Metal Academy 2022 Awards - The Fallen Edition

So with 2022 now consigned to the dustbin of history it's  time to have a look at the most important releases from that year with the ultimate winner from each clan being announced in early February.

Here are the releases that are currently competing for the prestigious 2022 The Fallen Release of the Year Award:

Those already in the driving seat:

Dvvell - Quiescent [sludge/funeral doom]
Shape of Despair - Return to the Void [gothic funeral doom]
Epitaphe - II [progressive death doom]
Messa - Close [progressive doom]
Tzompantli - Tlazcaltiliztli [death doom]

My additional suggestions for consideration:

Mournful Congregation - The Exuviae of Gods: Part I [funeral doom]
The Otolith - Folium Limina [doom metal]
The Funeral Orchestra - Funeral Death - Apocalyptic Plague Ritual II [funeral doom]
Mares of Thrace - Exile [sludge]

That's my twopenny-worth, so which other releases do you think should come into contention so that our members can check them out prior to the end of month cut-off?

To clarify, three ratings isn't necessarily the requisite number of ratings for eligibility for each clan's awards. It was simply the logical cut-off point for The Horde when I posted my thread last night. We'll make a call on what the cut-off will be for each clan at the end of the month once we see where things fall. If there were only two releases with five or more ratings & six with four ratings then it would probably make sense to make the cut-off four for example.

So we should consider Atmospheric Sludge Metal releases for The Fallen award Sonny? I was under the impression that you weren't too keen on that idea. I'm intending on doing a deep dive into the Atmospheric Sludge Metal subgenre some time in the near future in order to categorically make a decision on whether to omit it from The Fallen or not but until that time I'm fairly open to what we do with it. Thoughts?

I'd suggest that Neptunian Maximalism's "Set Chaos To The Heart Of The Moon" should be considered for this award & it should have enough ratings to see it brought into play due to me nominating it as our January feature release.

I am still not too keen on atmo-sludge sitting in the Fallen, Daniel, but the two releases I have listed above (CoL and Celeste) are both currently in The Fallen and so I thought it would be disingenuous of me to ignore them, despite my own feelings on the subject. I have also been listening to the Author & Punisher album today and I don't feel that belongs in The Fallen either as I can hear virtually no drone metal on it.

I am sorry if I've fucked it up, but how do you wish us to present the qualifying releases then if each clan is to have different criteria for suitability? Do you want me to just list a certain number of releases, say six or seven? I'm a bit confused.

Edit: I have edited the original post to a more manageable list.

I'd be fine with you omitting the atmospheric sludge metal releases mate as I think that's the general consensus of our regulars at this point & I'm not likely to get through a proper deep dive for a while yet as there's at least one other one that I need to get through first.

You haven't fucked anything up mate. Your post is fine. I just wanted to make sure that people don't think that there's a consistent cut-off point across the clans because there aren't enough ratings in some clans to have the same cut-off as others.

With the award winners about to be announced, I thought I'd throw in my two cents & say that the Dvvell record gets my vote for The Fallen release of the year. Well done to Sonny for nominating it for feature release status, otherwise it probably would have slipped past me as I haven't seen it getting much publicity.