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.

Hammock

Departure Songs

Hammock Music

The Smashing Pumpkins

Oceania

Martha’s Music

Converge

All We Love We Leave Behind

Epitaph

Bitcrush

Collapse

n5MD

Katatonia

Dead End Kings

Peaceville

Half Moon Run

Dark Eyes

Indica

Menomena

Moms

Barsuk

Deftones

Koi No Yokan

Reprise

Anathema

Weather Systems

Kscope

Neurosis

Honor Found in Decay

Neurot Recordings

Efterklang

Piramida

4AD

Shearwater

Animal Joy

Sub Pop

Crippled Black Phoenix

(Mankind) The Crafty Ape / No Sadness or Farewell

Cool Green Recordings

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

Constellation

Swans

The Seer

Young God Records

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”