What's your album of the year?

It's hard to choose just one, let's see...we got Devildriver, Megadeth, Mastadon, Slayer, Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, aah!! *Head pops off*
 
Katatonia - Night Is The New Day for me also

...I have to agree that this was a bit lame year when it comes to great albums. In addition to DTP, Mastodon and Paramore albums, the Steven Wilson's Insurgentes is also worth of mentioning.
 
My pick is Katatonia - Night is the New Day. It is very different from a lot of their other material and its very good. A lot of times when bands take a different approach or depart a little from their formula, it is not the greatest. Fortunately, Katatonia did a killer job with this album.
 
Wow.. I saw so many recommendations for Katatonia's latest that I went to check it out. I didn't really 'get' TGCD, and I didn't like Forsaker... but wow this album is amazing. Truly incredible.
 
No love for Porcupine Tree? Well, "The Incident" is definitely in my top 5 this year, although it's no "In Absentia" or "Deadwing".

My picks:

Porcupine Tree - The Incident
Katatonia - Night Is The New Day
OSI - Blood
Mastodon - Crack The Skye
Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today...
 
Crack the Skye has been dominating my life since its release. Worst stuff has been mainly metalcore stuff... Killswitch have been bull' since EoH, August Burns Red and It Dies Today are the same band in my opinion, Joey Sturgis' work has been fantastic but the bands are so severely turd - 99% of metalcore has made me want to be physically sick and just show these bands a close up of james hetfield's hand downpicking Shortest Straw whilst making them listen to all of Pulse Live (Pink Floyd, baby).

New converge was fucking insane. Paramore are just fucking gay. Literally been taking almost no notice of the production and just getting into the vibe of albums recently. Not sure if Elbow was this year or last but 'The Seldom Seen Kid' was really, really moving and sincerely spoke to me - loved it.

Good production for me this year has been anything that has given the band/their songs/their ethos/vibe a platform to just get into my head and let me feel the music. Crack the Skye did this better than any other album I heard - it had so much soul; not overthought pop structures into heavy music, produced to fuckery and rammed into my ears. Fuck that.
 
Literally been taking almost no notice of the production and just getting into the vibe of albums recently. Not sure if Elbow was this year or last but 'The Seldom Seen Kid' was really, really moving and sincerely spoke to me - loved it.

Good production for me this year has been anything that has given the band/their songs/their ethos/vibe a platform to just get into my head and let me feel the music. Crack the Skye did this better than any other album I heard - it had so much soul; not overthought pop structures into heavy music, produced to fuckery and rammed into my ears. Fuck that.

Amen. This year I haven't spent so much time listening to modern metal and persuing more professional production so much as discovering music that pushes boundaries and has soul and passion and raw talent (rather than relying on beat detective and autotune to do all the hard work.)
And, gasp, I've even let up from my previous mindset that you can still have lots of atmosphere and a mega clean mix. I've found that really fucking filthy mixes tend to have a far more unique atmosphere, so I've been getting over my inability to listen to mixes that aren't pristine, and now I have a whole new appreciation for rawness and filth. Maybe that just sounds like me saying "HURR DURRR MAKE SHIT MIXES COS ITS MORE ATMOSPHERIC HURRRR" but I think it reflects my attitude changing to believing the mix needs to fit the music. I used to always think Annihilation of the Wicked would still work with clean production and that it would be just as atmospheric. I now realise that's complete bullshit. I also realise that Sturgiscore wouldn't work with the production from None So Vile haha.

It's been a year of discovery \m/
 
Oh man, I only just bought the new Katatonia (via Amazon mp3) now after reading about it again in this thread, and man, the freakin' arpeggiating/ambient synth during the chorus of "Forsaker" (Forsaken?) is incredible :worship: