There have been some great release this year.

P.H.O.B.O.S. - Atonal Hypermnesia (one of the best metal-related albums I've heard in a long time)
Blut Aus Nord - 777 - Cosmosophy
Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber II
Emptiness - Error
Gnaw Their Tongues - Eschatological Scatology

Good man.
Came in here just to post this.
Very good Experimental/Progressive Black Metal.
I love the way he combines melody with dissonance(incredible when you consider its just one man) to create this magical other-worldly atmosphere. The music is beautiful and chaotic at the same time, superb compositions. The production could be better though.
Without a doubt, one of my albums of the year so far.
The split with Locust Leaves is very good too.

I just got Cattle Decapitation's Monolith of Inhumanity, and I'm blown away. I didn't even really like them before this album, but this one is fantastic.

Your description intrigued me, Beer Baron, so I had a listen to the first two tracks of Sentinel. Not bad at all! Definitely worth picking up.

Forgot about this one! How does it stand against the other two?

I haven't heard their second, but it's a fair bit different from their first. Very twisted stuff--if you like material like Blut aus Nord's MoRT, then you'll probably love it. Out of the two it's my personal favorite, and I really enjoyed their debut.

Okay cool. I also am very fond of the debut, I need to get this soon.

Well now I'm curious as fuck. Will listen to this when I get home ASAP.

Nice, Mikey.
I hope they pressed a lot more copies than they did with their last full length, that was very very difficult to get.
You'd do well to check out the split with Locust Leaves.

Toxic Waste - Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust
Fatal feast - Municipal Waste
Monolith of Inhumanity - Cattle Decapitation

yeah, Sense the Darkness was surprisingly awesome. I wasn't expecting much from them since their last couple releases have been pretty terrible. Nice to hear that they threw away alotta the weird synthy stuff and went back to that "heavy" melodic death metal sound they play so well.

It's far less intense than those, but I think it's still very good in its own way.


Cheers, mate. I'll have to check it out but Sentinel sounded pretty good.

Quite a shame about the 30 minute ambient track. It's not bad by any means, but it doesn't exactly do anything either. Thankfully I can just stop the album when I reach that track.

No idea what that was supposed to accomplish. Thankfully there's still 45 minutes of very good music despite that waste.

addition to my list would be be serpentine path's self titled debut. the album has been a grower for me. I am a huge unearthly trance/thralldom/villians/howling wind fan so i thought i would instantly love this album of sludgd driven death doom, but for some reason it has taken me a few spins to really appreciate the full imp[act of this massive slab.

another 2 additions to my year end list ( and the end of the year is indeed coming) are the new Hooded Menace record and Howling Wind's Of Babylon.

at some point i will collect all my posts in this thread and post the final master list for the year but hey there is still time to do that and i am still holding out hope for something to completely blow me out of the water. This year i have heard a lot of good and almost great albums but none that immediately stunned me in to dumbfounded silence.

Nadja - Dagdrøm
Gastrorrexis - The Dark World of Parasitic Infections
Gutfed - The Reign of Pure Madness and Contagious Perversion

BAN's Cosmosophy could have been so good if it had no cleans and no shitty ambient passages. It has some awesome snaking riffs that hypnotize for minutes on end just to be ruined by a stupid section.

Stealing Axion's Moments came out earlier this year. It was pretty solid, although I have to say it was a little too heavy on the synths for my liking.

Regardless, I'd recommend at the very least checking it out.

3 Inches of Blood's Long Live Heavy Metal also came out not too long ago. I found that one to be really enjoyable. This one is definitely worth a listen.

However, I think my favorite album of this year so far has been Miseration's Tragedy Has Spoken. I've always been pretty shitty at reviewing or summarizing albums, but... damn.

I really wish I could call Epicloud metal. I'd say it's more... Post metal. Thinking man's metal. Still, check it out. If you're a fan of Townsend, buy it.

I actually really like the cleans in the new BAN. It adds some much needed variety and fits the mood.

Loving the fuck out of the new Witchcraft so far, definitely better than The Alchemist.

I am loving Panopticon's Kentucky. United States Blue-Grass Black Folk metal!!

Dordeduh - Dar De Duh
FOLKY Progressive/Atmospheric Black Metal. The music usually starts off calmly and builds up into a mesh of tremolo and thrashy riffs. Its mostly mid-paced but never gets boring due to the variation of the riffs, drumming and some good acoustic guitar work.
Impressive lengthy compositions, good vocals(excellent raspy growl and okay cleans).
Haunting and addictive, cant see anything knocking this off my top spot for this year.

Dordeduh - Dar De Duh
FOLKY Progressive/Atmospheric Black Metal. The music usually starts off calmly and builds up into a mesh of tremolo and thrashy riffs. Its mostly mid-paced but never gets boring due to the variation of the riffs, drumming and some good acoustic guitar work.
Impressive lengthy compositions, good vocals(excellent raspy growl and okay cleans).
Haunting and addictive, cant see anything knocking this off my top spot for this year.

The new Skelator is decent at least based off of the first half, but sixteen tracks guys come on I know its a concept album but fuuuck. The first six songs are all stellar though, the new Mongrel's cross was solid but for some reason I enjoyed the clashing drums during the midpaced parts and some of the not so obvious non thrash moments a little more than some of the obvious assaulting parts. Both decent albums and I'd recommend them both. '

haarp: husks killer sludge doom which reminds me a little of thou

Sinister - The Carnage Ending is really good. Also big fan of Pathology - The Time Of Great Purification. Malignancy - Eugenics might be the best of the three. Deadly Remains - Severing Humanity is right there near (or at) the top for brutal death metal.

Even still, Abominable Putridity - Anomalies Of Artificial Origin, Kraanium - Post Coital Fixation, and Begging For Incest - Orgasmic Selfmutilation are my (early) slam front-runners.

So many great releases this year but so far In Mourning's "The Weight of Oceans" is the one I've heard the most, they keep getting better with each release, been a fan since their first album.

It doesn't get mentioned a ton, but Suicidal Angel's Bloodbath is really, really good as far as modern thrash goes. Dark, slick Slayer worship with riffs absolutely everywhere.

The new Saint Vitus album I finally got around to listen too, is really good.

Gorod- A Perfect Absolution

The Faceless- Autotheism

Spawn Of Possession- Incurse

Veil Of Maya- Eclipse

Wretched- Son of Perdition

The Contortionist- Intrinsic

Dysrhythmia- Test of Submission

Psycroptic- The Inherited Repression

Ascariasis- Ocean of Colour EP

Hour of Penance- Sedition

Periphery- Periphery II
Abominable Putridity- The Anomalies of Artificial Origin (This release surprised me considering their previous stuff is terrible)

Cattle Decapitation- Monolith of Inhumanity (isn't bad)
--------------------------------------------------------------
I am stoked to hear the new

Rings of Saturn- Dingir
The HAARP Machine- Disclosure
Wintersun- Time I
Abiotic
Behold... The Arctopus
Mestis
Enfold Darkness
Arkaik

I'm looking forward to all of these, too.

Thanks to all of those who brought up Legend by Witchcraft. I've listened to this album all the way through multiple times and am loving the well written riffs, catchy drums, amazing vocals, and especially the driving bass.

Wrathprayer - The Sun of Moloch
I don't even really like this kind of blackened death metal but I thought this album was really good. Great atmosphere without just being an obtuse blob of noise. I also take issue with the guy who reviewed it at 60%, his first paragraph basically explains he hates the Chilean metal and as far as I can tell that's why he rated it low. This doesn't even really sound like other Chilean black/death, I know it's a popular style in South America but I thought this was on a different level in terms of quality.

Necrovation - Necrovation
Interesting album when you consider their previous releases. I liked Breed Deadness Blood because it was well executed but this album has a much more original sound.

Horrendous - The Chills
Probably mentioned a million times here so I won't go into it. Fleshrot = best Martin van Drunen impersonation!

The new Enslaved is a rather swell album. Probably one of the better ones of their whole career. If I had listened to more new music this year, I'm sure I'd found a better 2012 album from somewhere, but as it is, it's likely my favorite of the year from the ones I actually have heard.

i'm not seeing the van drunen similarity
the vocals on the chills are great - van drunen sounds kinda annoying a lot of the time and sounds like he's holding back and/or chocking on his own tongue most of the time; the most overrated death metal vocalist imo

Gnaw Their Tongues' new album is pretty cool. First album I've heard from them, and it's a damn good introduction to the band.

Ok good to know, I've never listened to GTT before and was gonna start with that one. Also seconding that new Necrovation. Gave new Evoken and Nekromantheon spins yesterday, both were pretty awesome (especially Atra Mors). I feel that nothing is going to top Sacriphyx for me, though. Everything I've heard leads to that album topping everything i've heard this year.

Darkspace - Dark Space -I

Mind-blowing stuff. Beautiful melodies (almost remind me of Germanic folk bands) buried beneath dense layers of distortion, and that drum machine just keeps hammering away.

Huldre: Intet menneskebarn.
Just as I was about to think that all Danish folk metal was about drinking beer and being silly vikings (see: Svartsot and Vanir), Huldre released their album. There are a couple of songs where the vocals are bit too much like Hedningarne, but overall I really like their album. So far I've only borrowed it from a friend, but it's high on my wish-list. Too bad I've got a cold right now and can't go see their concert tomorrow.

Aura Noir: Out to Die.
It's just a good album, there's not much to say that hasn't already been said about it, I think. Also, their "sponsored by" lists are hilarious. (Have they mellowed a bit with age? Now they're also thanking a bunch of people.)

Isn't that just a reissue of their demo?