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The same thing we do every year: get together, play each other a track from each of our ten favourite albums of the year (in this case: 2012) and give each other shit for them.

The players are the same as last year: me (Theo), Andrew, Raul and Tom.

Last year's recording was pretty murky so this year I put in more effort so it all sounds a bit crisper. For some reason we didn't get quite as drunk so it's pretty coherent all the way down the line.

As ever, there are three MP3s to download covering almost 3 hours of us playing music and talking all over the top of it. Here's the run down of the albums in the order they were played. Note these aren't in order of preference, the ten are just presented in whatever order we each felt like.

PART ONE (Download: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BwaaEKjkfovWZWRDandBREJuTE0)

1: Cold Pumas - Persistent Malaise - Raul
2: Black Breath - Sentenced to Life - Andrew
3: Japandroids - Post-Nothing - Tom
…

... music I'll keep...

... I'll have to be even more selective this time...

... work in progress (never to be finished)...

... in more or less chronological order...

... :)

Burial - Kindred
Lilacs & Champagne - s/t
Kayo Dot - Gamma Knife
Sieben - No Less Than All
The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation - Egor
Gultskra Artikler - Abtu Anet
Natural Snow Buildings - Beyond the Veil
Extra Life - Dream Seeds
Circle of Ouroborus - The Lost Entrance of the Just
Pharaoh Overlord - Lunar Jetman
Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat - Weltuntergangsstimmung
Locrian & Mamiffer - Bless Them That Curse You
Grouper - Violet Replacement
Sylvester Anfang II - Perzische Tapijten
Carter Tutti Void - Transverse
Father Murphy - Anyway Your Children Will Deny It
Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Stare
Mount Eerie - Clear Moon
Shackleton - Music for the Quiet Hour
Rättö ja Lehtisalo - Matematiikka
Shackleton - The Drawbar Organ EPs
oOoOO - Our Love Is Hurting Us
Swans - We Rose From Your Bed with the Sun in Our Head
…

As with just about every year, there were way too many albums I loved for me to keep the list small. I thoroughly enjoyed everything on here, and it took some effort to arrange them all in a specific order. Also, the order doesn't directly reflect my ratings in the other journal, as my opinion on albums change over time.

Full Lengths

51. Kauan - Kuu...
50. Shroud Eater - Thundernoise
49. Ash Borer - Ash Borer
48. Ghostlimb - Infrastructure
47. Moving Mountains - Waves
46. Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
45. Arizmenda - Without Circumference Nor Center
44. Weekend Nachos - Worthless
43. Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand
42. Defeater - Empty Days and Sleepless Nights
41. Æthenor - En Form For Blå
40. La Dispute - Wildlife
39. Circle of Ouroborus - Eleven Fingers
38. Autopsy - Macabre Eternal
37. Earth - Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light 1
36. Rwake - Rest
35. Raein - Sulla linea d'orizzonte tra questa mia vita e quella di tutti
34. Wormrot - Dirge
33. Noisear - Subvert the Dominant Paradigm
…

Late to the party, as always. This year was excellent, worthy of a place in the Metal Hall of Fame, and I'm saying that without having listened to some big names like Manilla Road, Blut Aus Nord or Sabbat. So let's take a few minutes, read what I had to say about my limited sampling of the year's delights and then completely agree with me:



10. The Wounded Kings - In The Chapel of the Black Hand

Last year's "The Shadow over Atlantis" was probably the doom metal album of the year, and now they've returned with a new singer, one with teats! The album feels way too short, but for the duration, you've got the works: heavy riffs, haunting vocals, occult atmosphere... as Patrick Bruss from Crypticus said, they're "the band who unseated ELECTRIC WIZARD from the Dopethrone". Remember to light up the candles in 13 before pressing "Play".



9. Ride For Revenge - Under the Eye

Now, this is how you pull off atavistic caveman fucking darkness, folks! Finnish dementia ain't nothin' to fuck with…

(a rather chaotic list of music good enough not to be deleted, i. e. to be listened to again; it means quite a lot, actually)
(the higher the better, more or less)
(this will not be updated when I discover dozens of great releases I have missed as it would drive me mad)

the best two:
Kronos Quartet, Kimmo Pohjonen & Samuli Kosminen - Uniko
.... my desciption of this album would be repetition of the words "beauty" and "strings"; perfect; goosebumps all the time
Asva - Presences of Absences
... incredibly mature album; extremely sophisticated both in terms of composition and sound engineering; took me months to appreciate


really great, original, suprising etc.:
Æthenor - En Form For Blå
... could it be totally distorted droning krautrock?
Natural Snow Buildings - Waves of the Random Sea
... waves of the sonic sea; I love this
Haus Arafna - New York Rhapsody
... your world should be desecrated
Chelsea Wolfe - Apokalypsis
... the only singer-songwriter that is actually dark
…

1. Blut aus Nord - 777 - The Desanctification

http://ring.cdandlp.com/osmoseproductions/photo_grande/115109953.png

2. Fen - Epoch

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/4682/cover_274192912011_r.jpg

3. Terra Tenebrosa - Tunnels

http://shop.textalk.se/shop/thumbnails/shop/288/art88/h6500/7026500-origpic-2ff407.jpg_0_0_100_100_300_300_75.jpg

4. Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/images/11128.jpg

5. Circle of Ouroborus - Eleven Fingers

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZzDse9ATN8U/Tpx7sG2DXWI/AAAAAAAAKsw/ip87mVxgbBQ/s1600/Circle+of+Ouroborus+-+Eleven+Fingers+%2528The+Troopers+Of+Metal%2529.jpg

6. Altar of Plagues - Mammal

http://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/altar-of-plagues-mammal-detail-e1301126472667.jpg

7. Wo Fat - Noche del Chupacabra

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/9567/10377562.jpg

8. Subrosa - No Help For The Mighty Ones

…

(As seen on Equivoke)

2011 was another great year for music, there was so much great shit released by hard working groups and labels that again it was a tough year to make a list. I always feel as though I should wait like a month or two after the new year to make a list like this since I do usually miss an amazing record and regret not putting it on the list. Going from #20 to #1 this time.

Enjoy and GFYS.

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#20. Subrosa - No Help For The Mighty Ones

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u111/pathological_frolic/berserk%20banners/3203dde669bede8a807627f4c6f3e0ef_40c60c__.jpg

Label: Profound Lore Records

Samples:

Whirpoorwill
Beneath the Crown

I still can’t get over how those violins sound like trumpets, and its just so cool. What a great sludge/doom release that I was very surprised by. Majority females in this band with a semi-Neurosis/A Storm of Light aesthetic and sound floating about it, melancholic with a psychedelic flavor sprinkled throughout. …