Top 10 of 2013

This past year had many fantastic releases, where as a result making it hard to pick only ten of them. If you have been following my tumblr account, you may have noticed a list I made of some albums which I was highly considering for my favorite releases of the year. Now to follow my last years Top 10 of 2012, here are my top 10 albums of 2013.  

10. Cult of Luna - Vertikal

A band like Cult of Luna never seems to disappoint, and always bring forth something new to their music.
Following this release there was the EP continuing the album's atmosphere and themes, Vertikal II.

9. Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks

Naturally, this album had a lot hype for myself, considering that it's Nine Inch Nails. This album brings together elements of NIN's earlier music, but in a whole different perspective. This entire album can be listened to again and again with ease, and the whole thing just grooves so well together.

8. Persefone - Spiritual Migration

There are parts of this album that seem like they could be coming right out of a fantasy video game soundtrack, which I say this keeping in mind some of the fantastic soundtracks that have been created. (I can imagine "Outro" fitting perfectly in a scene from a series such as The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy.) The whole album is an extremely enjoyable listen, filled with a multitude of little details that add up to it's fantastic end product.

7. Dark Tranquility - Construct 

Overall a really enjoyable album, with the construction of the songs each being heavy and with a strong foundation. The mix of clean and harsh vocals on top of the atmosphere they've created which for me mirrors that of the cold winter, matched wonderfully.

6. Deafheaven - Sunbather

As observations shows in quite a number of top album lists of the year, this one has made it's way over here as well. I apologize if you are sick of seeing it everywhere and calling it "hipster metal", but I find this to be a very enjoyable work that I can listen to again and again.

What I really love about this album is the overall atmosphere that is created and expanded upon, being very similar to that of Alcest's work (now I am a huge fan of Alcest, so I absolutely love that); they even have Neige providing spoken word vocals on "Please Remember".

5. Chelsea Wolfe - Pain Is Beauty 

This is certainly a gorgeous album; from the overall atmosphere, song structures, instrumentation, and sound of her voice. It's as if a listen through were like crushing pretty big on the music she makes.





 

4. Riverside - Shrine of New Generation Slaves

In this album, Riverside has managed to pay tribute to 70's prog while maintaining their core sound and creating a work which is on par with their Reality Dream Trilogy. This takes a lot of ideas and influences, and brings them forward with their own unique twist.

3. Vaura - The Missing

A fantastic genre-melding experience which can easily be listened to on repeat again and again. The atmosphere of this album is leaving off where their last album Selenelion left off, which is a very unique blend of soundscapes and both clean and harsh vocals. I highly recommend listening to this and experiencing the wonderful sounds this band has created.

2. Kayo Dot - Hubardo 
 
A massive work, spanning over 100 minutes of avant-garde beauty. This is truly an immense album which takes several listens to fully absorb, but it is worth every moment of it.

In addition to the amazing music of this album, the way it released was fantastic. I ended up getting the deluxe edition, triple-vinyl (swirl) signed by the band, hand-bound The Sword of Satan multi-chapter poem, that also came with a shirt, sticker, and pick. Beautifully packaged and worth every penny, it is overall a fantastic way to present this music.

1. Sigur Rós - Kveikur

Their darkest and heaviest album, where they now explore new and more metallic sounds. I'm actually really surprised as to how I haven't really seen this album on too many "top 10" lists, but here we are of it reaching the top of mine.

I love everything about this album, from the new turn of direction that they are going in, to their use of the brass and strings layered inside of their sound, an the overall structure of each song. This album keeps their core sound, but has a much heavier, darker, with a more metallic and percussive sound to it.

Several of these I had previously done album reviews of if you are interested, and there are still a few from here that I intend to do reviews of (in addition to what's been released so far of 2014 albums).
I was originally going to include (as I had last year), the list of albums that I had listened to in addition to my top choices so you can get a reference point from where I am choosing these. However since this past year was rather long, which is great because that means I got to listen to a ton of new music this year, it's just going to take up a ton of space where I don't think anyone would be going through it. Instead here are some runner up albums (these making the list really a top 15), as well as a few other runner ups.

15. Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
14. Gris - À l’Âme Enflammée, l’Äme Constellée…
13. Optic - Iris In
12. Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing
11. Ihsahn - Das Seelenbrechen
Other albums to note:
Atoms for Peace - Amok | Beastmilk – Climax | Carcass - Surgical Steel | CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe | Ghost - Infestissumam | Gorguts - Colored Sands | Tim Hecker - Virgins | Karnivool - Asymmerty | Leafblade - The Kiss of Spirit and Fles | Leprous - Coal | LowCityRain - LowCityRain | Rosetta - The Anaesthete | Tomahawk - Oddfellows | Ulver - Messe I.X - VI.X 

There were so many fantastic albums released in 2013, and so far there have been several amazing ones released in 2014. I know this was a bit late of a post for a "top 10" list considering it's already July, but whatever.

Tension Marks

The first new Nine Inch Nails album released since 2008's The Slip, Hesitation Marks brings back the NIN that we all know and love. I don't think it's any secret for how much I love Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor's work, so this album was highly anticipated for me. It is also pretty much a dream come true to be getting to see NIN live, which was the case with seeing them at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn.

Nine Inch Nails - Barclays Center; October 14, 2013

First off, I have been waiting many years to see this band live. Trent Reznor is one musician who I highly look up to and find extremely inspirational so again, finally seeing him and NIN live is live a dream come true. Now with this expectations set, they did not disappoint in the slightest; they were fucking amazing.

One thing that really stood out about this show was just how much raw emotion Trent brought to the music. There was just so much energy that was in their performance on stage. I had seen some live videos of the upcoming live release Nine Inch Nails: Tension 2013, and the energy in this performance was so much more than those videos. I in no way mean to knock those recordings, I plan on getting it when it's released, but just to put into perspective just how phenomenal the performance at the Barclays Center was.

Musically everything sounded fantastic, and venue wise compared to where I sat for seeing Atoms for Peace this sound quality was much better. To clarify, for that show I was off to the right in section 209 a few rows from the ceiling basically in front of a speaker, and for this concert I was closer to the center ad lower in section 213. So with this venue it matters where you are for how the overall sound quality will be.

The setlist for the show was as follows:
01. Copy of A | 02. 1,000,000 | 03. Terrible Lie | 04. March of the Pigs | 05. Piggy | 06. All Time Low | 07. Disappointed |  8. Came Back Haunted | 09. Find My Way | 10. The Frail | 11. The Wretched | 12. Satellite | 13. In Two | 14. Survivalism | 15. Running | 16. A Warm Place | 17. Somewhat Damaged | 18. Wish | 19. Burn | 20. The Hand That Feeds | 21. Head Like a Hole

Encore: 22. The Day the World Went Away | 23. Even Deeper | 24. While I'm Still Here | 25. Black Noise | 26. Hurt 

Aside from the energy and the music aspect of the performance (both being amazing), the visuals were stunning. Utilizing somewhat of a screen in front of the band for certain lighting effects, as well as the background, it looked fantastic. Over two months later and I'm still giddy from getting to see them live, and just how amazing they where in every aspect of the show. If you can see them live, go immediately, it's something I'll never forget (and hope to experience again).

Hesitation Marks
This album returns to the same feel of NIN as their older albums, but now approaching the music almost as through taking in all that life's brought them so far. It starts off with "The Eater of Dreams", which works as an intro that in a way reminds me of how "Pinion" leads into the EP Broken.  The track listing  that follows this introduction is; "Copy of A", "Came Back Haunted", "Find My Way", "All Time Low", "Disappointed", "Everything", "Satellite", "Various Methods of Escape", "Running", "I Would for You", "In Two", "While I'm Still Here", and "Black Noise."

The whole album is just really grooving out, and you can tell by the music that Trent is in a lot better place in his life than compared to previous albums. Now while musically that does not necessarily make some better that others, that's up to personal preferences, but it is an interesting observation to make when listening. What I'm really getting at with this is that Hesitation Marks is an enjoyable album that you can easily reply again and again, so with that I highly recommend giving it a listen.

The deluxe edition came with a second disc with the following remixes; "Find My Way" (Oneohtrix Point Never Remix), "All Time Low" (Todd Rundgren Remix), and "While I'm Still Here" (Breyer P-Orridge 'Howler' Remix).

Hesitation Marks was released in four different versions, each with their own unique cover artwork which was done by Russel Mills. The pieces used for the covers consisted of "Cargo In The Blood" for the deluxe CD version, "Time And Again" for the standard CD, "Turn And Burn" for the digital version, and "Other Murmurs" for the vinyl. You can see these, listed (clockwise) as shown below. You can see all four versions of the cover artork along with a description to read from Mills here.

Hesitation Marks does something very unique, and that is how there are two different masters of the album. The standard version which can be heard on all the physical copies and downloaded from iTunes or similar providers, and the audiophile mastered version that is solely from the official NIN site. There is an interesting photo set here on tumblr, which shows the audio spectrum of the "audiophile mastered" version of the album. Now at the moment I have not listened to the files for the audiophile mastered version, but I do hope to change that in the future so that I can fully experience the various aspects of this fantastic album.

Now if you would like to read another point of view regarding the album, I would recommend reading this excellent review done by one of my friends.