I didn't check out much new stuff this year, here's what I liked:

Verdunkeln - Weder Licht Noch Schatten
Vetter - Vetterkult
Incantation - Vanquish In Vengeance
Occultation - Three & Seven
Amon - Liar In Wait
Diskord - Dystopics
Overkill - The Electric Age

Not much else I listened to, actually.

Wait, wait, wait!
We should open a new thread and try to give some guidelines.
What about top 10 + why + not in my list (even if people thinks they should) + why?
Could this work for a nice thread to finish the year?

I slept on new Incantation!? Jesus christ, what the hell am I doing with my life?

I agree...I like the 'why not' piece, too.

I haven't got it yet but I will as soon as possible. I just know it's going to be good.

And you'd be correct on that, good sir. It's "cleaner" than pretty much every Incantation release to this point, but not so much in the typical modern production kind of way. By comparison, it's not so far in the direction that the new Suffocation sounds like (although I don't have a problem with that sound they've adopted, either.) Just damn great songs and John really seems comfortable in the role he's taken on, although six years in between albums with many live dates and tours in between helped I'm sure. I'm reminded of Dying Fetus's latest in that while there's nothing in either band's respective styles that's been reinvented, the tools at their disposal have been sharpened to make finer cuts this time around.

That's okay that it's cleaner and that nothing is being reinvented - it'll still be Incantation and that's good enough for me.

The new Aeon album was fuckin awesome

Maybe it's because I haven't listened to it that much, but I haven't been able to get into the new Incantation. Most of the guitar lines just aren't memorable enough, and John McEntee sounds like he's just going through the motions.

Hmm. When I saw them at MDF two years ago they killed it. I have hope (which is rare) that it won't sound like a a sterile rehash like newer suffo.

Same here. I wasn't overly impressed with it, it's just Incantation being Incantation. I doubt it'll find its place within the top 10.

^This^

Man, I've listened to that one countless times already and will continue to do so. Just excellent work all around (except for some lame lyrics, at times).

I was just powering up the new Incantation in my car (again). It's good.

Ok, I just opened this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=95467

I totally forgot a new Master album came out this year. Anyone heard it?

I just see it every time I walk into the local record store and am pissed that it is the only one they have.

This new Zombified is kicking my ass. Pummeling swedeath, not very melodic.

Alcest-Les Voyages de L'ame
Anathema-Weather Systems
Anhedonist-Netherwards
Blut Aus Nord-777: Cosmosophy
Deftones-Koi No Yokan
The Devin Townsend Project-Epicloud
Enslaved-Riitiir
Evoken-Atra Mors
A Forest of Stars-A Shadowplay For Yesterdays
Katatonia-Dead End Kings
Les Discrets-Ariettes Oubliees
Pallbearer-Sorrow and Extinction
Storm Corrosion-Self-titled

Discovered some new gems...

Thy Majestie - ShiHuangDi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIVOjh80dK8

Cool power metal right in the middle of the various styles...not too bombastic, not too poppy, not too heavy, etc. It's just expert songwriting and super-cool hooks and melodies done at their best. This is a very professional, exciting album obviously made by pros. I haven't heard any of their old stuff, but man is this cool so far. I can tell it will be a grower - has that esoteric feel to it that usually denotes that the listener will find more and more to like with each listen.

Desolate Shrine - The Sanctum of Human Darkness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NahAGUoJVQo

Death metal something along the lines of Incantation done by way of The Chasm. Sludgy, unhinged, monstrous music that is beautiful in its chaos and destructive nature. This is seriously just great, with doomy riffs that pick up unexpectedly into these carnal, bloodthirsty faster bits, riffs that segue between oceanic, almost black-metallish pounding and total death metal devastation, and vocals that are as hungry and vicious as can get. It's a cool album and you should go hear it.

Here are my favourite rock / metal records of the year:

1.)Blaze Bayley – The King Of Metal

2.)Rush - Clockwork Angels

3.)Therion – Les Fleurs Du Mal

4.)Akphaezya – Anthology IV: The Tragedy Of Nerak

5.)Kreator – Phantom Antichrist

6.)Agalloch – Faustian Echoes

7.)ラウドネス (Loudness) - 2･0･1･2

8.)Oomph! – Des Wahnsinns fette Beute

9.)天幕落 (Terminal Lost) - 卷贰 凤凰山 (Volume II : Phoenix Mountains)

10.) Grave Digger – Clash Of The Gods

11.) Shining – Redefining Darkness

12.) Tiamat – The Scarred People

13.) Moonspell – Alpha Noir / Omega White

14.) Storm Corrosion – Storm Corrosion

15.) Dissona - Dissona

16.) Wolfsbane – Wolfsbane Save The World

17.) Ewigheim – Bereue nichts

18.) Unisonic – Unisonic

19.) 塔罗圣徒 (Tarot Saint) – 2012

20.) Primal Rock Rebellion – Awoken Broken

I think it was a very good metal year... there are many other great records that didn't make my top 20, too, for example the last OverKill, the last Baroness double-album, the latest releases by Sade Slavey, uSSSy and so on...

1. Sabaton - Carolus Rex
2. Anhedonist - Netherwards
3. Luca Turilli's Rhapsody - Ascending To Infinity
4. Pharaoh - Bury The Light
5. Deathspell Omega - Drought
6. Ihsahn - Eremita
7. Bacteremia Demo
8. Daylight Dies - A Frail Becoming
9. Chthe'ilist Demo
10. 7 H.Target - Fast-Slow Demolition

Wow yeah, basically everything in this list + Grave Digger, lol.
Incurso was a brilliant little gem - Pipe organ album outro in Apparition? Fucking excellent.
My disappointment of the year has to be Ensiferum's Unsung Heroes, and probably Candlemass' Psalms For the Dead. PFtD was a safe move, but I really was hoping for a little more from Edling, and Unsung Heroes was basically pretty entirely crap. Lumsk proved (to me) that female vocalists really don't bring much to viking battle metal (besides lore, which I usually really enjoy in folk and viking metal), but again, I can't help but have been left still wanting for another Victory Song. Title track and Burning Leaves aside, all the rest was very much just filler; though I confess to have really only listened to the album in full perhaps twice because I can't really take more than the first 3 tracks.

Tip o' the hat to some of the albums already mentioned - Rush's Clockwork Angels, Aeon's Aeons Black, Spawn of Possession's Incurso, and Testament's Dark Roots of Earth. I have a few besides that worth mentioning when I get around to it.

My biggest disappointment of the year is a tie between Abigail William's Becoming and Carach Angren's Where the Corpses Sink Forever. Not because they're equally awful (Becoming is clearly worse), but because there is a great difference between what I was hoping for and what I got. AW's shift in style was a mistake, which they corrected by splitting up. Carach Angren's release was thematically, lyrically, and musically boring. They really phoned it in.

"Retribution Shall Be Mine" is essentially the only song with any energy and "Pohjola" is actually a vibrant mid paced track as opposed to a plodding one. And "Bamboleo" just rules, but yes everything else on that album is boring. Title track and "Burning Leaves" are actually two of the worst if you ask me. The whole album is so inconsequential.

Finally finished my list up on Rate Your Music, after a couple of weeks of weeding out the weak.

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/agroguita ... musically_

Back in October, I said:

It's still pretty much the same, except replace Damnation Angels with Kamelot, move Delain and Threshold higher up, and throw the new Paradox and Saturnus somewhere in there.

^I'm adding three more:
Fall of the Idols - Solemn Verses
Grand Magus - The Hunt
The Wandering Midget - From the Meadows of Opium Dreams

That rounds it up as Top 15 I guess.

For me : KREATOR - Phantom Antichrist !!!

I am not big into Melodic metal but I did stumble on a review of Mors Principium Est - 'And Death Said Live' and decided to listen to it. If anyone is a fan of this band or Melodic metal then I think it may be worth a listen. It is a very solid Melo-Death release imo. The songs vary enough to keep it from getting repetitive and the solos are quite good. The pace is nice as well and the guitar work is tight. The drumming is decent. Technically it came out in December of 2012 so it is relevant to this thread. Here is my favorite songs on the album:

Track 10 'The Meadows of Asphodel': http://youtu.be/e--hZHqeNeI
Track 11 'Dead Winds of Hope': http://youtu.be/OVoseNljKr4
Track 4 'Birth of the Starchild': http://youtu.be/p07OjC98Oz0
The full album: http://youtu.be/vtayMRvhufI