new ignivomous album is fucking crushing! really heavy stuff, great follow up to death transmutation.

For me it`s:

Alcest - les voyages...

and of course

Asphyx - deathhammer (saw them live yesterday in Essen...great music and great guys)

Wah?

How come?

Don't get all the Deathhammer love, but Asphyx's kind of DM was never my kind anyway.

New Ea is very good, and new Spawn of Possession is good. Nothing else has been really outstanding though.

The new Heidevolk album, "Batavi" is downright amazing. This band used to bore me after a few minutes but they finally found their heavy sound. Tremolo picking, gallops, dual vocals, and some insanely heavy production make this one of my early favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptN7OI2T ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmvFGL30 ... re=related

This.

I already like it better than Death Transmutation. Also the production is a lot better in my opinion. Can't wait till the album is actually released. The new Ignivomous and Charon albums are the two best I've heard so far this year.

Not as high on the new Ignivomous as others appear to be.

No doubt it is heavy and evil as all get out... but it sounds almost exactly like Incantation. Maybe I have been listening to way too much Dead Congregation, Muknal and Grave Upheaval(aka, bands that take the Incantation sound and do something with it), but straight up Incantation worship just doesn't do it for me like it used to.

I still like the new Ignivomous. I think its perfectly competent and listenable. But AOTY... don't see it.

ANTEDILUVIAN - Through the Cervix of Hawaah. This band is taking a refreshing twist on the dark plodding death metal sound.

Didn't that come out last year?

2011, my friend.

New Drudkh, Alcest, Ihsahn (to be released), Aura Noir (to be released), Enthroned (to be released), Shining (possibly released this year), NEUROSIS (apparently later this year), and some others

Ignivomous!!

The OP is asking for albums of 2012 you've heard and liked, not future releases.

The new Aura Noir is cool, btw. Not as good as Hades Rises though.

So far I've only really dug Plague Widow's S/T EP, Dodecahedron, and the upcoming Ignivomous. Revenge's latest has it's moments but as another poster mentioned it's a fucking mess production-wise and difficult to sit through unless I actively follow it on good speakers. Looking forward mostly to Wrathprayer's newest, judging by the sample it's going to be amazing

Ok, finally I'm starting to find some albums to enjoy. At this point Ignivomous is a clear winner, but Pharoah is also worthy of praise.

One more for Asphyx.

And....Undergang - Till Doden os Skiller
This was one of my most expected albums as their first is absolutly mindblowingly phenomenal.
While this isnt quite as good, its still pretty damn good. Its more cavernous and rumbly with more tempo changes and less emphasis on super crushing mid tempo riffs. I also have the feeling their guitar tone has lost a bit of bite (might also be the riffs themselves), again, going for a more cavernous sound.
Its still a great release and if you like your DeathMetal on the more oldschool, ugly side of things, definitly check it out.

I had no idea Undergang released a new album. I want it yesterday.

Seconding Undergang's newest. It seems a bit subpar when compared to their debut, which was monstrous, but it is good indeed. It's structured differently though, with longer more constructed songs instead of short bursts of fury. From what I've heard it goes more into mid-tempo pacing than the relentless brutality of the debut, but it still has that rotten sound (ha!) of the first, and it's a good choice for anyone who likes that type of sound.

Kind of off-topic but since where talking about new OSDM coming out this year on Xtreem, Desecresy is also putting out a new album in the next few months.

I agree on the Asphyx album. The Dodecahedron album is borderline excellent

how did i miss the new Undergang? i swear i looked at their Metal Archives page like a week ago and Til Døden Os Skiller wasn't on there. hmm, maybe i'm going crazy. anyway, i'm definitely getting that asap. their debut, Indhentet af Døden, was excellent.



i don't see Ignivomous as straight up Incantation worship at all. i mean they're not like Vasaeleth or Dominus Xul. i see Ignivomous as their own band. that's a shame that you find them that way, but hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion.

I think Ignivomous are one of the most Incantationy bands in the scene, albeit with a greater focus on the fast side of things. The riffing style is practically identical. It's that unrelenting speed and brutality which makes them unique enough to be as great as they are.

Thank you!

Got my copy of Undergang - Til Døden Os Skiller on vinyl a few days ago, it's fucking crushing.

It was there before Feb 1st for sure, you´re going crazy, buddy...

Anyway, give it a few listens, it definitly grows on you. At first I was kinda dissapointed as I missed the super heavy chugs, which they did sooo well on their first.
This album is a slightly different beast. Keep that in mind.

New Desaster is pretty cool, maybe even better than Angelwhore. I've made peace with the fact that they'll never top Divine Blasphemies though.

New Goatwhore is also very good.

Blood for the Master was the first Goatwhore album I'd heard, it's weird, but I can't help feel like the album feels insincere, for the lack of a better word. I'm thinking it's the use of Gothenburg melodies, but the thrashiness also sounds extremely superficial to me, and the vocals give me tough guy wannabe vibes, despite not being that sort of style. It's wierd, I can't pinpoint it, but it feels fake.

I hear literally none of that in any Goatwhore album, let alone this new one...

Wow; how did I not know about this band? They are breathtakingly awesome... remind me a bit of Disma (the same bone-shaking heaviness, like something with the mass of a blackhole trying to crawl out of a swamp). Massive thanks for mentioning them!

Anyway, I have to add to the Asphyx love - Deathhammer is magnificent, and reminds me of one of my favourite albums of all time (Obituary - World Demise). Also, Desecravity's newest one, which has rated a few mentions here, is very appealing. And I'm really looking forward to hearing Meshuggah's 'Koloss' when it comes out in a couple of weeks - the one track from it that I've heard them played live sounded shatteringly heavy, and I hope the rest of the record lives up to the promise - so far this year, I've been very disppointed with the new releases I'd been anticipating most eagerly. Coldwoker's 'The Doomsayer's Call' is okay, but lacks the energy of their previous work (and has the vocalist growling in a far higher range... could just be me); and Swallow the Sun's 'Emerald Forest...' is even worse than 'New Moon'. But, hey, discovering Undergang makes up for all that. Shows you the MA forums can be good for something besides procrastination!

Oh, and that album - I knew I forgot something. I never thought I'd like something like The 11th Hour's 'Lacrima Mortis', as I generally prefer my doomdeath to lean heavily on the latter element and have only a few clean vocals (let alone ones as high as Warby's), but the atmosphere created on the record is eerie enough to sustain that type of singing without becoming too melodramatic.

Never heard of this band before... :/
What am I missing?

See (or rather hear) for yourself: Undergang - Evigt Lidende

New record from Nefarious, hungarian black metallers with Sear Bliss members is pretty good, however nothing groundbreaking. It took them 12 years to finally make a full-lenght. I like the well-chosen atmospheric synths in this record and the last song "A Mountain of Crosses" is really good, perhaps the best from the whole album.

I kind of really liked the new Alcest album... it really grows on you...
Also the new Woods Of Ypress is really amazing
New Swallow The Sun and Lamb Of God are not bad ether

Just started checking out the debut of Valtari - Fragments of a Nightmare. It's a one man melodic death metal project from Australia. Very reminiscent of Dark Tranquility/In Flames in terms of sound. Slick production and tight riffs. Really digging it so far.

Ignivomous is definitely my favorite of the year so far, followed by Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse. Also, can't wait to check out the new Undergang!

I think it's the production that makes you view it like that. It's unusually clean for the style. As for the thrashiness of the new record, it's precisely why I like it. But yeah, I agree with Dragunov, I don't get the impression that it's fake at all.

A lot of love for old school DM in this thread. Undergang sounds pretty good. As for Asphyx, the hype is undeniable, and with good reason. The title track kicks serious ass save for the self-referential lyrics, which they can pull off oddly. Its nostalgia reminds me of Destruction's Thrash till death. I'm picking this up pronto.

I had no idea they were coming out with a new one. Mind..blown.

Pretty dry year, so far. The only albums I've really enjoyed thus far are Blind Guardian's compilation, Diabulus in Musica's The Wanderer, Iron Fire's Voyage of the Damned, and Steelwing's Zone of Alienation.

Yeah, just wait till you learn about good metal! You'll love that stuff.

The new Sigh album, In Somniphobia, came out just a few days ago and man it is mindblowingly awesome. I'd say it's probably even weirder than Imaginary Sonicscape, at least as a whole. It's all over the place taking influence from a ridiculous amount of styles and cultures while still retaining a consistent, flowing, and nightmarish atmosphere all the while not forgetting to thrash out now and again to get and keep things moving. I don't think I could recommend this enough, particularly to people like me who always go back to Imaginary Sonicscapes and Hail Horror Hail for a fix of the avant-garde.