Top 10 albums of 2015

Ween is back for 2016, fuckers!

Well shit. It's already February, huh? Seems like this annual top 10 list goes up later and later every year. At the rate I'm going, my top 10 albums of 2025 might not see the light of day until 2027. Honestly, I'm really just a music journalist in name only at this point. This is only the 12th post I've made on this blog since 2011, and four of those (including this one) are just my annual top 10 albums lists. Two of them didn't even have anything to do with music and one was just a rehash of all my old 3?aK posts, so yeah, suffice it to say that writing about music has kind of taken a backseat to damn near everything else in my life lately. That said, a bunch of labels still send me promos to check out, and Village Voice still sends me a Pazz + Jop ballot every year, so I feel obligated to at least post a top 10 list for all of you loyal Tempe Carnivore readers out there.

Like last year, I've included the points I awarded each album on my 2015 ballot. Each voter gets 100 points to distribute amongst their top 10, with no album receiving more than 30 points or less than five. Also like last year (and every single year I've published a top 10), this list is predominantly metal. Deal with it.

Top 10 albums of 2012

Well, I've run out of excuses for the absence of my "best albums of 2012" list. It's been 2013 for damn-near two weeks now, so I can't exactly say that I'm waiting for a last-second release to blow my mind. In truth, I've just been lazy in 2012: lazy about writing and lazy about seeking out new music. That's what happens when you're your own editor and you don't give yourself any deadlines or pay yourself jack shit. Suddenly, there are a lot of things more appealing than cranking out another blog post that might get read by 100 people (10 who came here willingly and 90 more who inadvertently stumbled their way here Googling cover art for metal bands).

So yeah, I admit it. I've been a lazy journalist this year, to the point that when I got an email from the Village Voice asking for my annual contribution to their Pazz & Jop poll, I worried that I'd even be able to come up with 10 albums worth ranking. Thanks to some 11th-hour cramming on iTunes and Spotify, that turned out not to be the case. After all was said and done, I still had to make some tough choices. Quality albums by the likes of Meshuggah, Brother Ali, The Sword, Fen, Testament, Goatwhore and Japandroids all narrowly missed the cut.

My list is pretty heavy on the heavy again this year. What can I say? I'm a metalhead, damnit. If you were expecting a paean to the brilliant artistry of Frank Ocean, you've stumbled onto the wrong blog. So for better or worse, here are my 10 favorite albums of 2012. If you love my picks or hate them, please leave a comment below. We journalists (professional or otherwise) thrive on internet comments, even those of the "ur writing is teh suck, plz die soon" variety.

Baroness - Yellow & Green (Album Review)

Baroness - Yellow & Green

Release date: July 17, 2012 (Relapse Records)

It's been a while since I've heard an album that I felt compelled to write about. In fact, I haven't posted a new album review since October of last year, when I boldly declared that Elder's Dead Roots Stirring was the best hard rock/metal album I'd heard in half a decade. Well, either my standards are rapidly diminishing, or we may be on the cusp of the next great era of heavy music, because as much as I loved Elder's album last year, I love the new Baroness double album, Yellow & Green, even more.

Funny thing is, I can still stand behind my Elder proclamation, because Yellow & Green is decidedly and unrepentantly not metal, and it only sporadically qualifies as hard rock. With the amount of buzz this album has already generated, I'm hardly the first person to make that distinction, but if it seems as if every critic and blogger is preoccupied with what this album isn't, it's probably because it's so hard to put into words what, precisely, it is.