And so continues my year-end push of four years of year-ends that hopefully soon will reach an end. 2011 was great and all but 2012 was many rungs up on the spectacular ladder.
The Smashing Pumpkins
Oceania
Converge
All We Love We Leave Behind
Bitcrush
Collapse
Katatonia
Dead End Kings
Half Moon Run
Dark Eyes
Menomena
Moms
Deftones
Koi No Yokan
Anathema
Weather Systems
Neurosis
Honor Found in Decay
Efterklang
Piramida
Shearwater
Animal Joy
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
Swans
The Seer
Swans reformation in 2009 now feels tentative when contrasted to the all-in approach of The Seer. Songs eclipse the 20 and 30 minute marks and it clocks in at two hours total. Extended use of subtle adjusting patterns reflect Michael Gira’s love for hypnotic Australian jazz band The Necks. Snare and percussive assaults ala Godspeed You! Black Emperor showcase a now legendary act’s material seeded by whom they’ve influenced. Speaking in tongues over drones and acoustic instruments, it’s characterized as a crazed fever dream. But they haven’t lost the plot. This maelstrom is meticulously executed as such that it turns out to be Swans’ magnum opus.
Best Songs of 2012:
Muse – “Panic Station”
Bloc Party – “Valis (Other Me)”
Silversun Pickups – “Dots and Dashes (Enough Already)”
Field Music – “(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing”
Retribution Gospel Choir – “Maharisha”
Shearwater – “Insolence”
Half Moon Run – “She Wants to Know”
Pinback – “Proceed to Memory”
Big Wreck – “Wolves”
Coheed and Cambria – “Key Entity Extraction IV: Evagria the Faithful”
Fear Factory – “God Eater”
Killing Joke – “In Cythera”
Joe Volk – “Call to the Sun”
Soulsavers – “Bitterman”
Converge – “Sadness Comes Home”
Deftones – “Rosemary”
Anathema – “Untouchable, Part 1”
Devin Townsend Project – “Kingdom” (Epicloud version)
British Theatre – “As the Leaves Are to the Limbs”
The Gaslight Anthem – “45”
Menomena – “Pique”
The Walkmen – “Heaven”
Burning Love – “Broken Glass”
Every Time I Die – “I Suck (Blood)”
Future of the Left – “Beneath the Waves an Ocean”
METZ – “Wet Blanket”
Rolo Tomassi – “Illuminare”
The Smith Street Band – “Young Drunk”
TITAN – “Warmer Months”
A Place to Bury Strangers – “Dissolved”
Cloud Nothings – “Wasted Days”
PS I Love You – “First Contact”
Caspian – “Gone in Bloom and Bough”
Constants – “Mourning”
Crippled Black Phoenix – “Release the Clowns”
Crippled Black Phoenix – “Long Live Independence”
ERAAS – “At Heart”
pg.lost – “Terrain”
Baroness – “EULA”
Katatonia – “Dead Letters”
Ulver – “66-5-4-3-2-1”
The Unwinding Hours – “The Promised Land”
School of Seven Bells – “Low Times”
Indian Handcrafts – “Red Action”
OM – “State of Non-Return”
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