The Best of - 2013

Last year I started making a blog post about the albums of 2012 that I considered the "best."  However, I never completed that post; not necessarily because of a lack of time or anything, but rather simply because I could not come up with enough albums to really "justify" making a post.   Of course, at the time there were many albums that I am now aware of that I was not aware of at the time, but the result of such a knowledge deficit led to that post never being completed.   However, the case is different this year.

So at this point, the astute reader might notice that I'm writing a post about the best albums of a year that has not been completed yet, but let's be realistic about this. At this point, there are not really any albums coming out this year worth noting, so we can skip the whole waiting thing and just jump into what happened this year in retrospect. First and foremost, 2013 was a significantly better year than the last two combined, and for the first time in a long while, I actually had to think about what albums would constitute a top 10 list, especially since some would actually have to be removed. Much like the dilemma that faces the academy awards, often there are years where so many good films are made, that work that would have won a best picture award in any other year get pushed to the wayside simply by the saturation of good filmography. The same happened this year with albums.

It's a shame too; there were a lot of pretty good albums mixed in with the really great albums this year that most likely will fall to the wayside from most people's radars. However, without further ado, here goes.


10. Rogue Wave – Nightingale Floors

While tracks Sirens Song and College alone are strong enough to earn this album an honorable mention in my book, this surprisingly mature and yet exciting album from Rogue Wave. In addition to the aforementioned stand-out track, this albums beautiful combinations of indie-ish mid-distorted guitar riffs, acoustic backings and hard drums is perfectly exemplified in the jam-out 5+ minute Everyone Wants to Be You. It’s the kind of album that should be boring on paper, but really works well in real life.

7.5/10

9. Phoenix – Bankrupt

Bankrupt is a strong and consistent album whose biggest faults are losing momentum in the middle of the album, and simply being the album after 2009's smash Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Bankrupt! finds the band with a slightly more electronic edge, but largely retaining their own unique style of essentially being the European version of The Strokes. Coupled with fantastic lead single Entertainment, and other standouts like Trying To Be Cool, and Bourgeois, the album benefits from being seen in a live setting. Not the band's best album, and nothing soars as high as Armistice or 1901, but still a worthwhile listen for any fan of the band.  Highlights include Bourgeois, and Entertainment.

7.5/10

8. The Joy Formidable - Wolf's Law



Wolf's Law is reminder of just how good things could have been if Nu-Metal hadn't come around in the late 90s to destroy the brief space-rock momentum that was started by bands like Failure and Hum. Secondly, the album is a reminder of how important studio production really is. This otherwise great album, while never soaring to the heights of tracks like Whirring from their debut, has a much more consistent sound, and is overall a good album, as opposed to the "hit-or-miss" nature of their previous. The compressed production saps the energy from tracks like This Ladder is Ours, and Cholla, but sounds fantastic in a live setting. Finally, can we get over the whole "hidden track" thing? The closing title track is a fantastic song that easily could have replaced the lackluster The Hurdle.  Highlights include The Maw Maw Song and Cholla.

8/10.

7. Biffy Clyro - Opposites

Opposites represents the few times that the non-concept album double album actually works, even if it is more Stadium Arcadium than it is Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The album is a lot more melodic and surprisingly focused for its length - and frankly a lot more fun than anything they've done in a while. If you're on a budget, take the first disc over the second, although missing out on standout, more experimental tracks like Spanish Radio, and Victory Over the Sun manages to recall their earlier days, and are album highlights, as is the title track. A third disc was released two months later, under the artist name Frightened Rabbit's - The Pedestrian Verse.   Highlights include Biblical and Opposites.

8/10.

6. The Strokes - Comedown Machine

Comedown Machine has the honor being the third best Strokes album, therefore making it the best album that the band has released in a decade. Despite its stripped-down look, this album is far more consistent than Angles, and shows the garage-rock band having fun for the first time in about 7 years. Standouts include Welcome To Japan, and Chances.

8.5/10

5. Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks



When Trent announced his “retirement” from touring with NIN, it really wasn’t to many people’s surprise when he starting touring again 5 years later. In between he started another band that he shortly toured with, (although that album is a different story) and has contributed to multiple soundtracks. Hesitation Marks is not only the best NIN album since Year Zero, it’s also the most one of his best overall. This album combines the more metallic nature of earlier albums with the more streamlined sound of The Slip. Highlights include All Time Low, Satellite, and Various Methods of Escape; both from the album’s stronger second half.

8.5/10

4. Arctic Monkeys – AM

Ever since the fantastic lead single Do I Wanna Know was debuted on YouTube, this has probably been the most anticipated album of this year that people knew about. It’s for a good reason too; this album delivers in almost every way. Once again, the album finds the Arctic Monkey’s continuing to evolve their sound, presenting their most “groovy” album released to date. With only a few lackluster songs in the middle of the album, it retains the band’s devotion to the joy of guitar rock, combined with a Josh Homme/Disco inspired groove. Highlights also include Knee Socks and R U Mine; and what is probably the best song of the year, Arabella.

9/10

3. Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork

Few albums and few artists are able to manage and live up to the expectations that were set for this one, including the all-star guest list. However, …Like Clockwork represents the rare modern triumph for rock music; a small hope in that someday rock music would be relevant again. A 10-track whirlwind of melodies, guitar solos and intertwined mixes containing Elton John, Alex Turner and Dave Grohl, in what is Homme’s best since Songs for the Deaf. Highlights include I Sat By the Ocean, and I Appear Missing.


9.0/10

2. My Bloody Valentine – MBV

For an album that nobody thought would be released, shoegazing Irish pioneers released their third album 22 years after their masterpiece Loveless came out. So when the seemingly extraterrestrial perfectionist Kevin Shields stated that an album would come out in a few months, most scoffed and rolled their eyes. However, with what is most likely the most important album to be released this year (and musically the strongest), MBV manages to push their envelope forward, while continuing to prove why their last album is still worshiped all these years later. Melodic, torturous, and so seemingly out of this planet, MBV secures their place in rock history. Highlights include Only Tomorrow and Who Sees You.


9.5/10

1. Local Natives – Hummingbird

The line between the terms “best” and “favorite” a slightly blurred in this post; as even though Hummingbird may not be the “best” album released this year, the fact that this young band has managed to put out such a strong, consistent, powerfully good the whole-way-through album is perhaps the most impressive feat of this year. This strange combination of folk, indie rock, drum circles and Talking Heads comes back with an intensely personal and melodic album that greatly improves upon their already well-developed sound on their debut. This album is so consistent and strong throughout, it is almost impossible to stop it once started. Highlights include Breakers, You & I, and Mt. Washington.

9.5/10

So there you have it.

Here are some additional albums that are worth noting in some form or another from this year. Combined with the honorable mentions is a Top 20 list, all of these albums deserving some significant attention, and are definite must-listens from this year.


Honorable Mentions  (click on the appropriate link for an album YouTube highlight as available)

The Dillinger Escape Plan – One of Us Is the Killer
Grouplove - Spreading Rumours
The Naked and Famous - In Rolling Waves
Frightened Rabbit - The Pedestrian Verse
Pelican - Forever Becoming
Palms - Palms
Sigur Ros - Kveikur
Clutch – Earth Rocker
Karnivool - Asymmetry
IAMX - The United Field

Best “Surprisingly Good” Albums:
Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt
Dream Theater – Dream Theater

Biggest Disappointments
Atoms for Peace - AMOK
How to Destroy Angels - Welcome to Oblivion
The Flaming Lips – The Terror
Glasvegas - Later... When the TV Turns to Static  (kinda)
Bosnian Rainbows - whatever the album was called (It was so boring I forgot.)

The Strokes - Comedown Machine

It's hard to move forward when all your biggest critics complain about the fact that you refuse to stay in the past.  For The Strokes, its hard to move forward when everytime you release an album, it gets detracted.  Fans lament that Is This It was not released again, and despite the fact that there have been a lot of good material on the albums that followed (and not to mention, I would personally argue that Room on Fire is far superior to that of the band's 2001 debut), it is fair enough to say it seems as thought so many people already have the band "pegged."

For those of us who were rightfully willing to move on, the checkered past of the band since its far superior 2003 sophmore release has been a bit of a blemish as well.  The band attempted to expand its sound on its First Impressions of Earth 2006 release, and after a long, drawn out pause with a lot of side projects, name-calling, and refusal to appear together in the studio at the same time of each other, 2011's Angles.  Both albums found the band to be floundering, both with themselves and with the sound that they proved only a few years earlier that they were able to perform and create like masters of their own domiain.   While both of those albums had strong moments in their own right, there is something that should be said about the fact that maybe, just maybe, those detractors who seemed unable to appreciate the band attempting to move forward with their sound, were right.  

When The Strokes live-debuted the final track on Angles, Life is Simple in the Moonlight on Saturday Night Live, we were all excited about what this would mean for the future of this band.  The song was strong, had a lot of the classic Strokes sound, and saw the band performing together for the first time in a long time in a way that seemed to matter.  Of course, this made the studio recording on the album, a Pro Tools Frankenstein that sounds like the song was recorded in five different studios and put together by a Freshman music production class was a shock, and representative of the rest of the album as a whole.  It was a joyless affair that hardly sounded like a band, but rather five individuals who used to be in a band, approximating what it sounds like to be in a band over teleconference.

In so many ways then, Comedown Machine, to be released on the 23rd, seems like the proper follow-up to both Angles and Room on Fire.  That isn't to dismantle the importance of the third and fourth proper albums, but they lacked the cohesion, the joy, and the importance that is present on the band's debut and follow up, and finally, on their fifth album that is up and coming.  The fact that only one studio is listed on the album's production credits is a good sign, and present are all the players who made The Strokes great so many times before.  Listening to the fantastic pre-release track One Way Trigger, and to the lesser but still great, All the Time reminds us of the band that was performing only a few years ago.  It seems like after actually meeting up with each other after recording (because they were all in seperate rooms and what not during the recording) Angles, they were actually able to remember what it was to be in a band, and remember the joy of the music that they used to have.

So in a way, this album is call back to their previous glories, but at the same time, manges to push the band forward in a direction that does not sound detracting, forced, or simply for the sake of attempting to please the critics (as much of the third album was).    The band develops a much funkier, much broader sense of style on this album, and the inconsistent, but strong production of the album helps emphasize each of the stylistic changes.  Album stand out tracks, such as Tap Out,  Welcome To Japan,  50/50,  and Slow Animals, are all fantastic harbringers of the expanded style of the band.  The songs are full, funkier, and seem to bring out the best qualities of the instrumental portions of the band (which have always been strong) and are pushing Julian's vocals into new territory that he manages to excel at (and not to mention, do not sound like he recorded them in the morning after a week of binge drinking in his bedroom, as most of Angles boasted).   The album manages to keep the later half from becoming filler, and

That is not to say that the album is perfect, weak lead single All The Time is literally about 30 seconds too long (it has a 30 second fade out that is absolutely, mind-numbingly dumb), and the three and half minutes spent listening to  Call It Fate, Call It Karma are better spent rewinding the album and starting over from the opening track.   The album artwork is strange in that it appears as a promotional piece for RCA records, a relic that reminds us of just how big and reaching the Strokes used to be, and really, still are.

 However, the album is strong as a whole, and represents the best consistent work that the band has done since Room on Fire.    There may not be a single stand out track that soars to the absolute height of the band's best song, Electricityscape, and it won't "redefine" the rock world like Is This It will, and there will be plenty of people who complain that the band should stick to what it did in 2001.   However, for the interested mind who is capable of letting a band go into the future, and is capable of appreciating the strong pop-sensibility with the strong guitar interplay, with enough of a throwback to keep the band true to its sound, will love Comedown Machine. 

So here is how it boils down:  Comedown Machine is best enjoyed when you take it for what it is, the fifth Strokes album.  There is no ignoring anything in between, calling it back to anything before, or letting it be anything else other than at its face value.  The album is fantastic rite on its own, and calls the band on its best while moving the band forward in a direction that makes sense.  Welcome back.

8.5/10.