So February has come and gone, as did, undoubtedly, several of our voters.
Alt Metal, Death, Folk/Pagan, Gothic, Melodeath, Melodic Black, Power, Prog, and Thrash all exceeded 1,000 votes.
We had our share of the usual Big Band Beat Downs where the winner was a foregone conclusion about six minutes into voting… Saturnus, Be'lakor, and Enslaved pummeled the opposition, Meshuggah received almost 60% of the vote in Djent with over 500 while no one else came close to cracking the century mark, and Gojira racked up almost as many votes as the entire Stoner/Sludge field…
We also had perhaps our tightest race yet, with Neurosis and Atoma changing pole position repeatedly, and only a two vote gap between 'em as I started typing this a couple hours before votes close.
Wintersun almost pulled the dubious double, winning "Biggest Surprise" (most likely because the album was actually released… certainly not what the album sounded like), and were spared another win in the "Biggest Letdown" category only because the unsung heroes of Ensiferum managed to disappoint more of their fans.
Congrats to Atoma and Immensity, best debut and best Clandestine Cut, respectively, for leading a promising pack of bands. Metal's future is bright indeed.
If you have a moment, the staff over at Metal Storm have included Evoken- "Atra Mors" among the albums for best extreme doom album of 2012. All one has to do is vote. Don't believe it's there for album of 2012, but for extreme doom, which is an honor either way. So, have a vote if you wish, if not that's fine too. At least it's not worst album of 2012.
Hi man. It's very nice to be nominated but it stops there for us. We don't feel good about bitching people with"please vote for us!!!" two times a day..haha..But cheers!
LURK's s/t is nominated for the Best Sludge / Stoner Album of 2012 on Metalstorm.net and also in competition for the Best Debut. If you hate the world, you will give us your vote.
(Guess that argument makes casting your vote a no-brainer!)
You can vote for my dumb album here or one of the many better releases on this list.
Carach Angren even used social media to encourage their fans to write them in in the open "Best Video" category.
And the WINNER of the Most Effort By A Band To Win The MSAs goes to..... Lumus, who not only put a big Metalstorm banner on their facebook page cover photo in place of usual fractals or landscapes, they also took the time to record a "how to vote" and popped it up on youtube:
And, finally, congrats to all of the bands that were nominated, whether by MS staff or written in, as well as the fans who took the time to check out the lesser-known acts to see what the excitement was about.
After all the fans finding new bands and bands gaining new fans are the real winners.
I find it amusing when people bitch about album classifications when albums they don't like do well, but not about albums they do like that don't belong.
I find self-fulfilling prophecies amusing. Until now this comment was the only "bitching" I've seen in this thread.
Folk, Alternative, Extreme Doom and Djent were the categories with altogether unpalatable (if unsurprising) winners this year. Still, the year turned out to be a wellspring of good extremophile-friendly music, looking through the candidates once more.
Finsterforst was worthy to win the best folk award
Honestly? wasn't half as best as "Helvetios". "Rastlos" sounds stripped off version of Moonsorrow and were damn plain and decent. Well, they still manage to get away with 8.2 ratings, which isn't bad at all. But, got significantly screwed up in galloping 414 votes ripping against 123 which is close to 70% on-the-fucking-face defeat.
Finsterforst was worthy to win the best folk award
Honestly? wasn't half as best as "Helvetios". "Rastlos" sounds stripped off version of Moonsorrow and were damn plain and decent. Well, they still manage to get away with 8.2 ratings, which isn't bad at all. But, got significantly screwed up in galloping 414 votes ripping against 123 which is close to 70% on-the-fucking-face defeat.
I like Eluveitie but "Helvetios" has many songs with alike music. And I think the question is not just about originality, if so Wilderun was the best in the genre...
I am glad Shadowplay won the BM award, it is one of the best BM albums I have ever heard.
And I really don't like Meshuggah winning the djent awards, that album was pretty good and crushing, I like it a LOT, but there have been way better math albums released last year.
It is also getting boring to see Converge take the cake for metalcore every time but I guess they deserve it because it was a beast of an album (would have voted for Neverbloom or Daybreaker me thinks but I forgot to vote as usual -.- ).
Actually that's a pretty terrible idea. The awards are already split into too many categories.
Please help me understand why some genres are split into sub-genres and others aren't? I mean, if you're going to have multiple varieties of black metal-related, doom-related, and you already have melo-death, why not allow the idea for some death metal's most currently viable and well-revered sub-genres of its own? There are tons of excellent death metal albums that are clearly more style-specific that need to be recognized, in my view. One of my main issues with this site is that it generally throws the very genres I'm speaking of adding by the wayside. Death metal is the largest 'umbrella' of all the awards categories on here. I mean, if Grindcore has its own category, why in the world wouldn't technical death or brutal death? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
Please help me understand why some genres are split into sub-genres and others aren't? I mean, if you're going to have multiple varieties of black metal-related, doom-related, and you already have melo-death, why not allow the idea for some death metal's most currently viable and well-revered sub-genres of its own? There are tons of excellent death metal albums that are clearly more style-specific that need to be recognized, in my view. One of my main issues with this site is that it generally throws the very genres I'm speaking of adding by the wayside. Death metal is the largest 'umbrella' of all the awards categories on here. I mean, if Grindcore has its own category, why in the world wouldn't technical death or brutal death? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
for starters, it's already an absurd amount of work involved in the process. i'd be happy trimming some genres rather than adding even more.
your question answers itself. black, doom, and death all have basically two versions as it is, the "melodic" version and the extreme one.
as for Grindcore vs. other subgenres of death, it's worth noting that while Tech and Brutal grew out of Death metal, Grindcore is a completely separate genre that took the Punk->Hardcore punk evolution to the next extreme.
finally, in my eyes, death metal is FAR more limited than black or doom. some bands might be more technical in approach than others, but the general music is still from the same point. the deviations are not nearly as dramatic as BM/Doom.
is it actually possible that there could be a year in metal so bad that Gojira and Kreator's salty efforts are the best.... pointless complaint post but still, combing through these results I wasn't seeing many exciting albums... I guess Death metal was looking alright as a category this year as a whole, although the love for CC's ass pummeling shitstorm of an album was fairly microscopic. that's just the way these things work I suppose.
I'm just glad Sonata Arctica's "Stones Grow Her Name" didn't win the Power Metal vote, even though it came in second. Congrats to Kamelot on their return post-Kahn.
Please help me understand why some genres are split into sub-genres and others aren't? I mean, if you're going to have multiple varieties of black metal-related, doom-related, and you already have melo-death, why not allow the idea for some death metal's most currently viable and well-revered sub-genres of its own? There are tons of excellent death metal albums that are clearly more style-specific that need to be recognized, in my view. One of my main issues with this site is that it generally throws the very genres I'm speaking of adding by the wayside. Death metal is the largest 'umbrella' of all the awards categories on here. I mean, if Grindcore has its own category, why in the world wouldn't technical death or brutal death? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
for starters, it's already an absurd amount of work involved in the process. i'd be happy trimming some genres rather than adding even more.
your question answers itself. black, doom, and death all have basically two versions as it is, the "melodic" version and the extreme one.
as for Grindcore vs. other subgenres of death, it's worth noting that while Tech and Brutal grew out of Death metal, Grindcore is a completely separate genre that took the Punk->Hardcore punk evolution to the next extreme.
finally, in my eyes, death metal is FAR more limited than black or doom. some bands might be more technical in approach than others, but the general music is still from the same point. the deviations are not nearly as dramatic as BM/Doom.
Thank you for the response, even if I largely don't agree. With all due respect to your opinion, I find that last statement incomprehensible.
If you think death metal has more style variations that doom metal then you clealry haven't listened to much doom metal. Go away, listen to Candlemass and Skepticism then come back and tell me they sound anything alike.
Doom emcompasses:
Traditional / epic doom, stoner doom, sludge doom, death doom, black doom, funeral doom and drone doom, as well that typical sounding doom band that just gets called "doom metal."
Death metal can roughly be split into tech-death and more or less everything else outside of that as the stylistic variations are nowhere different enough to split into other factions. We don't split up raw black metal and avant-garde black metal so why should we bother separating brutal death and old-school death? Fact is next to thrash, death metal is one of the least varied subsets of metal. That's just simple fact. It's not worth making another death category, in fact I don't think there should be 3 doom categories either, despite the fact doom is far more diverse than death.
This was absolutely one of the wORst! MS awards ever
by the way the biggest winner is Blut Aus Nord due to be nominated 4 times in 2 years!!! (in 2011 both 777 albums. in 2012 cosmosophy and what once was liber II )
RIITIIR better than Portal of I? pure goddamn bullshit all the fucking goddamn pusfilled way.
personal opinions, personal opinions. You think Portal Of I is brilliant, I think it is average at best and that RIITIIR pisses all over it and hits it ouf the galaxy.
pointless complaint post but still, combing through these results I wasn't seeing many exciting albums... I guess Death metal was looking alright as a category this year as a whole, although the love for CC's ass pummeling shitstorm of an album was fairly microscopic. that's just the way these things work I suppose.
