The word has been out for a little while that Scion Rock Fest was going to continue this year on June 1st in Memphis, TN, but now there’s half of a lineup to work with! Scion Rock Fest shared the above admat on their Facebook page, announcing half of the show’s lineup as follows:
Whitechapel are one of the best deathcore bands out there right now. I gave their most recent self-titled work a near perfect score, for the reason that it was damn near perfect. It even ended up on my year end top twenty list. A few months back I let you guys know that they would be reissuing their debut effort The Somatic Defilement in a remixed and remastered version, and today we got to hear exactly what it sounds like.
Grooving breakdowns and moshing are what you can expect out of a Whitechapel and Emmure co-headliner. Like it or not, these two groups are among some of the most popular bands in modern metal, and they bring out crowds of people in droves. Regular contributing photographer Maclyn Bean hit up the penultimate stop of the Brothers In Brutality Tour in Philadelphia, PA at the Theater of the Living Arts, and photos from Whitechapel, Emmure, Unearth, and Obey The Brave‘s sets can be seen below.
What a year. Here is a summary of my most pleasurable listening experiences. Quick shout outs to Gaza, Eldrimner, Acrania (Mexico), Disfiguring the Goddess, Gods of Eden, Trash Talk, Xibalba and TesseracT who just barely missed the cut. Sorry guys.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy my list. I didn’t mess around. Just meat and potatoes. Also, I’d love it if you left a comment validating my list or insulting me for terrible taste! Either way, happy doomsday!
If I had my say, there would be a top one hundred list, because I enjoyed so many different albums this year. I’ve changed this list fifty seven times over the past week, so this list is me finally making a decision. It’s honestly been harder choosing this list than it has been choosing classes for next semester. I must say that 2012 has shown that music has not totally gone down the drain, because there are still so many amazing bands I’m just now hearing about, and so many great albums to listen to. So, without further ado, here are the twenty best albums to come out in 2012, and the six best albums that would be twenty one through twenty six that just didn’t make the cut.
Some of you may be aware of who I am. AlucardXIX on youtube, amongst other websites. The guy who does all the Veil of Maya covers, the mind behind Encircle, and another writer on this here great ol’ blog. 2012 was both an interesting and disappointing year to me, musically. Some absolutely astounding albums came out this year, and some serious let downs as well (The Faceless, The Contortionist). Originally it was hard for me to pick a top ten; I thought about all the albums I’ve heard that I abandoned after a few listens, albums I loved at first listen and then wondered how I even thought that to begin with. I thought I could barely muster together 10 albums to begin with, but remembering back to the beginning of the year, I managed this humble fifteen:
The first thing I want to say, as the newest addition to the Heavy Blog team, is what a privilege it has been to write with these guys over the past few months and to have the opportunity to perhaps expose more great Australian progressive rock and metal to the world.
Gushing aside, though, two things have struck me about 2012, the first of which has been the breadth and the quality of the releases by Australian bands, some of which appear on my list below. Of those releases that didn’t quite make the cut, I was particularly impressed with, amongst others, Elysian‘s Wires of Creation, Okera‘s A Beautiful Dystopia, and Avadante by Kettlespider. Promising EPs were also released by Gods of Eden and In Trenches, all of which bodes well for the future of music in this country.
The other thing that stands out to me, as I look down the list of albums that really captured my interest this year, is that 2012 has been a year dominated by mood, atmosphere and emotion. Now, to be fair, I am generally drawn to vibe heavy music, but never before have I listened to so many doom influenced bands!
At the end of the day, however, I was in no doubt as to which three albums would vie for top spot, each one stylistically, technically and structurally progressive, yet still emotionally accessible, and I am sure that all three will remain stalwarts of my collection for many years to come.
Caricature is the batshit insane brainchild of one Joseph Spiller, formerly of Too Late The Hero, The Binary Code, and System Divide, and is easily the best band you’ve never heard of up until right this very moment. Joe took some time out of his busy schedule yesterday to talk to me a little bit about the record, the history of the band, and as the title of the entire article says, give you the track ‘Saviors II’ off of the new record, The Sound Of One Man’s World Collapsing.
Hell yeah! Spiller manages to write music that certainly sounds familiar enough that we know where he’s coming from, but keeps his distance to the point where the Caricature sound is easily definable. Bonus points for the counteraction of all the heaviness going on with the clean vocal lines, especially when it’s so easy to simply scream and blast over all that. Just to reference other Caricature works so you know where this song is coming from in a sense, check out the Birth by Sleep EP on their Bandcamp to get a better feel for how this song fits in with the rest.
Aside from the song, we had gotten around to talking about the history of Caricature, which has held some big names (and still does!). Though it might seem trivial, the next record is a concept based heavily off of Joe’s history under the Caricature moniker:
Thy Art Is Murder01. Reign Of Darkness
02. The Purest Strain Of Hate
03. Vile Creations
04. Shadow Of Eternal Sin
05. Immolation
06. Infinite Forms
07. Dead Sun
08. Gates Of Misery
09. Defective Breed
10. Doomed From Birth
Whether you see it or not, deathcore has become the newest “thing.” Back when Myspace was relevant, metalcore/scenecore became the norm, as so many kid began forming bands playing the same shit just to get signed. But now, deathcore has taken over. It seems every day new bands pop up playing overused guitar breakdown, ignoring the concept of riff-based songs and focusing on “the br00tz”. Unfortunately this leaves us all with only a handful of really awesome deathcore bands, and while it’s always nice, sometimes it would be great to find a new band that doesn’t sound like every other one out there and is doing awesome stuff with their music. Thy Art Is Murder are a band from the land down under who have realized this overabundance of generic bands, and have made it their mission to rectify this issue.
Whitechapel’s latest offering is a monster. It’s making my year end list, and I raved about it when it came out, giving it a near perfect score. One of my favorite songs from the album was the closing track ‘Possibilities Of An Impossible Existence’, and I thought it could make a great music video. Lo and behold, they have compiled live footage of them playing it and synced the studio track along with it while touring Mayhem Festival earlier this year. The video can be viewed over at AltPress .
In addition, Whitechapel have announced that they will release a remixed and remastered version of their debut from Candlelight Records The Somatic Defilement in the Spring of 2013, this time on their current home, Metal Blade. Mark Lewis, the band’s producer for the past two records, will be handling the duties of the mixing and mastering, so it will definitely be awesome when it is released.
Their self-titled opus Whitechapel is out now via Metal Blade Records.
- SS
