Dec 182012
 

As I assume everyone knows by now, our philosophy is not to crap on metal bands whose music sucks. Instead, we pretty much just ignore them. About the only exceptions are big, famous, wealthy, arrogant bands who just won’t shut the fuck up (I’m looking at you, Dave Mustaine and Axl Rose). But when it comes to just about everyone else, our philosophy is to stay positive and spend our time talking about music we like and want to recommend.

BUT, since we’re nearing the end of the year, other sites are making lists of the worst metal albums of 2012, and once again we’re featuring one of those lists here, to go along with all the “Best of 2012″ lists we’ve been posting. And once again, to get the conversation-started, we’re turning to Adrien Begrand’s column for MSN Entertainment.

MSN Entertainment is another one of what I’ve been calling “big platform” sites, i.e., websites that have huge amounts of traffic but cover metal as only one of dozens of interests. As in the case of other big-platform sites whose Best of 2012 lists I’ve been featuring, I’d be surprised if any of you visit MSN Entertainment to get guidance about good and bad metal. But Adrien Begrand knows his stuff and is worth reading.

So, after the jump, we’ll take a look at his list of the 10 Worst Metal Albums of 2012, and then we’ll open up the Comments for discussion. This year we don’t have world-class stinkers like Lulu and Illud Divinum Insanus, but I bet there have been some others you’ve been detesting almost as much. And if you thing Adrien was wrong-headed in including some of the albums on his own list, feel free to say so. He’s not here to defend himself.

To see Adrien’s list with explanations of why he picked these albums as the 10 worst, use this link. Here they are, which Adrien prefaced with this statement:

“Listening to as much new music as I do, I’m privy to a great deal of mediocre music, and a lot of bad music as well. This year’s crop is an eclectic bunch, featuring a band being billed as “innovative” but doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing, older bands that should know better, a high profile collaboration that fell incredibly flat, a band that abandoned everything likeable about their music to pander to the lowest common denominator, and worst of all, a disastrous solo album by a formerly talented lead singer who was dumped from his band in the ugliest public split metal in metal history. I loathe these albums for various reasons, but they all share one thing in common: after writing this piece, I will never listen to this crap again.”

10.  TankardA Girl Called Cerveza (Nuclear Blast)

09.  Storm CorrosionStorm Corrosion (Roadrunner)

08.  Sonata ArcticaStones Grow Her Name (Nuclear Blast)

07.  TherionLes Fleurs du Mal (End of the Light)

06.  Primal Rock RebellionAwoken Broken (Spinefarm)

05.  Beyond All RecognitionDrop=Dead (Napalm)

04.  Butcher BabiesButcher Babies (Maphia)

03.  MinistryRelapse (13th Planet)

02.  In This MomentBlood (Century Media)

01.  Geoff TateKings & Thieves (InsideOut)

  12 Responses to “LISTMANIA CONTINUES: THE WORST METAL OF 2012”

  1. yeap got to agree 100% with this list!!! would not bother with this music even if they gave it for free

  2. You have no idea how much I hate Butcher Babies.

  3. I liked the Storm Corrosion album. It was more or less just what I was expecting- not metal in the slightest, and good but not great.

  4. Dammit Therion…you used to be awesome..what the hell are you doing

    • Amen to that. The past two releases have been terrible with Gothic Kabbalah being mediocre. I just chalk it up to Cristofer gives no fucks and just puts out what he likes. I guess you have to respect that even if you hate the output.

  5. I guess there’s disappointing as defined here, i.e. total crap, “the worst”. But then there’s also disappointing albums that just weren’t as good as one hoped or expected. For me, that reward this year would go to Paradise Lost. I’m a huge fan of their, have enjoyed their various directions and experiments, and thought their “Faith Divides Us…” from 2009 was absolutely stellar. Unfortunately their latest (Tragic Idol) felt rather uninspired and lazy. It’s ok for a band to retread old waters/sounds (R.I.P. Bolt Thrower, I miss you), but at least pick your best ones if that’s the path you’re going to take…

    P.s.: Some albums can fall in both categories (e.g. 2011’s Morbid Angel).

  6. Tankard had a damn fine fun thrash album, not even close to being on any “worst” list. The rest of that list I wouldn’t even bother to listen to if you paid me 🙂

  7. I know y’all Muthafuckas was expecting Hacktivist to be on this list

  8. What were people expecting from Storm Corrosion? It was pretty obviously going to be something extremely out there, different, and hard to get into. I really enjoyed it though it took a few listens to appreciate it.

  9. I think a ‘biggest disappointments’ list is in order. they weren’t necessarily bad albums, but i can think of a hand full that just didn’t meet expectations.

  10. Therion was great! What’s that doing here?

 Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.