The Nicsperiment's Top Nine Albums of 2013 (Redux)
I've decided to go back to every year since 1999 and create a new Top Nine
Albums of the Year list. I created a list for '04-'05 and '08-'22 here at the
end of each of those respective years, so I'll be doing an updated entry for
each of those. These entries will be divided into three sections.
A. The Redux List
B. The Original List (when applicable)
C. A Quick Postmortem
I'm excited to finally hit those years I missed, as well as revisit the years
where I've already made lists, to see how my opinion has changed. This is all
part of a bigger project I am calling DO I STILL LOVE THIS?
In this entry, for its tenth anniversary, I've decided to focus on 2013. That year began a bit of a multi-year false start for me, as I made a failed attempt at a second degree from 2013-2015, before finally settling into a professional life near my mid-30s. Man, that time was weird! With that said, have
my tastes changed over the last ten years? Did my original list have staying
power? Let's get into it.
Please remember, musical preferences are completely subjective. Oh, and
ties...they're legal!
9. Uneven Structure -- 8
While technically categorized as an EP, 8, a reworking of these French metallers first 2009 EP, is nearly 25 minutes long. which is only three minutes shorter than Weezer's Green album, so I'm going to consider it an album. Ironically enough, though, these eight tracks fit together to form one incredible 25-minute song, a turbulent meditation on one massive riff that undergoes permutation after permutation, until the crushing finale. A brilliant mix of sung and and screamed vocals enhance the album's epic scope, along with incredible, polyrhythmic drumming, spacey lead guitar chimes, and dynamic quiet-to-loud shifts like sudden tidal waves dragging houses off their foundations in the dark of night.
TIE 8. Twenty One Pilots -- Vessels
In early 2013, I predicted this pop-rock duo would be huge. Two years later, they were the biggest band in the world, at least for a little while. This major label debut is full of great hooks and clever lyrics, establishing Twenty One Pilots' core keyboard and drums sound, and their surprisingly shifty song structures. Admittedly, I was afraid the Eminem-esque rapping vocal portions might not have aged as well as the smoother, croonier vocal lines, but sure enough, the vast majority of Vessels still works wonderfully.
TIE 8. Five Iron Frenzy -- Engine of a Million Pilots
The one tie on this list will be a dual pilots-related entry, as Five Iron Frenzy's comeback album still sounds fresh and energized, released ten years after the band's initial breakup, ironically now ten years old itself. I do think the album's two weaker tracks (involving Zen and unicorns) stand out more now, but the other ten, high energy tracks from this ska band who originally honed their chops in the late 90's and early 00's are almost stunningly passionate, featuring the band operating at a much higher instrumental and songwriting level than before. Engine of a Million Pilots may be the best Five Iron Frenzy gets.
7. Paramore -- Paramore
I always felt too old for this band and their pop-punk/emo stylings, but Paramore's self-titled album graduates the band, or at least the three members left by this point, to the big leagues. While it's probably a bit too long (OVER AN HOUR FOR A PARAMORE ALBUM?!), Paramore is chock full of great music: high energy pop-rock songs primed to be huge singles, balanced out with several more quiet and melancholy tracks, and a few loud, hard rocking ones. The album's cohesion and flow and Justin Meldal-Johnsen's punchy production both shine. However, the biggest revelation here is the stellar rhythm section, with NIN's Ilan Rubin filling in on drums, pounding out a bang along on your steering wheel cavalcade of infectious beats and hyperactive fills, along with Jeremy Davis' surprisingly active and high in the mix bass playing.
6. Norma Jean -- Wrongdoers
Finding a guitar tone akin to what your brain hears when you touch an electric wire, Norma Jean's Wrongdoers shows its cards in its first three tracks. A massive, stretched out opener leads to a quick head-banger, to an incredible title-track that fuses crushing heaviness with surprisingly fun atmospherics and a catchy, yet not cloying chorus. Wrongdoers runs the gamut of feelings and tones possible in the heavier rock genres before closing with an epic one-two punch of a dynamic, moody apocalyptic climax, and a sludgy, doom-laden, yet incredibly fun instrumental outro. Featuring great drumming and vocalist Cory Brandan's most balanced performance yet, Wrongdoers is an incredibly satisfying metal masterpiece.
5. CHVRCHES -- The Bones of What You Believe
I haven't created many "Top Nine Albums" lists that include synth-pop, so it's a testament to The Bones of What You Believe's quality that it's shown up here. Iain Cook and Martin Doherty's sound textures are pure aural bliss, and Lauren Mayberry's Scottish-accented vocal delivery still gets me a little weak in the knees. Those strong qualities, coupled with incredibly strong songwriting, gives this album essentially infinite staying power in a genre whose work is often disposable.
4. Jars of Clay -- Inland
Jars of Clay had a weird career. While never officially breaking up, ten years on, Inland is still the band's final musical document. After a breakout 1996 debut they were never able to surpass commercially, the band unapologetically followed whatever artistic impulse hit them, resulting in a catalogue little known to the masses, but precious to those in the know. Inland stands atop that fantastic catalogue, with its incredible songwriting, diverse instrumentation, and some of Dan Haseltine's best lyrical work, even if I don't always agree with his conclusions. On retrospect, this unexpected swansong feels like a goodbye, as the band wander into the ether of the unknown.
3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- Push the Sky Away
Outside of two quite significant songs, Cave ditches his full band for a more atmospheric approach, employing loops and other instrumental touches--some guitar and bass here, some piano and violin there--while creating a cohesive lyrical world with recurring motifs and themes. The two full band songs are, respectively, tracks four and eight in this nine-song album, as Cave essentially builds up to these songs as a first and second climax, before riding out on the mysterious and powerful title track. While Push the Sky Away would start Cave's slide away from more traditional music into more ambient territory, even the most Bad Seeds purist will have a tough time dismissing Push the Sky Away's brilliance.
2. Sadistik -- Flowers for My Flower
Seattle-based rapper, Sadistik, generally alternates between "ugly" albums and "pretty" ones, but here's a great, beautiful rap album about felling very ugly. Cody Foster, aka Sadistik, lost his best friend and mentor, Michael David Larsen, as well as his father, both in a short span of time. Loss hangs heavy in these songs, as Foster copes with several negative mechanisms, but also with one of the most positive coping mechanisms that exists, music. The backing tracks here are emotional and deeply atmospheric, featuring work from several great producers, as Foster's deep wordplay references literature and obscure pop culture in a way that he's just as likely to reference Sylvia Plath as a Harmony Korine film. The album is perfectly sequenced, as it moves through the darkness, to an uplifting conclusion, and even if I cope with grief and depression in far different ways than Foster, Flowers for My Father remains highly immersive and relatable to me a decade on.
1. Kashmir -- E.A.R.
E.A.R. sounds and feels like living life to the fullest with your family and friends, your wife, your children, enjoying all the beauty, joy, and sadness in life to the highest degree possible, as the specter of a mushroom cloud looms above your heard. The Danish rock band meticulously experiment with gorgeous sound collages that coalesce into emotional, yet never overwrought songs that cohesively fuse together to create an album that might not be for everyone, but will strike an incredibly resonant chord with anyone who vibes with its musical sentiments. The once prolific Kashmir inject and imbue so much of themselves into this marvelous album, E.A.R. still acts as their final, and most lasting musical document ten years after its creation.
And here's my 2013 original list, with brief comment.
Original Ranking:
9. Twenty One Pilots -- Vessel -- Still here! Moved up a spot, even.
8. Hillsong United -- Zion -- In 2013, this felt like a revelatory, envelope-pushing fusion of traditional soft rock worship and electronic music, but 10,000 "Ocean"'s later, Zion shows the same major flaw of its HU predecessors, namely that it is too long and starts to drag. Shave 25 minutes off the 70-minute runtime (or at least three or four songs), and Zion might have been a classic that stood the test of time.
7. (Various Artists) Basick Records 2013 Output -- I kind of cheated here on this pick back in 2013. Basick, a now mostly defunct record label, put out a bunch of really solid, 7/10 hard rock albums in 2013, among them Bear's Noumenon, Circles' Infinitas, and No Consequence's Io. I still think those albums are solid, but I won't cheat this time by giving a label an album ranking spot, especially when one of their album's from that year, Uneven Structure's 8, has graduated to the Redux list..
6. Five Iron Frenzy -- Engine of a Million Pilots -- Congratulations, you made the cut! If not for those two songs I don't like, maybe you'd of moved up a couple spots instead of down.
6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- Push the Sky Away -- Congratulations, you made the cut AND moved up!
5. Norma Jean -- Wrongdoers -- Might have lost a spot just because the following two albums are better!
4. Polyenso -- One Big Particular Loop -- In 2016, Polyenso released the stellar Pure in the Plastic, essentially rendering OBPL defunct. Suddenly, Loop's arrangements sound a little too busy, its production a little too muddled...and yet, it's still a very good experimental rock album. Its follow up just smooths out all its wrinkles, and improves its assets.
The Redux List:
9. Uneven Structure -- 8
While technically categorized as an EP, 8, a reworking of these French metallers first 2009 EP, is nearly 25 minutes long. which is only three minutes shorter than Weezer's Green album, so I'm going to consider it an album. Ironically enough, though, these eight tracks fit together to form one incredible 25-minute song, a turbulent meditation on one massive riff that undergoes permutation after permutation, until the crushing finale. A brilliant mix of sung and and screamed vocals enhance the album's epic scope, along with incredible, polyrhythmic drumming, spacey lead guitar chimes, and dynamic quiet-to-loud shifts like sudden tidal waves dragging houses off their foundations in the dark of night.
TIE 8. Twenty One Pilots -- Vessels
In early 2013, I predicted this pop-rock duo would be huge. Two years later, they were the biggest band in the world, at least for a little while. This major label debut is full of great hooks and clever lyrics, establishing Twenty One Pilots' core keyboard and drums sound, and their surprisingly shifty song structures. Admittedly, I was afraid the Eminem-esque rapping vocal portions might not have aged as well as the smoother, croonier vocal lines, but sure enough, the vast majority of Vessels still works wonderfully.
TIE 8. Five Iron Frenzy -- Engine of a Million Pilots
The one tie on this list will be a dual pilots-related entry, as Five Iron Frenzy's comeback album still sounds fresh and energized, released ten years after the band's initial breakup, ironically now ten years old itself. I do think the album's two weaker tracks (involving Zen and unicorns) stand out more now, but the other ten, high energy tracks from this ska band who originally honed their chops in the late 90's and early 00's are almost stunningly passionate, featuring the band operating at a much higher instrumental and songwriting level than before. Engine of a Million Pilots may be the best Five Iron Frenzy gets.
7. Paramore -- Paramore
I always felt too old for this band and their pop-punk/emo stylings, but Paramore's self-titled album graduates the band, or at least the three members left by this point, to the big leagues. While it's probably a bit too long (OVER AN HOUR FOR A PARAMORE ALBUM?!), Paramore is chock full of great music: high energy pop-rock songs primed to be huge singles, balanced out with several more quiet and melancholy tracks, and a few loud, hard rocking ones. The album's cohesion and flow and Justin Meldal-Johnsen's punchy production both shine. However, the biggest revelation here is the stellar rhythm section, with NIN's Ilan Rubin filling in on drums, pounding out a bang along on your steering wheel cavalcade of infectious beats and hyperactive fills, along with Jeremy Davis' surprisingly active and high in the mix bass playing.
6. Norma Jean -- Wrongdoers
Finding a guitar tone akin to what your brain hears when you touch an electric wire, Norma Jean's Wrongdoers shows its cards in its first three tracks. A massive, stretched out opener leads to a quick head-banger, to an incredible title-track that fuses crushing heaviness with surprisingly fun atmospherics and a catchy, yet not cloying chorus. Wrongdoers runs the gamut of feelings and tones possible in the heavier rock genres before closing with an epic one-two punch of a dynamic, moody apocalyptic climax, and a sludgy, doom-laden, yet incredibly fun instrumental outro. Featuring great drumming and vocalist Cory Brandan's most balanced performance yet, Wrongdoers is an incredibly satisfying metal masterpiece.
5. CHVRCHES -- The Bones of What You Believe
I haven't created many "Top Nine Albums" lists that include synth-pop, so it's a testament to The Bones of What You Believe's quality that it's shown up here. Iain Cook and Martin Doherty's sound textures are pure aural bliss, and Lauren Mayberry's Scottish-accented vocal delivery still gets me a little weak in the knees. Those strong qualities, coupled with incredibly strong songwriting, gives this album essentially infinite staying power in a genre whose work is often disposable.
4. Jars of Clay -- Inland
Jars of Clay had a weird career. While never officially breaking up, ten years on, Inland is still the band's final musical document. After a breakout 1996 debut they were never able to surpass commercially, the band unapologetically followed whatever artistic impulse hit them, resulting in a catalogue little known to the masses, but precious to those in the know. Inland stands atop that fantastic catalogue, with its incredible songwriting, diverse instrumentation, and some of Dan Haseltine's best lyrical work, even if I don't always agree with his conclusions. On retrospect, this unexpected swansong feels like a goodbye, as the band wander into the ether of the unknown.
3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- Push the Sky Away
Outside of two quite significant songs, Cave ditches his full band for a more atmospheric approach, employing loops and other instrumental touches--some guitar and bass here, some piano and violin there--while creating a cohesive lyrical world with recurring motifs and themes. The two full band songs are, respectively, tracks four and eight in this nine-song album, as Cave essentially builds up to these songs as a first and second climax, before riding out on the mysterious and powerful title track. While Push the Sky Away would start Cave's slide away from more traditional music into more ambient territory, even the most Bad Seeds purist will have a tough time dismissing Push the Sky Away's brilliance.
2. Sadistik -- Flowers for My Flower
Seattle-based rapper, Sadistik, generally alternates between "ugly" albums and "pretty" ones, but here's a great, beautiful rap album about felling very ugly. Cody Foster, aka Sadistik, lost his best friend and mentor, Michael David Larsen, as well as his father, both in a short span of time. Loss hangs heavy in these songs, as Foster copes with several negative mechanisms, but also with one of the most positive coping mechanisms that exists, music. The backing tracks here are emotional and deeply atmospheric, featuring work from several great producers, as Foster's deep wordplay references literature and obscure pop culture in a way that he's just as likely to reference Sylvia Plath as a Harmony Korine film. The album is perfectly sequenced, as it moves through the darkness, to an uplifting conclusion, and even if I cope with grief and depression in far different ways than Foster, Flowers for My Father remains highly immersive and relatable to me a decade on.
1. Kashmir -- E.A.R.
E.A.R. sounds and feels like living life to the fullest with your family and friends, your wife, your children, enjoying all the beauty, joy, and sadness in life to the highest degree possible, as the specter of a mushroom cloud looms above your heard. The Danish rock band meticulously experiment with gorgeous sound collages that coalesce into emotional, yet never overwrought songs that cohesively fuse together to create an album that might not be for everyone, but will strike an incredibly resonant chord with anyone who vibes with its musical sentiments. The once prolific Kashmir inject and imbue so much of themselves into this marvelous album, E.A.R. still acts as their final, and most lasting musical document ten years after its creation.
And here's my 2013 original list, with brief comment.
Original Ranking:
9. Twenty One Pilots -- Vessel -- Still here! Moved up a spot, even.
8. Hillsong United -- Zion -- In 2013, this felt like a revelatory, envelope-pushing fusion of traditional soft rock worship and electronic music, but 10,000 "Ocean"'s later, Zion shows the same major flaw of its HU predecessors, namely that it is too long and starts to drag. Shave 25 minutes off the 70-minute runtime (or at least three or four songs), and Zion might have been a classic that stood the test of time.
7. (Various Artists) Basick Records 2013 Output -- I kind of cheated here on this pick back in 2013. Basick, a now mostly defunct record label, put out a bunch of really solid, 7/10 hard rock albums in 2013, among them Bear's Noumenon, Circles' Infinitas, and No Consequence's Io. I still think those albums are solid, but I won't cheat this time by giving a label an album ranking spot, especially when one of their album's from that year, Uneven Structure's 8, has graduated to the Redux list..
6. Five Iron Frenzy -- Engine of a Million Pilots -- Congratulations, you made the cut! If not for those two songs I don't like, maybe you'd of moved up a couple spots instead of down.
6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- Push the Sky Away -- Congratulations, you made the cut AND moved up!
5. Norma Jean -- Wrongdoers -- Might have lost a spot just because the following two albums are better!
4. Polyenso -- One Big Particular Loop -- In 2016, Polyenso released the stellar Pure in the Plastic, essentially rendering OBPL defunct. Suddenly, Loop's arrangements sound a little too busy, its production a little too muddled...and yet, it's still a very good experimental rock album. Its follow up just smooths out all its wrinkles, and improves its assets.
3. Jars of Clay -- Inland -- I
was a little worried that Jars' final album might have aged badly, but it's
actually gotten even better with time! It would have held its exact spot, if not for the new number one.
2. Everything In Slow Motion -- Phoenix -- I was in denial about this hard rock album's less-than stellar back half in 2013. The opening salvo of songs is close to invincible, but that second half bores me a bit, and the "I'm strung out, I need help" theme hasn't aged gracefully to me.
1. Sadistik -- Flowers for My Father -- Still great, just edged out by the phenomenal E.A.R., an album I didn't originally hear until 2014. Technically, Flowers is still my favorite 2013 album I heard in 2013.
Postmortem:
2. Everything In Slow Motion -- Phoenix -- I was in denial about this hard rock album's less-than stellar back half in 2013. The opening salvo of songs is close to invincible, but that second half bores me a bit, and the "I'm strung out, I need help" theme hasn't aged gracefully to me.
1. Sadistik -- Flowers for My Father -- Still great, just edged out by the phenomenal E.A.R., an album I didn't originally hear until 2014. Technically, Flowers is still my favorite 2013 album I heard in 2013.
Postmortem:
Well, six out of the original 2013 nine made the cut for the new list.
Part of me wonders if 2013 was a bit of an unremarkable year in music. For instance, as much as I love Flowers for My Father, Sadistik's 2019 album, Haunted Gardens is LEAGUES better, and I only ranked it at seven when I made my 2019 list. Likewise, the Norma Jean and Nick Cave albums on that 2019 list STOMP MUDHOLES in their 2013 counterparts in this list, even if those 2013 albums are very good. Then again, when I look at some of my other 2010's lists, it actually compares relatively well. I think the negativity I'm associating with the music of that year comes from a trend that I've already referenced above, but that will become very clear below, as I race through the following noteworthy 2013 releases:
Like Kashmir, another of my favorite Scandinavian bands, Sigur Rós, released their final album to date in 2013. That album, Kveikur, has one of my favorite opening salvos of songs by
the atmospheric Icelandic band, tracks that are propulsive and infectious, but then it runs
out of steam and drags in its second half. Skillet's Rise might contain some trademark Skillet cheesiness, but it's also an earnest, enjoyable, and
authentic hard rock concept album centered on a conversion experience. Sigur
Rós isn't the only Icelandic band (let alone Scandinavian one) I admire to release their final album to date in
2013--the enigmatic Múm, whose first three albums are favorites of mine,
went out with a muted swansong, Smilewounds, though its last song,
"Time to Scream and Shout," is an oddly fitting capper to the band's
career. IAMACEO sees 2010's-era Starflyer 59 content
with cranking out fun, harmless albums. Karnivool's
Asymmetry features a singularly unique experimental rock sound, but
the 70-minute rock album keeps going long after it's run out of ideas--shave
25 minutes, make the incredible
"We Are" its
centerpiece, and Asymmetry might be great. Alice in Chains'
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here goes on far too long (go figure!), but
the singles are, while maybe not 90's Alice in Chains good, still very, very
good. Jesse Leach's return to Killswitch Engage in
Disarm the Descent is a lot of fun and features some great, emotional songs...it goes on for too long, though. Hope For The Dying's Aletheia is a
stunning progressive metal album that, yes, goes on too long, but contains
some of the most powerful musical moments of 2013, particularly in its opening
and closing tracks. Nine Inch Nails' Hesitation Marks is a very strong
showing, featuring an updated, yet cohesive new sound but get this...it's
over an hour in length and goes on for too long--why couldn't anyone in 2013
trim the fat?! Night Verses' Lift Your Existence features incredible
experimental hard rock music, with virtuoso drumming, emotive vocals, and a
guitar that sounds like wild, endlessly thrashing limbs of electricity. It
contains 15 songs, is 73 minutes long, and is the best example of everything both right and wrong with 2013 music that I've mentioned in this piece.
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