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20. Deafheaven - Sunbather
Sunbather is the album on
everyone’s tongue – they know it’s good, but they don’t quite know how good it
is. Well it’s good enough for our top 50, and it just makes the top 20. Deafheaven
are one of the few metal bands taking their sound to the alternative sphere of
shoegaze and post-rock. They have kept the screaming nonsensical vocals, and it
all seems to work here. Sunbather sounds like the outcome of Burzum and Sun
O))) meeting at a My Bloody Valentine reunion concert. The progressions are
Mogwai-esque, and dynamically, Sunbather
is the most tactically constructed metal / post-rock album of 2013.
~Eddie Gibson
19. Phoenix - Bankrupt!
In
a barely cared-about corner of the web, a list of the 'happiest' albums
places Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix among the hierarchy. Phoenix are indeed
a 'happy' band - happy in the sense their music always instils a kind
of positivity I myself never feel could be salvaged, even in the most
darkest of periods. Bankrupt! may have been a little more obscure
in such approaches, but the synthesizer playfulness didn't prevent a
deliverance that used such confidence to inspire a rebirth of
overwhelming emotion. Their fifth album brought back the atypically
Phoenix moments, but the paradigm between past work never felt rehashed
or lazy: the colourful pop of lead-single Entertainment a la 1901; the
just-as-striking accomplices of SOS In Bel Air & Trying To Be Cool
(Lisztomania & Fences); the seven-minute multi-part eye-widening of
the title track (Love Like A Sunset); the melancholic slap of reality in
Bourgeois (Rome). Bankrupt! borrowed but never stole; Phoenix's mesh of
rock hooks and crystallising synth pop giving the French four-piece a
record that was uplifting, mesmerising, but focused more-so on expanding
its sound to that of electronically dizzying heights.
~Jordan Helm
18. Jagwar Ma - Howlin
Revivals
are always interesting to read, write, and hear about. Jagwar Ma are leading
the 80s / 90s baggy / house revival with electronics, guitars, and a whole lot
of passion for their inspirations. Cut Copy belongs to this revival, Django
Django are there, somewhat from their debut last year – and there’s more around
the corner. There’s a reason why people take influence from Primal Scream’s
Screamadelica and the Happy Mondays’ albums – it’s because they’re good, really
good actually. Howlin defines Jagwar
Ma’s sound in just the opening segments of “What Love”. There are hazy vocals,
a slow tempo, and a hell of a lot of percussion and bass to take the track
through ‘to the other side’. Howlin is like this for its entirety, and Jagwar
Ma are showing how they can influence the future generations with their own
sound which heavily takes from what came before.
~Eddie Gibson
17. Beach Fossils - Clash The Truth
It feels
like an eternity since I reviewed Clash
The Truth back In the early months of 2013. The singles released from Beach
Fossils sophomore album were in public domain in 2012, which means we couldn’t
include any on out singles list – we would have picked both “Careless” and
“Shallow” – two outstanding tracks bridged by “Taking Off”, one of the leading
tracks. To be honest, Clash The Truth
is a 90s post-punker kid’s dream. It lights a flame between the post-punk
revival bands and indie rock, with a little reverb and a whole lot of guitar
skill. Beach Fossils are not missing guitarist Cole Smith, as Clash The Truth excels in the area’s
where they’re lacking the former original member. Credit must be given when
due, and damn does Clash The Truth
deserve some credit. It’s not at all innovative, but Beach Fossils find that
hole where The Fall and The Libertines left off in the 80s and 00s respectively
– this is it.
~Eddie Gibson
16. Autechre - Exai
Not
since the days of Confield & LP5 have Autechre's attempts been
proficient on both rhythm and mental analogy. Not that the records
succeeding them haven't left a sonic mark on my appreciation of their
music, but given the scale of Exai's efforts this year, I'd
empathise with anyone who declares the years between 2002 and 2012 felt
like an implosive capsulation or a decade that simply never happened.
Because the experience we got from Autechre's eleventh album this year,
felt overly Universal to a reality of experimental song-writing,
glitching textures and daring pushes of musical extremity. Throughout
the two-hour, seventeen-track payload, Autechre perfectly captured the
height of their influence into a signature cold-but-thoughtful analysis
of music as a model of in of itself. Whether that be the concrete 4/4
techno and glitch, the irregular signatures of their experimental
intrigue, or even the expansive questioning of tone and placement about a
particular composite, Exai was a musical Mount Everest and
philosophical Grand Canyon; an album that stood as the duo's highest
achievement in well over a decade, but also an album seductive in its
depth and curling questioning - repeated listens often bringing abstract
answers but always a contingent excitement.
~Jordan Helm
15. These New Puritans - Field Of Reeds
It’s not
for everyone, but it’s for me. Field of
Reeds is a step above These New Puritans previous album Hidden. Producer Graham Sutton has been
working with TNP for a number of years now, and his post-rock beginnings and
ambient structures are apparent in TNP and their own blend of post-rock, art
rock, and modern classical. Field of Reeds is a concept album at heart, with
two important characters acted out by vocalists Elisa Rodrigues and Jack
Barnett. They combine to form a unitary Adam and Eve wish in a dystopian world
which is left to the imagination. With Field
of Reeds, TNP extend their neoclassicism beyond that of Hidden.
~Eddie Gibson
14. Mikal Cronin - MCII
As Ty
Segall was mellowing out in 2013 with Sleeper, his trusty right hand man Mikal
Cronin was off releasing his sophomore album MCII on Merge Records. MCII
is far from mellow, and it downright elevates Cronin’s status from a back-up
band member, to a fully-fledged solo artist. His self-titled debut album wasn’t
the completed concept, but MCII took
that step, and made it in to a stairs to the top of the West coast 2013 albums
– surpassing Segall in the process. MCII
is very reflective of Cronin’s own personality, life, and fears. Tracks such as
“Weight” are devastatingly beautiful in the power pop / garage rock genre,
while “Shout It Out” offers that bit of pussified
pop punk. You won’t find a better garage rock album that borders pop than MCII.
~Eddie Gibson
13. Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven
Ever
since I first heard the destructively torturing cries and crunching
distortion on Nil Admirari, I've never once dismissed Daniel Lopatin's
music as anything but eye-opening. From the cinematic void of Returnal,
to the episodic stun of Replica, R Plus Seven was always going to
be OPN's next step into extracting sound and challenging the very
principle of music to something far more ominous. Lopatin orchestrated
the same principle as his brilliant 2011 sophomore, in that each of the
album's ten tracks stood more as glimpses rather than outright
connective themes. The nature of these choices in sounds may have had
all the hallmarks of shapeless extracts with little purpose of being.
Yet whether it be a tirade of organ chimes or sweep of synthesizers,
inhuman choir sounds or jittering beat patterns, there was an order to
this chaotic meddling. It may have been short-lived and fairly secretive
between each track, but R Plus Seven seemed to fit to that methodology
superbly. And as with most of OPN's 'music', there was emotion to be
found and passion to be praised in the structures. Daniel Lopatin hoped
to reshape the concept of sound, but one thing he dared not to interfere
with, was his listener's capacity to connect and engage on a mentally
stable/unstable level. Thus when it came down to it, R Plus Seven only
pushed its semantic of narrative intention, ever deeper.
~Jordan Helm
12. Lorde - Pure Heroine
Lorde is
young, talented, and has something to say. Pure
Heroine reflects her teenage years with a bit of maturity and pain, while
her comraderies are still chasing attention from boys. You all know “Royals”
now, I’m sure, but Pure Heroine is so
much more than one single. The abrupt minimalism is a continuous theme on Pure Heroine, composed by Lorde and her
operative producer Joel Little. Little’s ear for the ambient / dubstep
recordings of South London’s past has found its way to New Zealand, for what is
the quintessential pop album of 2013.
~Eddie Gibson
11. Cut Copy - Free Your Mind
House
music in 2013 has never been more effective since the days of Happy Mondays and
Primal Scream. I mentioned it in the Jagwar Ma summary, and it’s a testimonial
to what’s a rejuvenation of electronica and dance music outside of the popular
fashion. Cut Copy has unofficially dedicated their fourth album Free Your Mind to this mind-set of reckless
love and psychedelia held up inside a capsule. Elements of Free Your Mind are flawed, but overall, the concept and vibe of Free Your Mind is among the best Cut
Copy has created. Better yet, they and their sound is feeling new for this acid
house love – the third summer of love.
~Eddie Gibson
