Consequence of Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2012

Consequence of Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2012

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50.

July 17, 2012
Critic Score
78
28 reviews

This is Nas’ strongest album in 18 years and three months– yes, since his debut album Illmatic.

49.

October 2, 2012
Critic Score
83
34 reviews

FlyLo silenced the external forces and produced an album that is dark enough to spin at LA’s Low End Theory, yet smooth enough to garner listens from fans well outside of the club’s beat freaks. 

48.

July 10, 2012
Critic Score
80
44 reviews

Swing Lo Magellan is an album that will break hearts, bring joy, and deliver emotional notes that few others could.

47.

September 4, 2012
Critic Score
73
26 reviews

Front to back, top to bottom, the record is the most charged Mould has sounded since those fruitful Sugar days, and at 52 he sounds as comfortable in his iconic alt-rock skin as ever.

45.

April 17, 2012
Critic Score
78
16 reviews

43.

June 18, 2012
Critic Score
70
28 reviews

He’s carved out an agreeable adventure with Oceania, and one that any casual or die-hard fan can embrace with true vigor.

42.

March 6, 2012
Critic Score
82
25 reviews

The Men may not be hailed as the genre’s saviors, nor should they be, but here they have done an excellent job as its purveyors.

41.

October 5, 2012
Critic Score
86
35 reviews

With Lonerism, Tame Impala have doubled down on the kaleidoscopic refractions of their debut. The melodies are clearer, pushed up in the mix, given agency by their immediacy.

40.

September 18, 2012
Critic Score
79
38 reviews

Shields growls and purrs in ways Grizzly Bear has never before.

39.

November 12, 2012
Critic Score
73
40 reviews

III is less playful than the duo’s previous couple of offerings, but it’s thematic mood is much tighter and more fully realized.

38.

June 2, 2012
Critic Score
73
22 reviews

37.

The Henry Clay People - Twenty-Five For The Rest of Our Lives
June 26, 2012
Critic Score
75
4 reviews

Twenty Five, even while it grasps at noise and disorder, comes together as a fully formed, mature statement of an album. 

36.

April 17, 2012
Critic Score
66
10 reviews

35.

Tig Notaro - Live
October 30, 2012
Critic Score
90
2 reviews

34.

January 31, 2012
Critic Score
81
35 reviews

Old Ideas, however, succeeds in largely keeping the music subservient, buoyant enough to keep things moving but not distracting any attention from the lyrics, the true star of the show.

33.

February 21, 2012
Critic Score
73
35 reviews

They’re not just throwing hooks and loops to the wall to see what sticks; the two are primarily writing songs and adding hooks and loops for color.

32.

September 4, 2012
Critic Score
79
43 reviews

Transformed in both sound and spirit, Sun is a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter’s soul.

31.

July 24, 2012
Critic Score
77
15 reviews

TNGHT balances Mohawke’s crisp production style, the gloss of a high-end studio, and Lunice’s chopped-and-screwed beats, without any time to overload the work with excess triggers.

30.

December 4, 2012
Critic Score
78
33 reviews

While Bish Bosch isn’t nearly the departure The Drift was six years ago, there’s a sharper attention to detail and a much broader scope at bay, one that would shake the boots of even the strongest composers worldwide.

29.

September 18, 2012
Critic Score
78
27 reviews

On Total Loss, Krell is far more confrontational and less sedated in the face of his woes, upping the sentimental weight in the process

28.

July 24, 2012
Critic Score
78
35 reviews

Shrines isn’t trying to capitalize on some moment where rapid hi-hats and deep bass mix with dream-pop vocals; it manipulates two elements to make something malleable, elusive, sexual.

27.

October 9, 2012
Critic Score
79
22 reviews

26.

June 5, 2012
Critic Score
81
33 reviews

No matter how far into the ether they push, no matter what new form their music takes, there is a core Liars sound

25.

May 22, 2012
Critic Score
81
35 reviews

The roads in his mind are curling back onto themselves like a mobius strip and more than ever, most of the verses on Cancer 4 Cure are infinite loops, cannibalizing his own words over and over.

24.

October 16, 2012
Critic Score
83
33 reviews

Allelujah! Dont’ Bend! Ascend! offers fewer catharses, fewer emotions, and fewer answers, putting more distance than ever between Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the listener.

23.

June 26, 2012
Critic Score
80
19 reviews

It’s a loud, abrasive record that, in the end, feels pretty damn inspiring.

22.

April 17, 2012
Critic Score
78
36 reviews

Sweet Heart, Sweet Light covers a broad aural spectrum from surrealistic haze to outward pop and as such, is some of Jason Pierce’s and Spiritualized’s best material since Ladies and Gentlemen.

21.

March 26, 2012
Critic Score
82
24 reviews

With Kill For Love, it almost feels like the man’s true thesis, as if he’s strung together all his ideas, feelings, and sounds into one colossal being that acts less like an album and more like a highly organized archive.

20.

August 28, 2012
Critic Score
76
25 reviews

Divine Fits is more than the sum of its rangy, resplendent leading men

19.

October 15, 2012
Critic Score
77
44 reviews

The Haunted Man may not reveal a drastic stylistic shift, but the subtle difference is a nonetheless compelling documentation of the process of metamorphosis. 

18.

September 25, 2012
Critic Score
80
16 reviews

Nothing shrouds Miguel and his directives, and worries, and prayers, and cat calls — it’s all there, full of light and love, refracting through a kaleidoscope of rocks glasses, rainy windshields, and blood-shot eyes.

17.

February 21, 2012
Critic Score
80
41 reviews

Visions is a remarkable outing for Boucher in that it manages to showcase her knack for spinning bits and pieces from all points on the musical spectrum into crafty, easily digestible pop.

16.

April 21, 2012
Critic Score
83
26 reviews

The trio’s very existence depends on toeing a line between maintaining rap’s brooding thuggish-ness without overpowering it with their dubstep-inspired aesthetic.

15.

August 21, 2012
Critic Score
84
18 reviews

Big Inner is a brilliant debut, brimming with homages to pop music’s past, whether it be Motown or Randy Newman.

14.

February 14, 2012
Critic Score
82
24 reviews

The producer’s stylings coalesce into a pulsing and versatile dance release that easily justifies itself as one of the best we’ve heard so far this year.

13.

July 18, 2012
Critic Score
83
7 reviews

12.

February 7, 2012
Critic Score
81
34 reviews

Rather deliberately, Van Etten’s best musical traits can be broken into individual categories. As immensely well done and enjoyable as the aforementioned cuts are, they also feel incomplete.

11.

February 21, 2012
Critic Score
77
30 reviews

Mr. M will stand as one of Lambchop’s finest, most cohesive, and easiest straight-through listens yet, despite its intermediate tendencies.

10.

March 12, 2012
Critic Score
81
5 reviews

Collectively, the tracks on Blue Chips are part and parcel a New York mixtape — full of retro sounds and imagery that recalls the nefarious streets of the city pre-Giuliani, pre-Disney, pre-Bad Boy Records.

9.

October 9, 2012
Critic Score
85
20 reviews

With the release of All We Love We Leave Behind, Converge has once again displayed its uncanny ability to create an album as skull-cleaving as it is beautiful.

8.

June 5, 2012
Critic Score
82
35 reviews

Where Post-Nothing melts into a hazy dream, Celebration Rock does exactly what it claims to do—it burns on and on like the best sort of party.

7.

May 15, 2012
Critic Score
77
40 reviews

Every movement on Bloom extends that high silence to the length of several minutes, building within the song and into the next track to send wave after wave of eyes-closing, head-tilting, fist-clenching pinpricks.

6.

May 15, 2012
Critic Score
83
28 reviews

Erudite without being overwrought and passionate without being dogmatic, what we’ve got here may be the best rap album of the year – at least, so far.

5.

August 28, 2012
Critic Score
86
34 reviews

It’s wily, cunning, and aims to pull out the ecstasy hiding down in the guts of everyone, no matter if it’s uplifting or wretched.

4.

January 24, 2012
Critic Score
78
30 reviews

With Attack on Memory, Baldi’s never felt more alive or more authentic.

3.

October 22, 2012
Critic Score
90
32 reviews

Lamar has bypassed the norm by producing an album that’s damn near unimpeachable.

2.

June 19, 2012
Critic Score
87
33 reviews

The Idler Wheel succeeds in creating a singular world more daring than any of Apple’s previous records and one of the most daring pop records in recent history.

1.

July 10, 2012
Critic Score
91
42 reviews
Whether he’s being sarcastic or vulnerable, publicly hedging or lyrically baring it all, his songwriting speaks to the humanity in us all.
Original Source: http://consequenceofsound.net/2012/12/albums-of-the-year-2012/
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