10. The XX - Coexsist
-Congratulations to the XX for overcoming the hurdle of being 'just another over-hyped indie band' who fails to deliver, and is ultimately forgotten after their initial recording. They have done quite the opposite, delivering a solid, critically acclaimed follow-up LP. Having personally felt some stirrings traverse the great black chasm where my heart should be in 2012, this LP arrived just in time to capture some of those things I could not say, and it serves to comfort the savage beast as well. A perfect soundtrack for your long drive home.
9. Diiv - Oshin
-Shoegazing has become very fashionable. I am not so pretentious to think that I am above following trends... and this is one I can get behind. - I welcome a resurgence of sounds paying tribute to classic bands such as Ride, Slowdive, Lush, and of course My Bloody Valentine. Diiv (formerly Dive) is a band started by Zachery Cole Smith in 2011, guitarist of 'Beach Fossils.' The band really has unique style, aesthetically and musically - fusing various influences in a contiguous package that ebbs and flows effortlessly and coolly all the way through the record. Like other albums on this list, every song is a hit. I hold the band and several of their label-mates on Captured Tracks in high regard.
8. Death Grips - The Money Store
-Rap popular culture has been very fragmented in recent years, and I, like many others I'd imagine, have grown extremely tiresome of your standard party fare no later than the middle of the past decade. Kanye West is a buffon. Jay-Z's 'The Blueprint III' was largely a disappointment. Eminem, while still a complex rhyme architect, makes us yawn, more than feel shocked and awed. Pseudo-underground rap is often perceived as too juvenile. A group like Death Grips entering the scene garners instant praise from the majority of us seeking a new identity. It's abrasive, arresting, dissonant, and strange. Practically protest music. The laser-beam synthesizer work is remniscent of "power electronics" at times. It plays like your imagination while reading the book "Neuromancer." Somehow it's still catchy and very blast-able. Not for everyone, but it was never meant for that.
7. Black Breath - Sentenced To Life
-The label Southern Lord has signed a number of bands that have somewhat stretched the material any given hardcore kid or metalhead might listen to... Is it metal? Is it punk, or hardcore? It's dbeat. Case and point is yet another favorable trend known as 'entombedcore.' This is not your little brother's metalcore. Think 'Left Hand Path' buzzsaw-thrash riffage, with vox more akin to NYHC, and breakdowns thrown in every now and then. Out of the many bands that went after this sort of thing, Black Breath's 'Sentenced To Life' is one of the best. It's also one of the albums produced by the great Kurt Ballou of Converge this year, which says a lot in itself. For use to drown out political bickering.
6. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
-The triumphant return of Godspeed You Black Emperor after 10 years! Anyone in their mid to late 20s & 30s into underground music remembers a time during the late 90's when this band seemed to lead a new era of cult music, especially for the college-aged crowd. Any of their albums may have served as important gateways to experimental & avant-garde music, along with other bands such as Swans, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, and Aphex Twin (the former two bands' 2012 releases lost their spots in my countdown in favor of this record). The power to elicit raw emotion that this album has is enough to make the heart burst and mind melt if one tries to make sense of it all... Who are these celestial beings conducting this grand, cacophonous orchestra? I tremble to think, "What gods crafted a roadmap into the apex of human psyche in musical form?" Not for a casual listen, but for an event of an evening.
5. Alt-J: An Awesome Wave
http://altjband.com/
-Every once and a while something comes along that is very, very 'different,' yet oddly embraced by those other than punks, art students, hippies, and the like for certain qualities it contains. This is a young band that truly defies a genre stereotype. This is also not a haphazard mess that is innovative almost to a fault, by any means. Winner of this year's Mercury Music Prize in the UK, and in heavy rotation on satellite radio, Alt-J is a catchy, beat driven band with quite the unconventional vocal style and syncopation. Quite the clever and quirky lyrics can be heard as well... case and point, the song 'Fitzpleasure...' Citing a line out of context would not do it justice. You will just need to give even one song off this record a chance to see what I mean...
4. Convul - "I'll Be Seeing You"
http://glorykid.bandcamp.com/album/ill-be-seeing-you
-Having seen Convul (formerly known as Convulsions) play many times over the last year or so, I have had the pleasure of witnessing this already killer band grow in popularity and evolve into something even greater in scope. I was at a Converge show not long ago when a few Rhode Island natives (the band's home state) spotted me wearing a Convul shirt and introduced themselves and started telling me that they were close friends of the band. They could not believe I had the shirt in NJ. Truth is, largely due to RTF Records related shows, we know and love them over here. This album represents the full transformation that we were privy to live, where there were one or two songs that really stood out as a different animal altogether amongst the band's repertoire then. The songs were always described as 'weird,' or genre-defying, but the LP takes it to a higher plane. We have of course blistering hardcore, sludge, crushing doom-metal riffs at times, and an almost 90's style metallic hardcore going on. Ultimately, the mix is very intriguing without being forced or formulaic, something that few bands get right. Put on this record and get weird.
3. Code Orange Kids - Love Is Love//Return To Dust
http://deathwishinc.com/estore/category/CODEORANGEKIDS.html
http://codeorangekids.bandcamp.com/
-As an underground music fan since the 90s, I sometimes wonder if the ubiquitous flow of new demos onto the hardcore scene, caused by great leaps in internet and computer technology over the last 20 years, has really done a lot to advance the genre, or not... Introduced to this group due to their split 7" with Full Of Hell, I instantly knew this was something special. This is a band that bolsters my faith in hardcore. Their sound has a feverish pace and raw intensity that is surely aided by their youthful state (18ish?). It's also refreshing to see the 100% male dominated hardcore stereotype broken and almost all members contributing heavily to the vocal parts (I'm not talking about gang vox, either). This particular album has been graced by the production of Kurt Ballou. I commend them for achieving such success at this stage in their lives... but don't think for a second that I am giving them attention for their age, producer, or any of that. The music stands tall on its own... this is the new sound, gleaning all the best elements of past and present hardcore. A must-own record of 2012.
Check out this video of CODE ORANGE KIDS:
2. Pallbearer - Sorrow And Extinction
-Pallbearer's Sorrow And Extinction LP was an album of the year contender the second it was released. Unlike many of my other top 10s these guys are not genre-bending in any fashion... rather, they have refined it to the highest degree possible... This new band from Little Rock, Arkansas positively set the internet on fire earlier in the year- impossible to ignore. Brett Campbell channels a young Ozzy Osbourne with his clean vocals while the rest of the group tramples the listener with a testimonial to Candlemass' Epicus Doomus Metallicus-era riffs. Pallbearer's verses are crushing, yet majestic and meaningful. Dark, aching, yet eager and hopeful. The quintessential record for classic, doom, and stoner metal fans, or unquestionably for anyone seeking pensive, emotional music with massive riffs!
Did I mention they are highly relatable? Here are the lyrics to the first song:
1. Foreigner
All along the dark and forbidden wayI can I can feel their eyes and see their arcane thrones
So between my steps I rest to gather up my strength
I must keep pushing onward
Under swirling moons and galaxies
In the presence of ancients, beckoning to me
And I fear to be their conduit and lose myself
In the shadow
Shifting path, that makes it hard to tread my way
Wastes my strength, takes my breath
For the purpose of erosion of my will to carry on
And steals the fire from my blood
Lost within the shade, I call out for a helping hand
Pallbearer killing it live, in Brooklyn:
I literally can't say enough about this band - go buy their record, now.
1. Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind
http://www.convergecult.com/
-This should not come as a surprise. Converge is a brilliant band. They have been doing this since 1990 and the respect the community has for them has only grown enormously over time, especially in the last decade. Their expertise is unmatched- Inspiring and producing many other great works with their powerhouse label, Deathwish Inc, and legendary guitarist Kurt Ballou, and well as the great founding lyricist and artist Jacob Bannon. Their drummer, Ben Koller is literally one of my idols as a fellow skinsman, of course, with Converge and his excellent side project APMD. Converge are regarded as "one of the most original and innovative bands to emerge from the punk underground."(-via Allmusic).
Enough praise for the band in itself... The 2009 album 'Axe To Fall' is a hard one to follow, yet Converge has proven they can still out-do themselves. First of all, on the new album, "There's no artificial distortion, triggers, or Auto-Tune on this album. It's all organic, it's real sounds that capture the way the band performs live," according to Bannon. Despite this, it's as technical as ever. It's also not a straight metallic hardcore album - the vocals and music slow down at times, relatively speaking, becoming melodic, doomy, bluesy, and such in addition to the wild, chaotic grind they're known for. Perhaps the biggest and most impressive feat is that the masterly-crafted lyrics are very much 'grown up,' yet relevant in this youth-oriented scene. This is the hardcore record of the year, the one that has touched me most lyrics-wise and blown me away with musicianship. I am looking forward to seeing them play some of these on the current tour!
"The Aimless Arrow" Lyric sample and video:
To live the life you want
You've abandoned those in need
A necessary casualty
Or so you believe
Your wake will always travel
And well up in the eyes
Of those that you sacrificed
In order to survive
You've abandoned those in need
A necessary casualty
Or so you believe
Your wake will always travel
And well up in the eyes
Of those that you sacrificed
In order to survive
***
Honorable mentions:
The Mars Volta - Noctourniquet
TMV's 6th studio album saw simplified vocals and more electronics replacing the normally complex drums. While this may seem like a travesty, it actually made for good songs - the album is excellent. However, by their 1st two albums we know we can have great songs, concept and high technicality too. Most prog-type bands just go over the top with technicality, while the songs are ultimately dull. TMV does not make this mistake. Unfortunately this album may also be their swansong. Omar has implied that he and Cedric are wrapped up in their other projects, despite an earlier interview stating that they had two albums more worth of material already written.
El-P - Cancer For Cure
NY underground veteran's stylish 2012 release...
Birds In Row - You, Me & The Violence
Deathwish, Inc emo-core from France - went on and off the list's rough draft several times.
Vilipend - Inamorata
A389 '90s metallic hardcore worship - songs are a bit too long though.
Like Rats - Like Rats
Awesome new A389 hardcore!
Vision Of Disorder - The Cursed Remain Cursed
The return of VOD did not have the expected big impact on me...
Pig Destroyer - Book Burner
Critically acclaimed new album from the grindcore vets.
The Sun, The Moon, The Stars - Mind Reader
I enjoyed this record more than High On Fire's new one, which was also excellent, but overall I really did not listen to much metal at all this year.
Twin Shadow - Confess
Perfect 80's synthpop throwback.
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Sophomore album, more upbeat in tone than their earlier work.
Swans - The Seer & Sigur Ros - Valtari
See my earlier comment about being dethroned by Godspeed You Black Emperor!
***
Honorable mentions:
The Mars Volta - Noctourniquet
TMV's 6th studio album saw simplified vocals and more electronics replacing the normally complex drums. While this may seem like a travesty, it actually made for good songs - the album is excellent. However, by their 1st two albums we know we can have great songs, concept and high technicality too. Most prog-type bands just go over the top with technicality, while the songs are ultimately dull. TMV does not make this mistake. Unfortunately this album may also be their swansong. Omar has implied that he and Cedric are wrapped up in their other projects, despite an earlier interview stating that they had two albums more worth of material already written.
El-P - Cancer For Cure
NY underground veteran's stylish 2012 release...
Birds In Row - You, Me & The Violence
Deathwish, Inc emo-core from France - went on and off the list's rough draft several times.
Vilipend - Inamorata
A389 '90s metallic hardcore worship - songs are a bit too long though.
Like Rats - Like Rats
Awesome new A389 hardcore!
Vision Of Disorder - The Cursed Remain Cursed
The return of VOD did not have the expected big impact on me...
Pig Destroyer - Book Burner
Critically acclaimed new album from the grindcore vets.
The Sun, The Moon, The Stars - Mind Reader
I enjoyed this record more than High On Fire's new one, which was also excellent, but overall I really did not listen to much metal at all this year.
Twin Shadow - Confess
Perfect 80's synthpop throwback.
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Sophomore album, more upbeat in tone than their earlier work.
Swans - The Seer & Sigur Ros - Valtari
See my earlier comment about being dethroned by Godspeed You Black Emperor!
***
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