Late to the party, but what the hell...

Metal
1. Tombs - Path of Totality - my album of the year
2. Mastodon - The Hunter - grew on me a lot
3. Moab - Ab Ovo - awesome stoner metal, available on spotify, recommended if you like sabbath, kyuss, more sabbath
4. Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand - awesome and epic
5. Jesu - Ascension - not even sure what to classify Jesu as anymore, but this was one of my favorite Jesu records. I feel like it got overlooked.
6. Anthrax - Worship Music - really like this, a good album in its own right, not just by reunion album standards
7. In Solitude - The Word. The Flesh. The Devil - Serpents are Rising was my summer jam
8. Revocation - Chaos of Forms
9. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
10. Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage
11. Subrosa - No Help for the Mighty Ones
12. Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising -not their best, but I liked it
13. Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Vol 1
14. Sonne Adam - Transormation
15. Insomnium - One for Sorrow - not their best but I liked it
16. Krallice - Diotima
17. Turbid North - Orogeny - not a fantastic album by any means, but good american death-y metal with a modern influence. I hear some Dimebag in the guitar player sometimes and the drummer is good. I think they have a lot of potential
18. Acephalix - Interminable Night
19. Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)
20. Weekend Nachos - Worthless

Other
1. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues - I like harmonies.
2. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life - I like concept albums and shouting
3. Wild Flag - Wild Flag - I liked this a lot. Not as charming as Sleater-Kinney, but it seemed more cohesive and direct in a way.
4. David Bazan - Strange Negotiations - I really liked this and felt like it got almost no attention. "People" and "Virginia" are two of the best songs he's ever written if you ask me
5. Iceage - New Brigade
6. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
7. Kanye West and Jay Z - Watch the Throne - Expected more, but still alright
8. The Strokes - Angles - Mainly I just like Under Cover of Darkness. Turns out thats enough to make my top 10 this year
9. Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck - Not his best but I like it. I dig the barber shop quartet track
10. Explosions in the Sky - Take Care, Take Care - Not their best, but I like it.
11. Low - C'mon - Surprised how much love this has gotten. I need to invest more time in it.
12. Young Widows - In and Out of Youth and Lightness
13. Mind Spiders - The Mind Spiders
14. Action Bronson and Statik Selektah - Well Done
15. Bonnie Prince Billy - Wolfroy Goes to Town

A pretty good year for metal, a down year for most other things for me.
The most frustrating thing about all the year end lists I've been reading is all the high ratings for the Destroyer album. I have been burned by Destroyer before. Everyone always talks about how great he/they are, I fall for it, buy the album, it's all like David-Bowie-the-Musical but bad, and then I get pissed than I wasted money on it. I swear it happens every album. I am going to resist this time...

I feel that we have fairly similar tastes. I've shared that opinion on Destroyer, too. This time, don't resist:

Your list is not late, others are much too previous. I don't approve of lists made without sufficient time spent with late releases, which means a list shouldnt be made until the year is over. My list will be finished in about a week. This shit is important
and rules need to be followed.

Destroyer is still totally the David Bowie Tribute Band ... Which is why I like them/him, but you'd get burned again.

I liked the Wolves in the Throne Room a lot even with the stupid vocals. Earth isn't really metal to me and I liked it more than anything else he's done. Made me see him live this year; he's not a happy person.

I heard less than a dozen metal albums from 2011 - still much more than usual for me - but Tombs was also my favorite of all of them. Very cool album.

As a fellow non-Destroyer fan, I can attest to the fact that Kaputt is good. Not a favorite of the year for me but definitely not something I regret spending time with.

And this may be the year I finally gave up on Will Oldham. I still haven't heard Wolfroy and truly don't care.

I'm pretty disappointed you didn't anoint my list "safe but interesting" like you do every year.




As for Destroyer, I openly love Bejar and was really feeling Kaputt the first half of the year, but it sorta slipped...I mean, Dan has written some fucking amazing songs over the years, but I wouldn't put more than one or two of these in that pool...It was a nice listen and really good for artists trying to mine that territory, but come the fuck on, this is the guy who wrote "Testament To Youth In Verse". Let's not get carried away.

Don't feel so bad. I didn't even get my list bumped by Sketch the other day.

D'oh!

heh

I just heard that Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Vol 1 last week and really liked it. Plan on spending a lot more time with it. Gotta be in the right mood I think, but seems like something I can really dig when I am. Doesn't really sound metal to me either, but whatever. Looking forward to Vol 2 this year.