (Massacre Rec.)
Cirith Gorgor – Firestorm Apocalypse – (Ketzer Rec.)
2011 release that I still have not heard
Cirith Gorgor – Der Untergang… / Победа – (Untergang Rec.)
Best Gorgoroth release
God Seed – I Begin – (Indie Rec.)
Best Negură Bunget release
Dordeduh – Dar de Duh – (Prophecy Productions)
Best King Diamond release
Carach Angren – Where the Corpses Sink Forever – (Season of Mist)
Label of year
Century Media
Most played in 2012
Marduk – Serpent Sermon – (Century Media)
Unleashed – Odalheim – (Nuclear Blast)
Sear Bliss – Eternal Recurrence – (Candlelight Rec.)
Most overdue
Ceremonial Castings
Setherial
Den Saakaldte
Dark Funeral
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