By Aniruddh “Andrew” Bansal
I love reading and writing list-based articles, and it’s that time of the year again when I get to write another one. Today is the 30th of June, which marks the end of the first half of 2012, and it gives me a chance to reflect on 2012 as a year in metal releases so far. Right from the month of January itself, I knew that 2012 would beat 2011 in terms of the sheer quality of music being released. I expected quite a lot of great music to be put out by the time we reached this June 30th date, and things have turned out even better than I had imagined back in January. That’s the reason I’m doing this half-yearly list for the first time ever. Picking the best albums out of just these six months was harder than making the 2011 year-end list, to be honest.
Just to clarify, I have considered full-length albums of all sub-genres of hard rock and heavy metal, with release dates between January 1st and June 30th 2012. EPs, split releases and reissues haven’t been taken into account for making this list. The months of January and February saw a lot of good releases, but it was interesting for me to find out which of those albums stood the test of time. I really liked quite a few of the early 2012 albums when they were released, but some of them didn’t make this list, and were outdone by albums that came later. So without further ado, I’ll get into the list: Continue reading “A Look Back At The First Half Of 2012: Best Albums”
