Brotherhood - ...Turn The Gold To Chrome...

Brotherhood - ...Turn The Gold To Chrome...
(2012) Not On Label

This is an excellent gloomy gothic rock record. A bit hard to find, nowadays, but well worth it if you happen to see it somewhere. I really like the, almost doom metal-ish, atmosphere of this album. I don't know why I think of doom metal? It's certainly not a metal album. The album's full of drum machines and cheesey electronics, just as you would expect from a goth record! A great companion while reading by the fireplace. The band used to have a song or two on their Bandcamp site, I don't know if it's still the case?

Night Sins ‎- New Grave

Night Sins ‎- New Grave DD
(2012) Avant!

It's not easy finding new interesting goth/post punk bands making physical albums, other than vinyl, nowadays. If you're lucky you may manage to buy one of the, very few, limited CD's. More often than not Bandcamp has been my friend, and I have been forced to be satisfied with just a Flac download. I'm not complaining. Flac is totally fine by me, and I simply just don't have the time to stay updated on every band and genre...
Night Sins are a very cool goth/post punk band, from the US, that may very well be part of the big goth resurrection that I've been foreshadowing since, well, forever! Nice songs, nice bass - what's not to like?

Enter And Fall ‎- Push Enter And Fall Down 2CD

Enter And Fall ‎- Push Enter And Fall Down 2CD
(2012) Emmo.biz

Enter And Fall are probably most known for their great remixes of other electronic artists. In fact, the second CD of this album features some of them. I really like the sound of this album. Club friendly tunes with strange male vocals, melodic and harsh at the same time. The sad thing is that after this album the band seems to have changed the sound quite a bit.

Douglas J. McCarthy - Kill Your Friends

Douglas J. McCarthy - Kill Your Friends
(2012) Pylon

After a year of listening to this album I've finally come to appreciate it. I didn't like it at all when it was released back in November of 2012, but it has been growing on me ever since. I think that the outstanding remixes on the 2013 "Move On" EP made me listen to it with a more "open" mind - or maybe with a new set of ears?
It's not Nitzer Ebb, but it's the great voice of Nitzer Ebb with an utdated new sound. Maybe you'll like it, too?

Ien Oblique - Drowning World

Ien Oblique - Drowning World
(2012) Infacted

Infacted records brings us another totally unknown masterpiece in the synth pop/future pop vein. First they brought us Torul and now this. Ien Oblique's debute album is more rhythmic than you might expect from a synth pop record. Definately one to look out for!

Trust - TRST

Trust - TRST (2012)
Arts & Crafts

It takes a brave man to actually purchase a record this ugly in a record store. Fortunately for Trust, most record sales nowadays, at least for me, is made on-line. But don't judge the record by the cover. This is excellent dark synth-pop. Dark and not especially melodic or poppy, more in the way that Continues makes synth-pop. Maybe not for everyone, but I really like this album. And in case you don't like it right away - give it some time to grow on you. It certainly did on me!

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die (The Paradise Edition) 2CD
2012 Interscope

I mostly like, and write about, somewhat underground artists. But not this time. This dark pop album was one of last years biggest surprises for me. I totally adore "Summertime Sadness"! But there are alot of good tracks on this 2CD special edition release. Tiamat did a great cover of the title song on the limited edition of "The Scarred People". Get this if you like your pop songs dark and beautiful!

Mental Discipline - Constellation

Mental Discipline - Constellation
(2012) skyQode

Wow! This must be THE futurepop album of 2012! Just like the Paralell Project CD "Fusion", this album is written by a single mastermind, in this case Alex Mental, but the vocals are sung by different artists. The 2011 EP "Falling Stars" had somewhat prepared me for a great follow up album, but not quite to this extent. Standout tracks are the Felix Marc sung "Fall To Pieces", "Disguise (Feat. Culture Kültur)" and "My Madhouse (Feat. Carved Souls)". The Paralell Project CD was very dynamic, holding different kind of songs and both male and female vocalists. This album, on the other hand, is only about club smashers. It's packed with potential futurepop hits! Note that the CD version holds an exclusive bonus track, not available on the download version. Get both versions on Bandcamp!

Ikon - The X-Files

Ikon - The X-Files (2012)
Not On Label

This is a special Ikon release in many ways. We can start with the most obvious thing - the cover; It's a reinterprenation of the artwork for the long deleted 1997 CD "The Final Experience". The record itself is a limited edition charity release where all proceeds from the sales goes to Very Special Kids. The CD contains rare tracks and cover versions that have not been included on the recent re-issues of "In The Shadow Of The Angel" and "Flowers For The Gathering".

Aaimon - Flatliner

Aaimon - Flatliner (2012)
Artoffact

∆Aimon, Aaimon or maybe you want to call them Daimon? It doesn't really matter. It's another one of Artoffact Records great releases! And maybe the nicest artwork of 2012. This is the first Witch house record I actually bought. I have been dowloading a great bit of Witch house releases from Bandcamp, just to check out what the fuzz was about. I don't like most of them, but there surely is some hidden gems out there! The thing I like about Aaimon is that they have vocals. I'm not to keen on instrumental music, which most of the Witch house stuff I found has been. This CD is a re-release of a six song vinyl EP, now packed with ten bonus tracks. Great value for money! There's both Witch hous remixes like "Current (▲NDRΛS Remix)" and "Mirrors Fade (Ceremonal Dagger Remix)", and some remixes by industrial bands like "Black Cross (Dead When I Found Her Remix)", "Flatliner (Encephalon Remix)" and "Flatliner (Haujobb Remix)".

Legend - Fearless

Legend - Fearless (2012)
Artoffact

This album is supposed to be the best electronic newcomer of the year. It's definately the grower of the year for me. It's getting better and better by each listen. But I rank Continues - "Continues" as the best newcomer of the year. Standout tracks are "Benjamite Bloodline", "City", "Runaway Train", "Sudden Stop", "Devil In Me", "Lust" - heck, almost all of the songs on this album are worth a mention!

Patenbrigade:Wolff - Baustopp!

Patenbrigade:Wolff - Baustopp!
(2012) Zweieck

A bit of an odd release from Patenbrigade:Wolff. It's basically an instrumental ambient, chill out, lounge and/or downbeat album. There are some unreleased songs, some well-known songs as well as some instrumental versions. The CD is a mix-CD with all the songs mixed into one long smooth mix. The Unrelated Bandcamp Digital Download, on the other hand, has all the songs with as stand alone tracks!

SoundSequence ‎– Top Of The Mountain: 1997 - 2012

SoundSequence ‎– Top Of The Mountain: 1997 - 2012
(2012) Razgrom

Yes, finally I've recieved my Russian CD copy of SoundSequence's demos. This CD holds more songs than the digital release Progress Production put out in 2011, but note this; it doesn't contain all the songs from the download release! It also has 3 songs (I think?) with vocals from Martins sister Karin Rudefelt. Get this album now! It's a limited release, only 500 copies. So act fast!

Tiamat - The Scarred People

Tiamat - The Scarred People
(2012) Napalm

The new Tiamat album is, thankfully, a step back in style and sound. It's gothic rock again! Ok, I can hear boring guitar solos in some songs, but otherwise this sounds exactly like I want it to sound. If you hurry up and buy it you'll get the limited edition Digipak with four bonus tracks!

Grooving In Green - Stranglehold

Grooving In Green - Stranglehold DD
2012 afmusic

Album number two from Grooving In Green. The production is great on this record, the only thing I have to remark upon is the vocals. Don't get me wrong, the vocals are mostly great, but sometimes they can get kind of annoying. All in all a worthy follow up to the 2010 "Post Traumatic Stress" album. Goth is grooving again!

Miserylab ‎– Documentary 2008 / 2012

Miserylab-Documentary 2008 / 2012 CD+7" (2012)
D-Monic

I briefly mentioned that this album was about to be released in this post. And now it's finally here. I don't necessarly find all the stuff Porl King is releasing to be of great quality, but I do like the sound of all his projects. And there's always some great songs worth checking out on all releases. On this album the stand-out tracks are "Making A Bomb" and "Five One One". I think the album is worth getting for the "Five One One" song alone! But hurry up, the album is limited to 500 copies.

Agent Side Grinder - Hardware

Agent Side Grinder - Hardware
(2012) Klangarkivet

As you can see this album isn't the nicest looking CD in my collection. Luckily I don't judge a CD by it's cover. I don't really know what to call this music, though. Maybe some sort of electronic postpunk, but a lot less melodic than last weeks The Present Moment, and much more leaning towards EBM. It's a nice album with a couple of stand out tracks, most noticeable "Wolf Hour" with vocals from Henric De La Cour.

The Present Moment - Loyal To A Fault

Present Moment, The - Loyal To A Fault DD (2012)
Not On Label

This is yet another outstanding band I found thanks to the Violent Playground forum and the most well-written and interesting among  blogs I Die: You Die. You can download this album for free from the bands Bandcamp site (have I mentioned that I love Bandcamp before? Oh, I have? Well, I really do love Bandcamp!). But I suggest you pay at least 10 bucks for this album, even though it's free! It's easily worth it! Their other two releases are also worth downloading, but they're not nearly as good as this one! So hurry now and give the band your money! Oh btw, the music is some sort of electronic post punk with an outstanding bass sound!

Christian Gabel - Krater

Christian Gabel - Krater
(2012) Fatshark

This is a really expensive fake soundtrack to a film never made. The reason it's so expensive is that you cannot buy just the music, you have to buy the computer game Krater to get the audio CD. I don't mind, because the packaging is great. Cool conceptual artwork of my hometown, Karlstad, after the apocalypse. The music is some sort of laidback instrumental electronics. Really atmospheric, and you can't mistake it for something other than a soundtrack. Thumbs up!

Derniere Volonte ‎– Mon Meilleur Ennemi

Derniere Volonte ‎– Mon Meilleur
Ennemi (2012)
Hau Ruck!

And now something completely different. French neofolk with a melancholy synthpop sound. I've enjoyed the last couple of albums from Derniere Volonte, especially the 2006 album "Devant Le Miroir" and the 2010 album "Immortel". They all had a couple of really good tracks, but they weren't anywhere near the quality of this record. If you like your neofolk electronic and with melodies, this album should be an instant buy!