Best of 2013

1) Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

“Everyone it seems, has somewhere to go

And the faster the world spins, the shorter the lights will glow

And I'm swimming in the night, chasing down the moon

The deeper in the waters the more I long for you”

Those are the words sung during the final track on ...Like Clockwork, and that is just one example of the poetic clarity, the reflective emotion on this album. It's as if Josh Homme had the zeitgeist whispering into his ear during the entire writing process. The lyrics are so meaningful, so heart-felt, and yet poetically symbolic enough to be applicable on a grand scale. This album is unlike anything The Queens have written before, so I can't stress enough the importance of separating ...Like Clockwork from their back catalog.

I have always been a fan of Queens of The Stone Age though, and for good reason. They write catchy desert rock songs. Josh Homme will never forget the roots he planted with rock legends Kyuss and he'll keep writing tasty hooks long into the future. I just can't expect him to come up with this level of profound song-writing ever again. This is like Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins good, like Ten era Pearl Jam, like Facelift era Alice in Chains. That level of song-writing, that level of timelessness can't be sustained for long, and though I don't expect it, I will express the quietest whisper of hope for their next release because if they've done it once, it's possible they could do it again.

Best of 2013

2) Altar of Plagues - Teethed Glory and Injury

This album, unlike Subrosa, I'll forgive you for not listening to. I chose Altar of Plagues as my number two spot because it takes the genre of Black Metal and brings it somewhere it was never meant to go. Black metal was originally a demonstration of raw hatred, usually satanic, almost always poorly produced and simplistic. It was a movement of music that seemed to say “We hate you so much we refuse to care about learning instruments or making them sound at all pleasing.” I love a few of those old albums because they were something new, an original movement of music, but if black metal were to stagnate at that primitive beginning I certainly wouldn't have paid any attention going forward. Over the years a few bands have managed to give something fresh to that harsh rawness, that monotony, bands labeled as “progressive black metal.”

Altar of Plagues is one of those bands and I've been watching them closely for a while now. But, nothing could have prepared me for their latest record. Teethed Glory and Injury does something I've never heard in black metal before and that is largely the heavy presence of post-processing. By that I mean folding in sounds and textures that can't be produced by traditional instruments. By starting with the most primitive of musical styles and opening it to sampling, to frequency shifts, to endless filters and waveform shaping effects, they effectively demolished any boundary that may have remained in the genre of black metal. I was filled with sadness when earlier this year Altar of Plagues announced that this would be their final album, but I'm at the same time filled with hope for the profound influence Teethed Glory and Injury might have on the genre of black metal, on music in general.

Best of 2013

3) Subrosa – More Constant Than the Gods

I'm having a hard time coming up with a description for this one. Sure, it's droney, it's sludgey, it's stonery, but what does that mean? Those words are meaningless to a person who's never heard a drone album, or a sludge album, or a stoner album, and it would be too easy to dismiss this record if I used one of those terms because it might mean this is too weird for the average person to enjoy. I don't want that to be the case here because I would want everyone to listen to this album, from the gentle profession of love as an introduction, to the personal stories of faith and struggle and perseverance, to the haunting violin solos, right up to the ethereal hammered dulcimer guided conclusion.

Some music transcends genre. You can't call More Constant Than the Gods anything but amazing music because pigeon-holing it would diminish its value, its potential to the virgin audience. Regardless of what it is, this album deserves more attention. I want to hear Cosey Mo on the radio. I want to see this in a jukebox and when I pay for it I want the regulars to appreciate it. I know none of that's going to happen, but just do me a favor and try this out. Listen to a track, pull up the lyrics if you can't follow along, ask me for them if you can't find them anywhere. Just listen and try to relate because the message is timeless, the music is worth your attention.

Best of 2013

4) Gorguts – Colored Sands

More death metal?! How boring... But, I would venture to say calling Gorguts death metal is like calling Led Zeppelin rock. Gorguts is very much a death metal band, but every record they released was an example of innovation. Gorguts changed the way many people viewed death metal, as less primitive bludgeoning and more cerebral, more developed. Gorguts introduced a learning curve to death metal. It is impossible to “get” their '98 release, Obscura, upon first spin because there is simply nothing else like it. But, with time the absurdly discordant atmosphere, the mercurial changes in tempo, the desperate vocals all begin to feel familiar. When it was released, Obscura loosened the term of death metal and gave a visionary example of how limitless music can be.

Gorguts broke up in '05 and silence overcame us until earlier this year when news came that the founding member, Luc Lemay, was reforming the band by borrowing musicians from a few progressive acts with plans of releasing the first full-length under the Gorguts name in 12 years, Colored Sands. Now, given the lengthy hiatus and the lack of the rest of the original line-up, I kept my hope in check until I was able to spin this. And with that first spin I knew this wasn't going to be Obscura 2.0. This was going to be its own beast, another album it would take time to “get.” And after a few months of spins, I think I got it. Where Obscura was shocking and chaotic, Colored Sands is more patient and burdensome. The album feels like molten lead brought to a slow simmer with dissonant soloing and desperate screams occasionally escaping like vapor from the surface. This is an oppressively dark album, and I know very well a description like that isn't going to be terribly attractive to the casual music fan. But I can say with confidence, when future generations happen upon death metal with a pure sense of curiosity, Gorguts is going to be one of the bands they choose to study, Colored Sands one of the albums.