(I again twisted the arm of recording engineer and musician Sean Golyer (Oak Pantheon) to get his year-end list of personal favorites because I had a feeling it would be an interesting one, and he relented.  I hope he doesn’t need both arms for his work.)

I was originally going to go a more traditional route this year and write a bunch of nonsense reviews about why I like each of these releases. However, even I don’t like seeing myself ramble on trying to quantify reasons why I like band “x” over band “y”. I’ve come to realize I can’t explain my taste in a way that would make sense to anybody but me. I listen and I either like it or I don’t. This year also saw a lot of big changes for me and my bandmates regarding what we enjoy listening to now. This includes a lot of non-heavy music, but important none-the-less. They’re each “metal” in their own way.

So, I’ll continue my own tradition as I did last year by simply posting my favorite songs from my favorite releases with a brief description, all in no particular order. Feel free to discuss or debate the music below with me, or discuss something entirely different. That’s cool too.

Porta Nigra – Fin de Siècle

One of my favorite releases of the year. A unique blend of black metal and rock, Porta Nigra’s debut is total debauchery with a late 19^th century spin. Full of memorable hooks, varied vocal performances, and solid song structure, all with just a hint of opium-induced insanity. Continue reading »

(I successfully prevailed upon Ben C, the proprietor of the immensely entertaining Church of the Riff, to share with us his year-end list of 2012’s best albums.)

Were you ready for the end of days? I was stocking up on porn, Cheetos, and liquor since January. Was gonna watch this sucker go up in style.

Anyway.

I hadn’t really intended on making a year-end list, as just the thought of sifting through the heaps of good music released this year was making me feel like taking a nap. However, once I was horribly mutilated – I mean, graciously asked – by Islander, I hiked up my underoos and set to work.

I should probably warn you now that these aren’t strictly metal albums but instead run the gamut of metal’s extended family, from sleazy skate rock to energetic pop-sludge. The majority of the ten albums I’ve picked will hopefully be new to your ears, as only two of them have been featured here on NCS. So without any more jibber-jabber, let’s get to the music shall we? Continue reading »

(This is the fifth and final installment in NCS writer Andy Synn’s week-long series of year-end lists. To see his lists of the “Great” , the “Good”, the most “Disappointing”, and the “Critical Top 10” albums of 2012, go here, here,  here, and here.)

Cards on the table here, this list is a lot more fun, and involves a lot less second-guessing and self-awareness, than the others. I just pick the ten albums I’ve loved and listened to most this year. Some of them might not be objectively the ‘greatest’, but I love them all the same. They’re heavy, they’re fast. They’re melodic, they’re brutal, sometimes they’re even a little beautiful. But they all just ‘clicked’ with me better than any other albums this year.

To add a bit of variety to things I’ve even included an extra list of my ten favourite songs of the year, each drawn from a different album, just to give you more of an insight into the workings of my twisted mind.

So, without further ado, here are the ten albums, and ten tracks, that have defined my experience as a listener and a fan (and not as a critic/journalist/blogger/whatever) this year. Continue reading »

(This is the fourth installment in NCS writer Andy Synn’s week-long series of year-end lists. To see his lists of the “Great” , the “Good”, and the most “Disappointing” albums of 2012, go here, here, and here.)

Let me stress immediately that this ‘Critical Top 10’ list is NOT a list of my own favourite albums. These are all albums I like, appreciate, even love, yes… but they’re all albums I think set the highest standards for the past year in metal. It’s a serious list, and one I take seriously as a result.

Tomorrow’s list, my ‘Personal Top 10’ of the year, is more fun, and needs less justification. That list reflects me as a person, and the albums I have loved this year, the ones that have clicked with me the best – yet also I hope it reflects a modicum of self-awareness, as I freely admit that my personal tastes are not always the ‘best’ albums.

Which is where the ‘Critical’ list comes in. I slimmed down the list of ‘Great’ albums to a shorter list of 14/15, then began to place and order the remaining entries, occasionally removing an album from contention when it became clear it wasn’t going to make the cut. It was hard going. I’ve had to cut some albums I would dearly love to have included. I’ve had to include a couple that were initially discarded, until I realised I was letting personal tastes dictate things too much. It’s a struggle to be objective sometimes.

For example, how do you weigh the objective quality of a brutal death metal album against a more conceptually-driven prog-metal album, or a record of vicious, scintillating black metal? It’s finding a balance, and a way to fairly measure these sorts of records against each other, that takes a lot of time. Essentially there are three criteria – ambition, creativity, and execution. All quite broad, but they seem to encompass the ‘best’ aspects of music. Some of these albums are more ambitious than others, meaning that at their best they go further and reach higher. Others are more creative, either through the clever use of disparate influences, or simply by doing more with less. And then there are the albums that are just flawlessly executed gems of metallic precision. Each of these reflects a manner in which an album can achieve ‘Greatness’, but the greatest of all manage to meld all three.

Oh, and a quick warning (because apparently it wasn’t clear in one of my other columns): there’s a fair helping of clean singing on this list. Just so you don’t get confused by the blog title and everything. Continue reading »

Although this week we started posting the year-end lists of NCS staff and guest writers, we’ve still got a few more lists from other sites to feature. As in previous years, one of them is Pitchfork’s list of the Top 40 Metal Albums of the year, which was unveiled this morning.

Pitchfork is one of the “big platform” sites that cover genres of music well beyond metal — which is sort of true by definition because no metal-only site could ever amass an audience of more than 3.5 million unique visitors each month; that’s what Pitchfork claims for its monthly audience. As in the case of other big platform sites, I’m curious about their year-end metal list because it at least has the potential to expose the bands to so many people.

I usually expect that metal lists from sites such as this one will be watered down to some degree, simply because the audience consists of so many non-metalheads. But in Pitchfork’s case, the list is compiled by Brandon Stosuy, who knows his shit and whose “Show No Mercy” column is a reliable guide to metal that’s worth checking out.

Given that the Pitchfork list is 40 names long, there’s a lot I could discuss by way of preview. But I’ll limit myself to these observations and then get out of the way. First, it’s again gratifying to see so many old-school death and death/doom albums on the list. Bands such as Incantation, Grave, and Asphyx make yet another appearance on a big year-end list, with Deathhammer nailing down the No. 5 spot. Continue reading »