With the year in music winding down, we reached out to some of your favorite guitarists to find out what music rocked their worlds in 2012. Below, Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor offers his thoughts on his ten favorite albums from the last year.
No strangers to year-end best-of lists, Periphery's sophomore album, Periphery II: This Time It's Personal, landed at No. 3 on our list of the 50 best albums of 2012.
Trifonic — Ninth Wave
"An absolute masterpiece in electronic music. In a way, Trifonic is further exploring the path first explored by BT's This Binary Universe and the first two Telefon Tel Aviv albums. Incredible sound design and melodic ideas. If you pick one album up off of this list, make sure it is this one."
The Contortionist — Intrinsic
"Exoplanet showed a band with a lot of potential, and Intrinsic shows a band capitalizing on it on their own terms and no one else's. This was written for themselves and is done amazingly so, this band will go very far."
Between the Buried and Me — Parallax II: Future Sequence
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"With every release this band has gotten better and more unique . This is them at their most ambitious and yet most cohesive, and having done our last two tours with them, I can say they keep us on our toes as they are absolutely flawless live."
The Faceless — Autotheism
"The Faceless is another band that has managed to forge their own path and sound and always stay true to what they want to express. With the band's strongest lineup thus far they have put out something that no one expected, but that everyone should at least hear as it is fantastic."
Deftones — Koi No Yokan
"Deftones just get it. They always have, and at this point it is clear that they likely always will. They have remained powerful and relevant across many schisms in the music industry, and yet seem to get by just fine by sticking to what they know. I still have no idea how to classify their music, but I know that I loved them when I was 14 and I love them now, from their old releases up to this one. Amazing."
Twelve Foot Ninja — Silent Machine
"This band is Australia's best kept secret, and for everyone who owns a working pair of ears's sake, I hope it doesn't remain a secret for long. This band opened up for us and TesseracT in Melbourne one night, and they honestly stole the show as a live band. This album shows that they are just as scary talents in the studio. Pick this up now, if anything you can have hipster cred or something."
Veil of Maya — Eclipse
"Okay I am slightly biased with this one because I produced it, but we have done a ton of tours with this band and I love the way they have progressed and the energy they bring live. This album is just a lot of fun to listen to."
Meshuggah — Koloss
"You will notice a trend with the bands that I love, they seem to stick to writing whatever the hell they want, for better or for worse. Meshuggah has been alienating just as many fans as it has been garnering with each new release for the better part of two decades now, and this album is no exception. It sounds like nothing else they have done before. It is dark, raw and almost dronier than anything else they have put out and has such a specifically consistent vibe from beginning to end. Spend some time with this one."
Gojira — L'Enfant Sauvage
"Gojira are Gojira on this album, and what more could you ask for? The mix and production are top notch and are incredibly representative of how this band sounds live. This band can make some of the most simple ideas and riffs sound so powerful and effective. It goes to show that you don't necessarily need to play 20 notes per second to make an impression musically."
Zedd — Clarity
"This is EDM at its finest. Zedd used to play drums for a metal band, and is also a very proficient pianist. As a result his beats are clever and infectious and the chord progressions and melodies are just like nothing else I have heard out of this style."
