My Favorite Metal Albums of 2012
1. Panopticon - Kentucky
2. Germ - Loss
3. Demoncy - Enthroned is the Night
4. the Kill - Make 'em Suffer
5. Nekromantheon - Rise Vulcan Spectre
6. MGLA - With Hearts Towards None
7. Blood of the Black Owl - Light the Fires!
8. Licht Erlischt - ...and Below, the Retrograde Disciples
9. Wodensthrone - Curse
10. Blut Aus Nord - Cosmophy

Honorable Mentions:
Alcest - Les Voyages de l'ame
Antediluvian / Adversarial - Split
Ash Borer - Cold of Ages
Asphyx - Deathhammer
Autolatry - Of the Land
Avenger - Bohemian Dark Metal
Bestial Holocaust - Into the Goat Vulva
Borknagar - Urd
Bound by Entrails - the Stars Bode you Farewell
Brulvahnatu - Descending Divine Worth
Cattle Decapitation - Monolith of Inhumanity
Christian Mistress - Possession
Coffins - March of Despair
Deathspell Omega - Drought
Desecresy- the Doom Skeptron
Drapsnatt - Skelepht
Ebonylake - In Swathes of Brooding Light
Elysian Blaze - Blood Geometry
Evoken - Atra Mors
False / Barghest - Heavy as a Church Tower
Genocide Shrines - Devanation Monumentemples
Hell - III
Katatonia - Dead End Kings
Love Sex Machine - s/t
Lunar Aurora - Hoagascht
Morbus Chron - A Saunter through the Shroud
Master's Hammer - Vracejte konve na místo
Moss of Moonlight - Seed
Muknal - Muknal
Mutilation Rites - Empyrean
My Dying Bride - A Map of All Our Failures
Napalm Death - Utilitarian
Nefarious - The Universal Wrath
Revenge - Scum.Collapse.Eradication
Sanguinary Misanthropia - Loathe Over Will
Sear Bliss - Eternal Recurrence
Weapon - Embers and Revelations
Worship - Terranean Wake
Yakuza - Beyul

Things I still need to listen to:
Aluk Todolo - Occult Rock - Didnt excite me, formulaic and uneventful
Angantyr - Forvist - Very good!
Anglagard - Viljans Oga
Árstíðir Lífsins - Vápna lækjar eldr
Azaghal - Nemesis - Pretty fun if you think all black metal sounds the same.
Black Magician - Nature is the Devil's Church - Not bad, kinda trendy and the vocals really get old
Chapel - Satan's Rock n Roll - Weak production and a very tired, worn out style. ZZZzzz
Coffin Texts - the Tomb of Infinite Ritual - Pretty fun, though not much to hold my interest.
Corsair - Corsair
Dammerfarben - Herbstpfad
Dire Omen - Severing Soul from Flesh - Pretty typical br00tle death metal.  pass
Dordeduh - Dar de Duh - More floaty new age post-Negura Bunget metal.  I'm not often in the right mood for this, but its tolerable.
Drawn & Quartered - Feeding Hell's Furnace - Sorta fun but nothing really special here.
Drudkh - Eternal Turn of the Wheel - Yeah more Drudkh, If its not Autumn Aurora or Forgotten Legends, forget about it.
Dysrhythmia - Test of Submission - This band is great, really interesting in a "look what we can do" sort of way which I'm never in the mood for, but I really admire these guys and they are probably the best prog band in the US.
Elffor -Heriotz Sustraiak
Eternum - Veil of Ancient Darkness - I really like this, its somewhere between Fullmoon and Vargsang
Hellvetron - Death Scroll of Seven Hells and Its Infernal Majesties - REALLY eerie and twisted, this is great, though not up my alley
Ignivomous - Contragenesis - Another brick of evidence that the bar for brutal death metal was raised significantly this year.  This is great, but again, I just don't really care.
Into Oblivion / Cromlech / Shoor - "Under the banner of the Serpent Sun"
Ketzer - Eindzeit Metropolis - This is awesome.  A tad too ecclectic, but at times it reminds me of Aura Noir
Knelt Rote - Trespass - Super fun unrelenting grind madness.  Love these guys
Les Discrets - Ariettes Oubliées
Maveth - Coils of the Black Earth
Manticore - Behold the Ascension of the Execrated - God, this is weird as fuck and I dont like it at all
Naglfar - Teras - Exactly what I was expecting, there is nothing cool about this.
Necrovation - s/t - This was surprisingly fun.  Lots of variety and innovation here.  I might buy this.
Occultation - Three & Seven - RULES!  This is really intriguing stuff!
Profetus - ...to Open the passages in Dusk - This would be far better if it had anything that wasnt completely boring in it.
Rahu - The Quest for the Vajra of Shadows
Svartidaudi - Flesh Cathedral
Testament - Dark Roots of Earth - Killer line-up on this, but this is exactly what I expected.  Fucking party thrash.  Death to the entire bay area and its failure metal.
Urkaos - I
Vemod - Venter pa Stormene - This is really good.  I'll probably be listening to this some more in the future. reminds me of Darkspace / Paysage d'Hiver
Venus Star - ep / full length
Verge / Charnel Winds - Two Serpents
Vomitor - the Escalation
Winterfylleth - the Threnody of Triumph
Vaura - Selenelion - Listening to this album was like holding a great looking sandwich, never being able to figure out which side to take the first bite on, then giving up.

Anticipated in 2013 (somewhat speculative):
Swallowed debut full length
Hunter's Moon full length?!?!?
Nocturnal Graves
Horna (confirmed!)
Inquisition (confirmed !)
Incursus (confirmed !)
Sadomator (This band is currently on hold, but Seventh is working on a debut full length for his other band Odgru Jahad)
Paysage d'Hiver - Das Tor (AMAZING!)
Cultes des Ghoules (RULES!)
Darvulia
Empyrium
Pensees Nocturnes (confirmed!)
Watain
Grave Miasma
Front Beast
Manzer "Light of the Wreckers"
Hatespawn "Abyssic conquerors"
Dead Congregation
Gorguts (confirmed!)
Portal (rules!)
Darkthrone (sucks!)
Panopticon / Vestiges split (confirmed!)
Drowned - debut LP (confirmed !)

Big time let downs:
Burzum
Baptism
Swans
Ofermod
Enslaved
Aura Noir

Panopticon - Kentucky

Whenever I have the pleasure of waking up in Kentucky, I stretch my arms out to greet the day. Invariably I then hear the opening banjo licks of Panopticon's album of the same name. When I climbed the beautiful winding hills of Bernheim Forest beneath gigantic trees last summer with Austin Lunn, I heard the familiar penny whistle melodies and Chuck Schuldiner-esque guitar leads heard throughout "Bodies Under the Falls." When I spent time among the people of Louisville I heard the soaring melody of "Black Soot and Red Blood." When I hear my friends Austin, Adam, and Crow lament upon frustrations concerning how mining corporations have permanently destroyed miles upon miles of their beautiful home's mountain tops, I of course hear the plodding blast beats and somber middle section of "Killing the Giants as They Sleep." I even find myself singing the catchy riffs throughout the album in my head when I'm at work or driving. When I play the album I sing along to the riffs and air drum to the preposterously skilled percussion. This album has stuck with me more than any in the last few years for so many reasons. I find it jarringly apparent that the album's subject matter has given Austin the motivation to weave his most musically effective and memorable album yet.
Two years ago I hadn't been to Kentucky, and I hadn't heard Panopticon's album of the same name. Today, the state and the album represent each other boldly in my eyes, and they both have become some very dear things to me. Such has the friendship Austin and I have found this year. I wanted to finally offer my take on this album because I think I offer a unique and closer perspective on the album than most, and maybe what I have to say will help some folks understand it better if they care to listen to it and learn from it.
Panopticon is a very different band than a lot of people are used to. The ever-trodden path of black metal since 1982 has been to portray a guise that you are not. To use emotions and urges to give a theatrical and exaggerated voice to thoughts. To step outside of the human shell and personify metaphorically certain emotions and ideals that seem somehow larger than life. In stark contrast, Austin lets absolutely nothing stand between his music and who he is. When you listen to Panopticon, you are experiencing the pure unadulterated heart and soul that he is offering you. you can take it or leave it. Austin plays black metal and blue grass because that is who he is, and this is how he speaks to you. Austin and others argue that this fact invalidates the label of "black metal" from Panopticon, but I make this comparison sonically, and not politically. Some reviewers have had the gaul to say that the blue grass isn't to their liking and that it should be different or not present at all. Some have even gone as far as saying that the blue grass should sound more like European folk. Or that the metal sections aren't "folky enough", etc. As fucking outlandish as this is, I won't address it specifically. Asking that of any artist is preposterous. Lets be honest folks, we are all grown ups and you wouldn't know about this album if you didn't have the capacity to fully understand Panopticon's effective language of metal and blue grass.
I am proud of my friend Austin for so many reasons but here I should note that Kentucky is an album Austin should be proud of. It speaks vastly of a place he loves and does so in such a heartfelt way that it evades criticism by standing above it in a place where this type of dialogue contains no dishonesty, or insipid cruel humanity.
Kentucky the album successfully acts as a conduit between you and the topics that Austin holds dear enough to write about. Instead of acting as an end all authority upon the topic, it verily tells a story and then asks you confrontingly "Which Side are You On?"

Brulvahnatu

I demand that you lend me your ears for a moment. About two weeks ago I took on the task of working for Pagan Flames as a real actual job that pays me and stuff. So far its been nothing but pleasure. It doesnt even feel like a job and when I get paid real actual dollarbucks I'm all like WOAH. One of my goals going into this employment was to take on a new artist, and already I am enamored with delight to announce that we'll be releasing the newest onslaught from Canada's Brulvahnatu this summer. Its called "Menstrual Extraction Ceremony" and you can experience a good portion of it by going here: http://eternalobscurityrecords.blogspot.com Its not exactly our standard fare of black metal, its not traditional by any means, but its eerie, original, entertaining, and strikingly challenging. We want to maintain a diverse but focused hordes so this couldnt be more perfect. Brulvahnatu's sole creator Kib Sreng is also a prolific painter and his works can be seen here: http://kibsreng.blogspot.com/. On top of that we have a new incredible full length from Njiqahdda, Panopticon's newest split with Wheels Within Wheels and another embattled opus from War Plague.

Ghouls of the Forge

Well fall is embarking on us and the end of the year is drawing near. I'm starting to think of how my best of '09 list might look as well as reflect on an exciting new wave of genre-humping happening in BM. This year lots of genres crept their way into the bed of black metal and lots of sweet babies were made. Everyone is tossing the "shoe-gaze" term around like its going out of style all over again. Personally I try to shy away from giving albums such finite classifications as I cant imagine its ever an artist's intention to create music in such a way. Styles emerge from peoples brains and however we classify them is rather trivial in the end. However I am excited to see that there are several artists taking strides at blurring these classifications and creating some wonderful music with ingenuity at the forefront of their steed. This to me is the true nature of black metal. Hacking down barriers and thinking boldly in the name of defiance, and using these characteristics to make music in tribute to this quality in man.

The new Peste Noire shows a lot of promise:
http://www.last.fm/music/Peste+Noire

Pensées Nocturnes is taking "depressive" to a new level:
http://www.last.fm/music/Pens%C3%A9es+Nocturnes

The new Ruins of Beverast is even further off the deep end:
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Ruins+of+Beverast

Njiqahdda from Illinois is as productive as it is enveloping:
http://www.last.fm/music/Njiqahdda

Skagos is throwing emo in the pot and stirring it up:
http://www.last.fm/music/Skagos

Panopticon is all over the place but brilliant all the same:
http://www.last.fm/music/Panopticon

Forging some really unique "indie" black metal here:
http://www.last.fm/music/Hennes+Siste+H%C3%B8st

This should continue to be an exciting new year and who knows what 2010 will bring us. I see a greater chasm growing even wider between the underground and those bands that you see in all the magazines like Behemoth, 1349, Enslaved, etc. This makes that mediocre stuff seem all that much more trivial in the end.