The Top 10 Metal of 2012 - The Honorable Mentions

I'm not exactly a traditionalist but here I sit, writing the third instalment of the Crushtor.net Top 10 of Metal, this time for the year 2012. What seems a mammoth gap between 2011 and 2012 astounds even me. I'm often forced to think hard about my position as a man in 2011 in relation to today. My aspiration to find employment as a music writer has thankfully come into fruition. I'm being sent greater numbers of promos from an array of genres than I've ever had before, each one jumping up to occupy my dwindling amounts of time to review them with the diligence and attention they deserve.

The year began with a slow burn. Bizzaro masters Sigh released a chillingly admirable follow-up to 2010's Scenes From Hell, In Somniphobia. Hipster darlings Alcest continued their black metal world conquest apace with Les Voyages de L'Ame. These discs among others were stellar - four or five star records - but neither made my list. This isn't an excoriation on their quality, they were simply edged out by some monumentally brilliant cuts. Release schedules picked up pace after July, betraying a store of label pocket aces, all in gleeful foreknowledge of what treasures they'd bestow unto us later in 2012. That's why I've expanded the list to a maximum of 20, in full view of the many praiseworthy efforts on offer. However, like every year I shall begin with the Honorable Mentions, three discs earning the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards respectively.

A hush sweeps over the audience as the Bronze Award is presented...

Kamelot - Silverthorn

In the year 2004 I, a Year 12 student with a B+ grade average in English inadvertently wound up on Finnish prog label Lion Music's distro list, goaded into filing praise-filled copy in the service of their artists. With the business model "Sign ten and hope one of them turns a profit" greying and in its death throes, progressive power metal act Seventh Wonder with silver-tongued Tommy Karevik front and center was their hope to balance their running deficits, seeing their budget routinely blown on raising an army of Dream Theater and Yngwie Malmsteen clones. To quote me, circa 2006 or so: "Mr. Karevik is a rare find - To compare him to his contemporaries, he is a mix of a less self-conscious Mac (Threshold), while his theatrical smooth yet powerful baritone reminds one of Mr. Roy Khan (Kamelot)." Fittingly, he swept his Uther away to become the revered Arthur of Kamelot.  Surrounded by gallant sonic knights, Karevik wills the fantastic and bombastic back into power metal. Upon flights of baleful libretto and swathes of romantic strings, Kamelot evoke a pure, heartfelt nostalgia for thousands of tales of boyhood adventure both magical and arcane. 

Trembling and sweating, a sigh of relief is audible throughout the stadium with the Silver Award handed to...

Paradise Lost - Tragic Idol

In exclaim!, the premier Canadian street press, guitarist Greg(or) Mackintosh delineated previous record Faith Divides Us, Death Unites Us from the superb Tragic Idol: "Faith would be quite a bitter, dark cake with lots of layers and plenty of icing. Tragic Idol would be a simple, delicious, moist cake with no icing." True enough. There's no lolling about so it's gratifyingly devoid of orchestral or synthetic garland threatening their fatalistic poetry. Scintillating, unvarnished doom metal rivaling the gilded mid-90s era is the result. Unfettered cruelty from both riff and throat blasts blackness and anguish into the gelid hearts of desperate men. Comparatively, My Dying Bride thinks more is best. But hey - they aren't on this list, are they?

Whoops and cheers break out as we shake the hands of the Gold Award winners, holding their trophy aloft...

Daylight Dies - A Frail Becoming

Vocalist Nathan Ellis emailed me a few weeks ago. The missive contained a profuse apology – the new discs had been misplaced and it would be a few weeks more until they arrived. Roger and Jaymz of 3CR radio's The Heavy Session played an elegantly brutal cut from the album while I co-hosted last Sunday. From then on, the wait grew unbearable. On the Monday, it finally appeared. Thrusting the disc into my beefy rig following a harrowing corporate Christmas party, my breath was taken by their vulnerable, inspired doom-weighted odes. The album replete with bounding textures and ever-shifting dark expressions of inner torment envelops you in the searing heat of their dispassion. It’s prosaic to suggest that Daylight Dies’ fingertips have merely brushed greatness, closing the gap between on each album – yet true enough. Now they can stand proudly as their calloused, withered hands clutch their well-deserved prize.

We announce to the prizeless to stick around, as we prepare to proclaim the latter half of the Top 20 of 2012.

14. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Pinata
15. Black Breath - Sentenced to Life
16. Enslaved - Riitiir
17. Between the Buried and Me - Parallax II: Future Sequence
18. Wintersun - Time I
19. Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage
20. Twelve Foot Ninja - Silent Machine

With the formalities dispensed with, we can look forward to the Top 10...

View the Top 10 of 2010
View the Top 10 of 2011

Went to the Big Apple, took a bite

I haven't updated this blog in a while (thanks Captain Obvious) since I've done a stint overseas in Toronto for the ICANN45 Conference and then a few days in one of the most incredible cities on this Earth, New York. The place itself has its own character, the onrush of faces takes on an almost mystical quality with the city cradling them on every side. It's an experience everyone should endeavor to have, at least once. In actual news, I have a review of the new Testament album in issue #418 of The Big Issue as well as a whole bunch of stuff in the Oct/Nov issue of Australian Hysteria Magazine. Through its glossy leaves you can read about Jordan Mancino of As I Lay Dying and how much he loves golf, apparently. These metal superstars sure are taking the whole Alice Cooper thing a tad too seriously these days...

21st Century Facebookless Man

It's been a year. One productive, fruitful and prosperous year since I deactivated my Facebook account. I told everyone once I'd done it I wouldn't relapse once; and thankfully haven't. I kept my solemn vow never to use it ever again.

Have I missed out on anything? No. What have I gained? Quite a bit.

Once it was gone, I didn’t miss it. I broke the habit of checking it and fussing over every minute detail rather swiftly. Once the apps were removed and bookmarks purged, there was no yearning to open them up. The only times I wished I’d had it were to enter “Like this page” competitions where a prize was otherwise unobtainable in the marketplace (like signed moon rocks by a dead rock star, or something.) Even then, it’s not as ubiquitous nor an essential a tool as people would like to think.

Only a handful of times over the past year have people told me to “Check my Facebook” for a link or some other piece of trivia they insisted I just had to see. At no instance was it ever a requisite for keeping on top of events or other issues that I deemed important. In fact, it just made me work harder and smarter about what events I would attend and with whom. It increases the efficacy of your “social memory” – your ability to recall details about your friends beyond the superficial, past what they simply “like.” Labelling something usually libels it as Neil Postman would say; I’m sure people simply dismiss me as “Metal Tom” and pay no more mind to my “largeness” that contains multitudes. (I’m guilty of the same with other acquaintances, I’m sure.)

I’ve sent links to friends about Bukowski, new astronomical discoveries and octo-necked guitars via email or text message (or even called them and met up with them! Quelle horreur!) because I’ve actually remembered conversations in which they’ve mentioned such interests. Schopenhauer said to train the mind you must build its power of unaided recall; with no basis with which to “reference” what your friends like trains it well.

I tended to focus more on my enjoyment of events – I wasn’t one of those arseholes at gigs clicking photos of the band instead of actually watching the fucking band play. For example, I went to see Goatwhore and Impiety a couple of weeks ago. To my dismay, the room was awash with deep electric blue light glowing from smartphones. They were posting up-to-the-minute dispatches to Facebook about events transpiring before them, despite never actually experiencing the present fully.

Getting rid of Facebook in my experience strengthened my commitment to personal development. One aspect of this journey which requires much patience and effort is my tendency to seek approval from others and attach myself to a desired outcome. Killing Facebook (and the occasional Twitter moratorium) greatly aids the attainment of such a goal. You begin to enjoy activities and work for oneself, instead of grovelling for “likes” or pats on the head. Likewise, you tend not to conceal failures, either. It really does lend meaning to the aphorism “a good deed is its own reward.” An inward honesty is also projected outward. It builds trust and rapport with people. Likewise, you can start to feel when things are amiss; your internal “bullshit detection” apparatus activates and heightens with each day.

Bullshit detection also applies to self-reflexion and self-perception. Burying feelings and emotions almost never have any upsides. Letting them out and focusing on the root causes without bullshitting yourself maintains a mental wellbeing and working toward Dr. Ellis’ USA – Unconditional Self-Acceptance. Likewise, you tend not to settle for second best, especially in terms of relationships. Your boundaries are much more defined and active instead of passively “hiding” (read: avoiding) someone you find undesirable. A very dear friend of mine had to be cauterized out of my life as his friendship was simply too toxic and untrustworthy to hold on to. I felt much sadness and anger as a result, but it had to be done. It simply followed from the self-belief that I deserve better treatment. 

The value I place on interpersonal communication is higher. As my birthday rolled around last year, I received a handful of well-wished from friends and family. They received no electronic pats on the back for it; they did it out of kindness and genuine affection. Lengthy emails and Skype chats with friends from overseas seems to dismiss those lengthy distances in the way a few photos pushed out on a news feed every so often never could.

Over the last year it’s as if I’ve discovered killing Facebook was like my “gateway anti-drug” to personal development and lasting, strong friendships. People hum and haw at getting rid of it, as if they’ll be swallowed up into a social abyss; but nothing could be further from the truth. Your excuses are simply that. If it isn’t fun anymore then why persist? Besides, who doesn’t want liberation?