This was a pretty varied year, and I'm happy to say both records from bands that have achieved cult status by now and some more mainstream selections are distributed fairly equally. This was the year I started the blog, so naturally I started delving really deep into underground territory, and there are also plenty of great demos and EPs from this all across doom, death, black, sludge and traditional metal that shouldn't go unnoticed by obscurantists. The Sigh album was the first album I heard by them, a seemingly rudderless panoply of metallic oddities strewn together in one of the catchiest patchworks the band has ever made, probably my favorite by them after the flawless Imaginary Soniscape. A lot of great retro death metal as well, and a longer list would have had even more to show in that regard. Clearly, though, the Necrovation sophomore ranks the most engrossing in that department, a blistering, almost beautiful, at times melodic ode everything you love about old school death metal, finessed to just the pitch where everything feels familiar but still pulsating and fresh. Bands like Dawnbringer, Anthem, and Pharaoh represent a solid heavy/power balustrade, a sign that while traditional heavy and power metal are not as prominent as they were in the 80s, many bands, old and new, are still keeping the style in the present. Some later additions include Carved into Stone, Kentucky and Eremita, all by artists which I came to enjoy in later years, and I'm glad to say they all pop more often in my yearly favorites once I started to weed through their discographies.
**Top 20 Metal Albums of 2012**
20. Gojira (France) – L’enfant Sauvage
19. Panopticon (US) – Kentucky
18. Burning Shadows (US) – Gather, Darkness!
17. Hail Spirit Noir (Greece) – Pneuma
16. Altar of Oblivion (Denmark) – Grand Gesture of Defiance
15. Horrendous (US) – The Chills
14. Hooded Menace (Finland) – Effigies of Evil
13. Prong (US) – Carved Into Stone
12. Ihsahn (Norway) – Eremita
11. Spawn of Possession (Sweden) – Incurso
10. Anhedonist (US) – Netherwards
09. Trial (Sweden) – The Primordial Temple
08. Gorod (France) – A Perfect Absolution
07. Pharaoh (US) – Bury the Light
06. Dawnbringer (US) – Into the Lair of the Sun God
05. Necrovation (US) – Necrovation
04. Tiamat (Sweden) – The Scarred People
03. Anthem (Japan) – Burning Oath
02. Enslaved (Norway) – RIITIIR
01. Sigh (Japan) – In Somniphobia
Charon (Germany) – Sulphur Seraph
Nekromantheon (Norway) – Rise, Vulcan Spectre
Chaos Inception (US) – The Abrogation
Bauda (Chile) – Euphoria… of Flesh, Men and the Great Escape
Yurei (Norway) – Night Vision
Draumar (Germany) – Gebirge (EP)
Black Table (US) – Sentinel (EP)
