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User
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Last Active 12-27-12 4:32 am
Joined 11-04-12
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| Top 5 Albums Of 2012
2012 hasn't been my most active year as far as discovering new music rgoes, yet there have been some truly great releases during its 12 months. rThus, without further ado, I present my humble five favorites. | | 5 |  | Mount Eerie
Clear Moon
Phil Elverum is, indeed, a song writer with very peculiar tendencies whose music exists
almost for its pure talent to polarize its audiences. Taking several different directions,
his career (currently under the pseudonym "Mount Eerie") has brought us to this
wonderful, misty album. The album's style is incredibly unique, almost feeling like a
depressive black metal LP disguised as moody folk music. Through Elverum's vague
descriptions of his home, he powerfully reflects on the seemingly opposed forces of the
natural world and constructed society. | | 4 |  | The Faceless
Autotheism
The group's most ambitious release yet, Autotheism, while clunky in more than few
aspects of its song writing (and its questionably fake production), is, nevertheless, an
outstanding achievement in the Technical Death Metal genre, marking a shift in
direction that, while still in need in refinement, is still remarkable and signals a giant
leap in an exciting new direction for the genre as a whole. | | 3 |  | The Smashing Pumpkins
Oceania
Oceania, while already deserving a spot on the list regardless of the famed alt-rockers'
past, is notable not just as a (mostly) beautiful and heartfelt record, but as an
amazing comeback record. Despite the horrible efforts of Zeitgeist and much of the
Teargarden project combined with the removal of almost the entire classic line-up,
Corgan has finally tapped back into the creative energy that fueled great Pumpkins
classics like Mellon Collie and Siamese Dream. While there are several average tracks
on the release (Particularly the first two cuts and a few of the very last tracks), there
are enough amazing pieces here, such as "The Celestials" and the title track that save
the record from becoming yet another Pumpkins disaster. | | 2 |  | Sigur Ros
Valtari
While it is easy to pass it off as yet another Sigur Ros album, Valtari is a hauntingly
beautiful, perfectly refining the overwhelming atmosphere that has characterized the
Icelandic post rock outfit's creations into something familiar, yet more haunting and
moving than ever before. It doesn't surpass the group's greatest works (Agaetis
Byrjun; (), etc.), but its atmosphere is so wholly unique and melancholic among the
outfit's oeuvre as to earn its rightful place next to such masterpieces. | | 1 |  | Wintersun
Time I
Above all releases in 2012, Time I is definitely the bombastic, beautiful, outrageous,
energetic, exciting, epic, and, most of all, moving. In a record most people were
not expecting frontman Maenpaa to make (both in terms of making it past its
production hell and its actual content), the group surpasses the complexity of its
famed debut and strives for a great epicness than achieved by any folk metal group
ever attempted. While the first half of Time only contains three real songs (two of
the five cuts being sheer interludes), they are of such a soaring quality that to
deny their greatness is a sore mistake. Throughout the first half of Maenpaa's
dream project, he manages to take his fellow listeners on a more extreme roller
coaster of emotions than any of his folk metal counterparts have even come close
to, presenting one of the greatest masterpieces the genre has ever seen. | |
ChopSuey
12.27.12 | dig 1 and 3 | Curse.
12.27.12 | 4 is so, so bad | Minus.
12.27.12 | I still havent listened to 3 in it's entirety yet. I need to get on that. | Havey
12.27.12 | 1 & 4 are both awful and 5 is amazing like what the fuck are you doing | Curse.
12.27.12 | 1 is awesome
| someguest
12.27.12 | Why are all guys named Brent gay? | Curse.
12.27.12 | BrenthatestheV | oltnabrick
01.02.13 | yikes |
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