5. Storm Corrosion – Storm Corrosion

Steven Wilson’s and Mikael Akerfeldt’s long awaited album is finally within our reach. The album is slated for an April release, which is three months too long of a wait. While the album itself may not be “loud rock” in the conventional sense, it’s been described as “strange and disturbing”, which is metal in its own right. Plus, look at that damn artwork. That thing is sexy as hell.

4. Periphery – Periphery II and/or Juggernaut

Periphery has been approaching advertisement in a very unique way: through the internet. They’re huge Facebook users, constantly updating their page with studio updates, hilarious pictures (see right) and random images of guitars. They alone took a good chunk of space of my wall. Because of this, they’re are rabid fans out there waiting in eager anticipation for just a sound byte of new Periphery, and you can count me among them. Unfortunately, they have yet to release much information about their new album, but once they do you can be sure that thousands of fans will all simultaneously have a nerdgasm.

3. Gojira – Sea Shepherd EP

In almost every interview I’ve conducted with random artists, Gojira has come up at least once. Henkka Seppala from Children of Bodom said he has been impressed with what Gojira has done over the past few years, and he’s not the only one. Also, the EP is named after the badass whale defense crew, which is metal as fuck. Gojira has done some incredibly innovative things, which is why Sea Shepherd is on this list, even though it’s an EP. Oh, and they also released a single late last year, which you can listen to below. It has Fredrik Thordendal in it. Listen to it. Dammit.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Meshuggah – Koloss

The masters of Djent are back, and it looks like us petty mortals are going to be thrashed around once again by the sheer amount of metal Meshuggah’s testicles excrete. Fredrik Thordendal has had his hand in a few projects recently, and it’s about damn time he’s come out with his own version of fucking metal.  The aptly titled Koloss is set to blow our minds on March 27th, the same day as Mars Volta’s new albums comes out (coincidence? I THINK NOT).

1. Baroness – Yellow Compact Disc

Looking back at the release of Blue Album, I remember thinking at the time that that was one of the best sophomore efforts by a band in a long, long time. In fact, while they haven’t been around for very long, Baroness has had some of my favorite albums since their inception. Knowing this, I am simply wet with anticipation for the release of [insert color followed by synonym for album here. Once again, they have yet to release much information regarding their album (besides pictures of the artwork being worked on), but it’s bound to create rifts in the space-time continuum when it hits.

Brootalisk’s Top 5 Most Anticipated Albums: 2012 Edition is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

I’ve been holding off from reviewing this album for a couple weeks. It might be that I’m extremely biased going in having read other reviews. Decibel magazine gave it 10/10 and went so far to call it album of the year (they’re right). Metalsucks.net gave it 4 1/2 out of 5 horns. Metal Injection hails it as a return to what “Epic” truly is. And truthfully, I can’t agree more. After using Blue Record as the background music for my late night homework excursions (and thus listening to it between ten and fifteen times in a row), I figure I should toss my hat in the ring and give it my review.

I want to keep this as short as possible as not to sound like I’m masturbating over this whole album.

Blue Record opens with a lulling mellow track “Bullhead’s Psalm” before pushing you off the deep end into the heavy riffage of “The Sweetest Curse.” The album takes off running, taunting you to catch up. I’ll stop myself from writing a song by song review now, thank you.

Blue Record is filled with lows and highs, soft and rough sonic textures, peaks and valleys, heavy riffs and proggy tones all combining to make an EPIC record. Let’s talk about those last two. This album is very heavy. To counter that Baroness has expertly used prog-rock meleodies, and they’ve done it without sounding overly-wanky (my main beef with prog). This is a heavy metal album, but believe me if you like anything that resembles “rock” music, you will like this album. You’ll enjoy the album, but tracks to watch out for are: “The Sweetest Curse”, “Jake Leg”, “A Horse Called Golgotha” and “The Gnashing.”

This is album of the year. I encourage everyone to give it a listen on Baroness’ myspace. The entire Blue Record is streaming there. Listen to it for free, if you like it support this awesome band by buying some merch (they have a t-shirt cd combo for cheap).

For blowing minds, pushing heavy metal forward and expanding metal beyond a niche genre, Baroness’ Blue Record recieves FIVE OUT OF FIVE HAMMERS! (never before seen!)

[Baroness' Blue Record was released on October 13th, 2009 on Relapse Records. Total play time: 44:25]
-Timothy Sledge

Baroness’ Blue Record Will Cream Your Jeans/Blow Your Mind and Not Call You Back is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz