The Best Metal Albums of 2012, As Chosen by Metal Musicians Themselves — Part III

Every year year, MetalSucks asks musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year have been. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of fourteen to seventeen musicians at a time twice a day for the whole week.

Below, check out the third group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

Mike Schleibaum, Darkest Hour

1. Devin Townsend – Epicloud
2. Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, m.A.A.d city
3. Down – IV The Purple EP
4. Ministry – Relapse
5. Jeff Loomis – Plains of Oblivion
6. Dark Tranquility – Zero Distance EP
7. Periphery – Periphery II
8. Black Breath – Sentenced to Life
9. Rush – Clockwork Angels
10. Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind

Phil Lipscomb, Taproot

1. Deftones — Koi No Yokan
2. Soundgarden — King Animal
3. Taproot — The Episodes
4. Dead Sara — Dead Sara
5. Otherwise — True Love Never Dies
6. Nonpoint — Nonpoint
7. Meshuggah — Koloss
8. The Used — Vulnerable
9. Flyleaf — New Horizons
10. Aaron Lewis — The Road

Sacha Dunable, Intronaut

1. Dysrhythmia — Test Of Submission
2. Meshuggah — Koloss
3. Pallbearer — Sorrow And Extinction
4. The Faceless — Autotheism
5. Torche — Harmonicraft
6. Murder Construct — Results
7. Baroness — Yellow & Green
8. Enslaved — Riitiir
9. Dirty Projectors — Swing Lo Magellan
10. Graveyard — Lights Out

Sven De Caluwe, Aborted

1. Psycroptic – The Inherited Repression
2. Bear – Doradus
3. Katatonia – Dead End Kings
4. Cannibal Corpse – Torture
5. Cattle Decapitation – Monolith of Inhumanity
6. The Ghost Inside – Get What You Give
7. Entrails – The Tomb Awaits
8. Cryptopsy – Cryptopsy
9. Periphery – Periphery II
10. Lacuna Coil – Dark Adrenaline

Paul Delaney, Black Anvil

1. Van Halen — A Different Kind of Truth
2. The Devil’s Blood — The Thousandfold Epicentre
3. Ofermod — Thaumiel
4. Shining — Redefining Darkness
5. Marduk — Serpent Sermon
6. Behexen — Nightside Emanations
7. Rush — Clockwork Angels
8. Aura Noir — Out to Die
9. Glaciation — 1994
10. Secrets Of The Moon — Seven Bells

Tristan Shone, Author & Punisher

1. Frank Ocean — Channel Orange
2. Flying Lotus — Until the Quiet Comes
3. The Weeknd — Trilogy
4. Squarepusher — Ufabulum
5. Andy Stott — Luxury Problems
6. Theologian — Chasms of My Heart
7. Taurus — Life
8. Stoneburner — Sickness Will Pass
9. Azealia Banks — 1991
10. Fiona Apple — The Idler Wheel.

John Matos, Abiotic

1. The Faceless —Autotheism
2. The Contortionist — Intrinsic
3. Job For a Cowboy — Demonocracy
4. Cattle Decapitation — Monolith of Inhumanity
5. Dying Fetus — Reign Supreme
6. Beneath the Massacre — The Left Hand
7. As I Lay Dying — Awakened
8. Spawn of Possession — Incurso
9. Wretched — Son of Perdition
10. Jeff Loomis — Planes of Oblivion

Nick, Hull 

1. Neurosis — Honor Found in Decay
2. Pallbearer — Sorrow and Extinction
3. Eyehategod — New Orleans is the New Vietnam 7”
4. Samothrace — Reverence to Stone
5. Royal Thunder — CVI
6. Mutilation Rites — Empyrean
7. Krallice — Years Past Matter
7. Disrythmia– Test of Submission
8. Enslaved — Riitiir
10. Agalloch — Faustian Echoes EP

Mike Keller, Meek is Murder

1. The Chariot — One Wing
2. Gaza — No Absolutes In Human Suffering
3. Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind
4. Code Orange Kids — Love is Love//Return to Dust
5. Hivesmasher — Gutter Choir
6. Krallice — Years Past Matter
7. Vilipend — Inamorata
8. Birds In A Row — Collected
9. Old Man Gloom — No
10. Loma Prieta — I.V.

Rikard Olsson, Gadget

1. Deathspell Omega — Drought
2. Graveyard — Lights Out
3. Switchblade — S/T 2012
4. Swans — The Seer
5. Switch Opens — Joint Clash
6. Pig Eyes — Total Destruction of the Present Moment
7. Lee Ranaldo — Between the Times & the Tides
8. Astra — The Black Chord
9. Neurosis — Honor Found in Decay
10. Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind

Daniel Neagoe, Eye Of Solitude

1. Ad Patres — Scorn Aesthetics
2. Merda Mundi — V – Agnus Satani
3. Putridity — Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria
4. Dying Fetus — Reign Supreme
5. Ahab — The Giant
6. Imber Luminis — Winter Fallings EP
7. Necroticism — Descanting the Insalubrious [This is what Daniel wrote to us… we’re not clear if he means the classic Carcass album or if the French band Necroticism made an album with the same name or what. -Ed]
8. Evoken — Altra Mors
9. Abigail — Is It The Night I Fear
10. Akral Necrosis — Pandemic Dominion

Chris Davies (Eye Of Solitude)

1. Dying Fetus — Reign Supreme
2. Ad Patres — Scorn Aesthetics
3. High On Fire — De Vermis Mysteriis
4. Napalm Death — Utilitarian
5. Hour Of Penance — Sedition
6. Infected Society — Get Infected
7. Marduk — Serpent Sermon
8. Aborted — Global Flatline
9. Psycroptic — The Inherited Repression
10. The Foresaken — Beyond Redemption

Jordan, Laika, Wilt and Dirtbag Productions

1. Pallbearer — Sorrow and Extinction
2. Dawnbringer — Into the Lair of the sun god
3. Lord Mantis – Pervertor
4. Nachtmystium — Silencing Machine
5. Katatonia — Dead End Kings
6. Royal thunder — CVI
7. Propagandhi — Failed States
8. Anhedonist — Netherwards
9. Alcest — Les voyages de l’âme
10. Haggatha — IV

Joe Meland, Warseid 

1. Swans — The Seer 
2. Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind 
3. Killer Mike — R.A.P. Music
4. Arvo Part — Symphony #4 
5. Godspeed You! Black Emperor — Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! 
6. Warseid — Where Fate Lies Unbound
7. Fate of Uncertainty — Null Cycles 
8. Gaza — No Absolutes in Human Suffering
9. P.O.S. — We Don’t Even Live Here 
10. Bersarin Quartett — II