Delusions of Godhood dissolve as we realize we're powerless to avert our own desolation...
#5
Killing Joke - MMXII
Surreptitiously, Killing Joke is part of heavy metal ancestry. They might be invited along as “friends of” to the heavy metal family reunion. They’d be sat in the corner, watching Ozzy Osbourne’s drunken arm slung over Rob Halford’s leather-clad shoulder as he screams obscenities at no one in particular. A few of the bands in attendance – Metallica, Behemoth and Napalm Death to name but a few - would tip their glass toward them in silent tribute. Talking to Steve Hughes earlier this year made the urgency of Killing Joke's musical countdown to our incipient extinction clear. Our civilization’s fundament is at best an unknowable labyrinth, the great benign mother of us all is poisoned and choking and we now have the power to “Google someone’s toothbrush from space” – Steve joked at the time, albeit the humor doesn’t last long. Killing Joke’s inelastic attitude to perfection gives birth to dark children of metal invention. Dark shuffle In Cythera, garrisoned by synthesized dread digs down into their bittersweet proto-industrial days serves as précis for the record – vibrant, abrasive and not completely devoid of optimism. Mostly, though the crunch of bones in the teeth of merciless cogs ring out in their riffs. Jaz Coleman screams a grim portent toward mobs of void minds from their bleak soundscapes: the end isn't near, it's here.
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The Top 10 Metal of 2012
#6 - The Faceless - Autotheism
#7 - Be'lakor - Of Breath and Bone
#8 - Baroness - Yellow & Green
#9 - Rush - Clockwork Angels
#10 - Barren Earth - The Devil's Resolve
The Honorable Mentions