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The past 12 months have been pretty damned great for extreme music albums. With releases from Pig Destroyer, metalcore originators Vision of Disorder and more than enough old school death metal to shake a severed limb at, 2012 has been, for lack of better words, kick ass. The below list of albums isn’t necessarily a best-of list. It’s more a representation of those albums that I thoroughly enjoyed and played more often than others regardless of the musicianship or concepts behind them.
So, without any further nonsense on my part, here are fifteen (in no particular order) albums that I listend to a ton this year.
Bastard Priest Ghouls of the Endless Night
Bastard Priest started off the year of OSDM with a blast of Entombed and Dismember influenced mayhem with their sophomore effort. It may not have been wholly original, but dammit, it was fun as hell to listen to.
Horrendous The Chills
The craziest thing about this band isn’t their music. It’s the fact they culled up this densely layered blast of OSDM from the East Coast and not some frigid, Scandenavian country. This one is sure to be a classic in years to come.
Black Breath Sentenced to Life
What can I say about Black Breath without sounding like a complete fucking fan boy? Nothing, really. These crusty heathens of OSDM continue to appear on my year-end favorites list year after year for a reason.
Liberteer Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees
Easily one of the more exciting and original sounding grind albums of the year, Liberteer’s debut blew me away with it’s cold war vibe and crushing blasts. It wasn’t an album for everyone and took me quite a while to fully grasp what was going on, but in the end… holy shit.
Phobia Remnants of Filth
Phobia appear on this list for the second year in a row with an album that is not only in line with the frantic grind they have produced in the past, but one that has a renewed sense of energy to it. Shane Mclachlan may have stepped back his level of involvement, but it only proved to be for the best as this album crushed it all year long.
Pseudogod Deathwomb Catechesis
Dense, destructive and blackened OSDM filled the gray, lumpy void between my ear holes with Pseudogod’s suffocating wall of buzzing guitars and violence. I loved this one!
Cattle Decapitation Monolith of Inhumanity
Once again, Cattle Decapitation have proved why they are the kings of technical, grinding death. This band is at the absolute peak of their skills on this one. Blasting rhythms, swirling off-kilter guitar work and Ryan’s always impressive vocal mayhem combine for an album that is sure to be on many of this year’s “Best Of” lists across the Interholes.
Murder Construct Results
Results floored me. Literally. This was a jaw dropping blast of burly, bruising grind that was only equaled by another member of this list. It’s no wonder it’s here though as it also features members of bands that currently occupy or have occupied seats at this table.
Master The New Elite
Master, truly are the master when it comes to old school death metal. With The New Elite, Spekmann has firmly established himself as not only heavy weight in the genre, but also a legend with some of his best work to date.
Gaza No Absolutes in Human Suffering
Just when you thought Gaza couldn’t become any angrier or more abrasive, they dent in your skull with an album that put their critically acclaimed He Is Never Coming Back to shame. No Absolutes was a beast of an album chock full with layered aural hatred. If you haven’t heard it yet, what the fuck are you waiting for?
Hooded Menace Effigies of Evil
This is easily the best death/doom amalgamation of buzzing riffs and guttural growls that I heard all year. It’s also an album that I had to pry out of my stereo with a crowbar in order to move onto other albums. It killed!
Serpentine Path Serpentine Path
Serpentine Path’s debut was also another solid slab of death/doom, but with a more stoner approach — one that fully showcased it’s memebers’ skills to the fullest.
Vision of Disorder The Cursed Remain Cursed
It wasn’t the hardest hitting album of the year, or the most crushing, but damn it if these guys don’t know how to sling some dynamic and bruising metalcore. Throw in one of the more impressive vocal deliveries of the year and you have a killer album.
Deserted Fear My Empire
This wasn’t the best album of the year by any means, but it consumed me like no other album has in a couple of years. The tone and overall sound of this disc reminded me of how I used to devour OSDM back in the day as a fledgling metalhead.
Pig Destroyer Book Burner
We’ve waiting five long years for this one to come from Pig Destroyer. Five long years. Thankfully, Book Burner only took 30 minutes or so to fully erase those past five years from our memory. Everyone is at the top of their game on this one and the addition of Misery Index’s Adam Jarvis on drums was definitely the way to go. Album of the year? Most likely.