Happy New Year to everyone around the world. It’s January 1, 2013, and to celebrate the New Year the best way I know how, I got right to work on tabulating the results of the 2012 Readers Poll. I’ve been tracking the results as they’ve come in over the course of December, and as you can see in the list below, it was a tight race for the top spot right up to the end.

Before we run down the finished list, I want to extend gratitude to each and every one of the 296 people who contributed their top 12 so this list could be put together. It’s an amazing response and I was super stoked that so many of you were able to take part. Thank you for that. Right from the first day the form went up, I knew this was going to be awesome, and it wound up exceeding my every expectation. It was a great sendoff to the year. Much appreciated.

Here are the results of the Top 20 of 2012 Readers Poll:

1. Om, Advaitic Songs – 108 votes

2. High on Fire, De Vermis Mysteriis – 106

3. Graveyard, Lights Out – 86

4. Neurosis, Honor Found in Decay – 65

5. Ufomammut, Oro – 63

5. Witchcraft, Legend – 63

6. Colour Haze, She Said – 56

6. Saint Vitus, Lillie: F-65 – 56

7. Kadavar, Kadavar – 49

7. Pallbearer, Sorrow and Extinction – 49

8. Orange Goblin, A Eulogy for the Damned – 46

9. Baroness, Yellow and Green – 39

10. Conan, Monnos – 38

11. Swans, The Seer – 35

12. Astra, The Black Chord – 31

13. Greenleaf, Nest of Vipers – 31

13. The Sword, Apocryphon – 31

14. Royal Thunder, CVI – 26

14. Wo Fat, The Black Code – 26

15. Ancestors, In Dreams and Time – 25

16. Torche, Harmonicraft – 23

17. Corrosion of Conformity, Corrosion of Conformity – 22

18. Enslaved, Riitiir – 19

19. Goat, World Music – 18

19. Melvins Lite, Freak Puke – 18

19. Soundgarden, King Animal – 18

20. Amenra, Mass V – 17

20. Samothrace, Reverence to Stone – 17

16 Votes

Witch Mountain, Cauldron of the Wild
Rush, Clockwork Angels
Stoned Jesus, Seven Thunders Roar
Troubled Horse, Step Inside

15 Votes

Converge, All We Love We Leave Behind – 15
Mighty High, Legalize Tre Bags – 15
My Sleeping Karma, Soma – 15

Pretty wild to have Om and High on Fire so close, and they were tied for a long, long time, but Om retained an early lead and managed to pull it out in the end. As you can see, there were a number of releases that tied with others for their position. Seemed only fair to me to include all of them, and I also threw in those with 16 and 15 votes as well, just because it was close. In total, there were an astounding 1,200+ albums entered into consideration.

Once again, thanks to everyone for making this Readers Poll happen and for taking the time to be a part of it. Already looking forward to some fantastic things to come in 2013, so please stay tuned and keep your lists handy.

I’ve never been the world’s biggest Baroness fan, but if there was any band that earned respect in 2012, it’s them. Following a devastating bus crash in August, guitarists John Dyer Baizley and Pete Adams have just posted their first new footage, playing acoustic. The PR wire sent it over with some info about its origins, which you’ll find below:

BARONESS SHARE VIDEO OF JOHN BAIZLEY AND PETE ADAMS ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE

Baroness’s John Baizley and Pete Adams share an acoustic performance of “Stretchmarker” via their website (www.baronessmusic.com).  The clip, recorded in Baizley’s Philadelphia art studio (www.aperfectmonster.com), marks the first performance the band members have shared since their horrific bus accident in August.

“Simply put: it’s time to get back to it. Since my belated and thankful return to the USA (after our painful test in motor coach-aeronautics) I can definitively say I’ve exhausted my reserve of potential leisure activities (there’s not that many of them, after all).” explained Baizley. “I’ve come dreadfully close to boredom, and in those moments I can’t help but focus on my glaring physical infirmities.  Television offers little respite from this relative stasis; I’m sure by now I have sampled every biker-meth-dealer-zombie-low-talking-cop-crime-scene-serial-killer-real-housewife soap opera that is currently being broadcast (and there’s no small number of them).  I’ve tried to fill my weekly routine with as much physical therapy as possible but the truth is, PT is not fun, and its benefits come with a great deal of mental/physical/spiritual pain and struggle.  Furthermore, I believe I am getting a touch of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to my doctors and therapists (the highlight of my week should NOT involve a clinic).  Music might be the best therapy I have right now.   Perhaps it’s both the cause and the cure (the thought has crossed my mind); but I feel lost without it.  Pete and I have just spent a long week surveying our musical wreckage and, surprisingly, we are quite well and intact.  Sure, there are some substantial obstacles to overcome before we write, record or perform any time soon; but we still have everything we need to get ‘back in’ that particular ‘saddle again.’  Most of my peers are familiar with such high-school-gym-teacher poeticisms as ‘risk equals reward’ and ‘no pain, no gain;’ but did any of us every really believe there was any real wisdom in those adolescent platitudes?  I didn’t.  I am, however, starting to understand the essence of these and many of our other favorite clichés.

As odd as it might be for me to write these ‘updates’ after 10 years of personal silence on the internet, I feel that I owe everyone who’s voiced or given their support to  Baroness a brief synopsis of our situation and more importantly a heartfelt thanks.  Honestly, it has made this ordeal much easier on me.  What little publicity that surrounds our crash has given voice to so many people who have shared their own stories of injury, trauma and struggle with us, and has furthered my own faith in the communicative and universal strength of music.  As every singer on every stage has nightly said, ‘we wouldn’t be where we are without you.’  Thanks everyone.  We look forward to seeing you soon.  Here’s a short clip of a song we wrote.”

Limited quantities of the Yellow & Green Deluxe 2xLP Hardbound Book Vinyl edition from the band’s personal collection are available via Baroness’s website (www.baronessmusic.com) with all proceeds going directly to the band.

…Well, I should be honest. I listened to about half of Blue Record by Baroness before getting bored and deciding to shut it off and watch this week’s episode of House on the DVR. Fact is, it’s not even that bad, or bad at all, really, I just don’t like peer pressure. The Onion rated it as one of the best metal albums of the decade, it’s Decibel‘s album of the year; hell, I don’t think I’ve seen a list yet without it showing up somewhere. That’s a surefire way to turn me off.

Not to mention the pretentiousness of the thing — but I can get down with all kinds of self-indulgence in the right context, so that can’t really be an issue, can it? I guess it’s just something contrary in my nature. Just me being a dick. I own every release Baroness has put out to date. Standing in Snake Eyes Vinyl in Austin, TX, I remember vividly saying to myself, “Well, I don’t really like these guys, but maybe I will at some point, so I better buy this stuff.” That was the First and Second EPs. Then they put out Red Album and it sounded like watered-down Mastodon to me. Blue Record sounds like watered-down Mastodon that’s bought into its own press and everyone exclaiming its genius. I’ve yet to find a reason to care.

But I’m obviously in the minority as regards the band, as critics the world over have been making their shorts sticky to Blue Record since its release in October. Maybe it’s a generational thing. I’ll allow for that. But I like Torche, so it’s not like I’m against the new/hip school entirely. With Baroness though sometimes it feels like people are just kissing their ass so they can get guitarist/vocalist John Dyer Baizley to do the art for their band’s album. His art does rule, and I like guitarist Pete Adams in Valkyrie and bassist Summer Welch in Birds of Prey, so even the component parts of Baroness are inoffensive, it’s just the whole I don’t dig. Blue Record, which will probably get one or two more chances to do so before disappearing to the nether regions of shelf space , has yet to change my mind. Maybe I’ve missed the point.

The children love Baroness, and though I don’t get it, I wouldn’t want that to stop anyone from checking out this combined listening party/show tomorrow night, Oct. 1, in Manhattan. They’re going to be playing the new Baroness record and there will be sets by Fight Amp, Moth Eater and Voyager, as you can see from the nifty poster below. You know you’ve been looking for an excuse to get wasted on Thursday…

A couple days ago, I sent Birds of Prey vocalist Ben Hogg (also of Beaten Back to Pure and the even more extreme Plague the Suffering) an email, asking him if he would kindly write up a feature on his experience making The Hellpreacher, the third BOP album, due out in April via Relapse. His response was a reassuring, “I’m down. Gimme a few days,” and I knew then the right choice had been made.

True to his word, a couple days later, Ben sent the following report on the origins of the band and the coming together of The Hellpreacher. After the jump, bear witness to the one and only Ben Hogg.

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