At the beginning of the month I put a call out to all you fellow Beardians, giving you the opportunity to tell me what your favourite albums were this year. I figured that kind of year-end interaction would be better than me coming up with some arbitrary best-of list. Well, I’m not sure if that was too much work for you or if it’s the fact that no one actually reads this blog (that’s highly possible, but I’ll continue on as if at least a few of you are reading), but I got zero response. So…now you’re stuck with a list!

While I did enjoy a great many releases this year (this list concerns mainly full-lengths, not EPs or singles even though I listened to some damn fine ones this year), there were some that affected me more than the rest, and we’ll get to those in a minute. First though, specific thanks go out to Roadsaw, Dixie Witch, Lo-Pan, Trap Them, Biters, Mariachi El Bronx, Toxic Holocaust, Karma To Burn, Hazzard’s Cure, Premonition 13, Black Spiders, Mastodon, Saviours, Spiders, Darlings of Chelsea, Helms Alee, Blood Ceremony, Danava, Monster Truck, C’mon, Barn Burner, Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, The Heavy Eyes, Opeth, Elder, and Omega Massif for releasing some top notch, beard-approved albums this year. All mighty stellar indeed.

But there were 14 albums in particular this past year that blasted my beard all to sweet holy hell, and while I’m not gonna rank ‘em, I do think they deserve some extra attention, and you’d be best served to go and seek them out immediately if you haven’t already. So here they are, in alphabetical order…

Black Cobra – Invernal: Eight cuts of unrelenting rotten roll much braver, louder, and nastier than any Black Cobra album that’s come before… (review here)

Elks – Destined for the Sun: This year’s ‘Holy-fuck-these-guys-are-my-new-favourite-band!’ band… (review here)

Gentleman’s Pistols – At Her Majesty’s Pleasure: You don’t so much as listen to it as you do walk into its dark and musty den and stare at all the trophy riffs mounted on the wall like 10 point bucks… (review here)

Glitter Wizard – Solar Hits: Their cosmic psych-punk is gonna hit you like one thousand crotch lasers to the face… (review here)

Graveyard – Hisingen Blues: Rarefied fuzzdom, a kind of electric catnip that makes bell-bottomed leaf hounds go bat-shit… (review here)

Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus – Bloom: An incredibly soulful jam that focuses the majority of its attention on delivering its hazy, swirling melodies in a clear and present manner… (review here)

The Low Anthem – Smart Flesh: The indie Rhode Island band instills a breathless yearning into their music that rivals any other kind of emotional response you will get from any other kind of music… (review here)

Michael Monroe – Sensory Overdrive: Full of so many eyelined hits it’ll make your head spin… (review here)

Midnight – Satanic Royalty: Black metal thrash so absurdly good you’ll be reawakening neck muscles that have been retired since the early 80s… (review here)

Orchid – Capricorn: Witchy-riffed psych-blues that, had it been recorded in 1969, would be the subject of the first chapter of all tomes concerning the history of heavy metal… (review here)

The Shrine – Bless Off Demo: Just one run through Bless Off‘s neurotic, thrashy, fuzzy, riff-packed punk-doom hybrid and beer will taste better, partying will last longer, denim will fit snugger, and your conquests — sexual or otherwise — will be mightier… (review here)

Skraeckoedlan - Äppelträdet: Äppelträdet (The Apple Tree) stands deep-rooted and thick-trunked, its branches offering  the sweet taste of mammoth melody, and each song you pick is bigger and juicer than the next… (review here)

Turbowolf – Turbowolf: A sweat bomb of ultra-hip, greasy electricity… (review here)

Untimely Demise – City of Steel: Dynamite piece of soul fucking metal… (review here)

So that’s it…another good year, huh? Sadly, I would’ve like to have reviewed Nordic Nomadic’s Worldwide Skyline and some other stuff, but I didn’t. Can’t word ‘em all, I guess.

Oh, and one more thing…I feel like I should pick a beard of the year. So, the winner is…my pal James. James won the Beard of the Month back in February, and has kept his hairy trophy on display since, and now he looks like Guy Fawkes. You might say, ‘Oh, you’re only giving it to him because you know him,’ and you may be right, but you cannot argue against that beard, can you? Occupy facial hair, motherfuckers!

Ok, enjoy the holidaze, friends. There’s plenty slated for review once we resume activity in 2012, including Orange Goblin, Christian Mistress, Dwellers, Black Pyramid, King Giant, Rising, The Saint James Society, High on Fire, Earth, and much more! Maybe even an exclusive sneak peek at the new Sex Slaves album! See you in the New Year.

Opeth
Heritage
Roadrunner

When I first heard “The Devil’s Orchard” from Heritage, I knew immediately that Opeth’s tenth album was going to be different, was going to make a statement, was going to grab people’s attention, for better or worse. Yes, the Swedish progressive metal band has traveled a long way from Orchid‘s death/black metal roots, gradually emphasizing the progressive aspect more and more with each release, especially in recent years with Ghost Reveries and Watershed, but Heritage is the weirdest Opeth offering yet. Make of that word what you will, but with Heritage Opeth fans the world over can expect an album that’s devoid of growling vocals (Damnation it’s not, though), flushed with odd time signatures, accentuated with classical guitar flourishes, and bursting with a clean guitar tone that noodles through bluesy riffs bordering on a jazz-metal fusion. Sure, some of that’s familiar territory, but it’s never been delivered in such overwhelming doses and is sure to divide the ranks. It’s also worth noting that Per Wiberg’s organ is featured more prominently than ever before and the songs, which have an average length of about six minutes (not one of them breaking the ten minute mark), are quite short as far as Opeth songs go. It all adds up to one unusual and unforgettable Opeth experience (including the highly symbolic cover by longtime collaborator Travis Smith), one you might not warm up to if you’re looking for another My Arms, Your Hearse or Morningrise. However, if you’ve always loved what Mikael Åkerfeldt and company can do when they let their genius freak freely, if you’ve got a soft spot for their mellower stuff and have dug the direction the band’s been heading, Heritage might just win you over.

Listen to “The Devil’s Orchard” from Heritage!

Alcest
Écailles de lune
Prophecy Productions

Some people might say that France’s Alcest are a long way from their 2001 demo, Tristesse Hivernale, and the black metal roots from which they sprung, and while they certainly did take a sweeping detour into a softer, more ambient brand of metal when Neige took sole command of the band and released the 2005 EP, Le Secret, they have been steadily reclaiming that extreme sound little by little, through  2007′s Souvenirs d’un autre monde and right into this, their latest effort, Écailles de lune. The sound on Écailles is a contextually rich sound, a layered and dreamy amalgamation of black metal, folk metal, and shoegaze; think Orchid or Morningrise-era Opeth or Agalloch meets Jesu. Neige’s lyrical focus on the magical world of fairies always sounds more fantastic when it’s sung (or screamed in some cases) in French, but over top of the ethereal beauty of the guitar tone on this album, whether it’s as soft as a nymph’s kiss (“Solar Song”) or as brutal as a wolf’s bite (“Écailles de lune [Part II]“), it takes you to a place far beyond your imagination. A place from which you may never seek to return.

Listen to “Solar Song” from Écailles de lune!