2012 has not been a vintage year for albums.\u00a0 Many of the bands I like spent the year touring the massive releases of 2011 and there was precious little new material to catch my ear.\u00a0 Fortunately a few bands did come up trumps.<\/p>\n
Therapy?<\/strong><\/a> continued on their eclectic and individualistic path.\u00a0 We’re a long way on from their massively successful days centred on the Troublegum<\/em> album, and having followed that breakthrough with the wilfully difficult Infernal Love<\/em> album it’s no surprise that they’ve continued to buck the mainstream.\u00a0 This year’s A Brief Crack of Light<\/em><\/strong> is sparse but powerful, with Andy Cairns continuing to draw on themes of alienation and distance in his lyrics while not forgetting the importance of melody in the choruses.\u00a0 This is spiky and occasionally uncomfortable listening, but well worth it.<\/p>\n dEUS<\/strong><\/a> surprised us all at the beginning of June by releasing a new album without any fanfare or warning, only eight months after the excellent Keep You Close<\/em> collection.\u00a0 The band explained this as a desire to return a little to their old ways of working, favouring spontaneity and songs arising from jams ahead of spending three years in the studio analysing every detail of their songs.\u00a0 Previous dEUS albums have been carefully calculated sets of songs that work together, while Following Sea<\/strong><\/em> is a far more varied collection, starting with the atmospheric Quatre Mains<\/em>, their first venture into French lyrics and inevitably suggesting a Gainsbourg kind of vibe, ending with the epic and thoughtful One Thing About Waves<\/em>, a rolling rumination on the lifecycle of waves, while passing through the Spanish-beat-tinged Sirens<\/em>, a kind of sequel to Ghosts<\/em> from the previous album, the PTSD-referencing Hidden Wounds<\/em>, and the light and poppy Crazy About You<\/em> on the way.\u00a0 There is a sense of freedom about the album and it merits repeated listening, preferably while driving along a coast road.<\/p>\n Storm Corrosion<\/strong><\/a> is a collaboration between two giants of the progressive hard rock scene, Mikael \u00c5kerfeldt of Opeth and Steven Wilson of the Porcupine Tree.\u00a0 Although they’ve worked together frequently on each others’ albums, in particular with Wilson producing Opeth’s monumental and epoch-making Blackwater Park<\/em> album in 2001, this was their first proper joint venture.\u00a0 And it was quite a surprise.\u00a0 No death metal guitars or growls, no lengthy guitar solos, no pounding double bass drums…\u00a0 instead, we got a collection of soundscapes something in the mould of the space that Radiohead chose to occupy when writing hits started to bore them.\u00a0 It’s not music for every occasion, and certainly not for late-night driving, but it’s good.<\/p>\n Rush<\/strong><\/a> have never made a bad album – or even anything less than very good – and they weren’t going to spoil their unblemished record with Clockwork Angels<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 It’s hard to find anything new to say about a band this good who have been around for this long, except perhaps to note that they are not afraid to go very, very heavy indeed.\u00a0 For a band who made their reputations more than thirty years ago as a bunch of studious progmeisters, they can riff if up when they want to.\u00a0 Now I just want them to play somewhere near me on their European tour next year.<\/p>\n