Albums of the Year! 1!

1. Deafheaven - Sunbather

Vibrato vs Tremolo

Pitch shift vs Volume

If film is the great emancipator, the truth that releases us to roam between ghosts and living men then music (and sound in general) is the divine ready to lift us to heaven and exaltation, a place full of memory and refraction.

And if that analogy rings true then in 2013, Deafheaven played the part of the deluded high priest.

A little background first. Black Metal (around which this floats) exists in clouds of dark chord changes, anger and Sweden.  This puts the band on the backfoot from the outset.  Purists with 'Anti-Liturgy' signs have eagled the move from what the hardcore present as the essence of the genre.

  'Dream House' opens with a shredding confident inverted third/ major pentatonic melange radio guitar noise progression that in seconds sets out the stall for a different usage of the 'template' of how things are meant to be here. Melded to a gorgeous guitar lick that lilts and seduces at every angle.  Percussion fills and then burst out leaving just open space to curve and engorge.

Tremolo.

"Hindered by sober restlessness. Submitting to the amber crutch. The theme in my aching prose. Fantasizing the sight of Manhattan; that pour of a bitter red being that escapes a thin frame. The rebirth of mutual love. The slipping on gloves to lay tenderly".  


We can't decipher these codes, a pretty silhouetteted metaphor for daily confused reflection.  A battle of materialism and altruistic contemplations. They aren't pragmatic manifestations of thought and desire but instead the idealistic visions of the 'American Dream' channeled through pure emotion via Central Park.

Moving on, the album plays the very straightforward, almost manipulative positioning trick of placing a "come-down" track after each epic (musically and length wise). So our couplets are  Dream House-Irresistable (9/3mins), Sunbather-Please Remember (10/6mins) and Vertigo/Windows (14/4mins).  Each post rock breathe out segueing seamlessly from epic to epic.  No doubt this is BIG music but it's big in a way that matters, not as a posturing statement but as an outpouring of idealised love, mature and retrospective.

Back to the earlier shuffling.  The position of an American band in black metal shoes is precarious.  First it alienates the hardcore group but it also has the power through composition to ensnare new pilgrims towards the Nordic shores.


Personally, I'm not particularly interested in all of that.  This isn't a gateway to an open field of wonders but moreso the field itself.  To me this is some sort of starburst black metal filled with shoe gaze, emo, screamo, post rock to name just a few influences.  What these 7 tracks represent are the purest form, the essence of what 2013 means to me.

A strivance for a perfect being, dressed with the putrid stench of dissolute crystal. 


Key Tracks: Vertigo, Dream House, Sunbather, Please Remember

Best Songs of the Year 2013! 10-1!

There's something fundamentally wrong with me writing this on Christmas Day whilst everyone else is taking Chaucer to heart. The show must go on;

10.  Justin Timberlake - Mirrors

There were a few candidates for best JT song of the year.  But this is the one that does it for me.  It's the quintessential Timberlake/Timbaland production really.  Starting at a pressing pace and then a change up into something a little more comfortable.  It's just the hookiest of his songs in 2013 and with the prettiest syrup laden falsettos

9. The National - I Need My Girl

It's difficult to pick out a particular favourite from 'Trouble Will Find Me'.  Unlike 'High Violet', which had Bloodbuzz Ohio and Conversation 16 amongst others, TWFM finds the band at it's most at ease.  Without the weightiness and themes of the familiarial, a diversion has been made from dealing with life as thirty-somethings.  It hasn't completely evaporated however.  I Need My Girl reminds me of the wordplay of much of 'Boxer'.  Tight, personal and yet universally appreciable

8. Disclosure - Latch

LOVED what these boys did this year.  What's particularly great is that they straddled both critical raves and mainstream success. Why?  Confidence for one.  Two, an album filled with wall to wall golden bangers.  Yeah i'm picking Latch but could just as well picked 3-4 others.

  

7. Arcade Fire - Reflektor

The songs that really connect (with me) are those that deal with alienation and loneliness, from society, from ourselves, without dwelling in some mawkish sludge under the sewers.  Here we have our disco setting (see Afterlife), and on top of that a vigor that hasn't disappeared after 10 years.

6.  HAIM - The Wire

Este is back. Can't keep a good face down. Seriously though how awesome is the bass line here?  The pop charts should be grateful.

5.  Deafheaven - Dream House

This year, Sunbather, was my unexpected unearthed gem.  Dream House kicks thing off in a wistfully romantic mood.  Romantic? Well yes, this is the heaviest of rock metal (not black metal, mind) and yet the melodies are as gorgeous as anything released this year.  The lyrics blend in and out of the mix and work well as an additional rhythmic element to what is happening in the background (although when read in isolation also stand up to scrutiny).  Many will simply press play and switch off after 15 seconds.  It's a shame because Dream House is just the start of the most loving odyssey created in 2013.

4. Burial - Come Down To Us

The latest release of my top 20, Come Down To Us frustrated and downright angered Burialites.  But what Mr Bevan did here feels like the most IMPORTANT track of 2013.  It's two halves contain the most saccharine uplifiting samples he's ever put out.  Gone is the isolation and underbelly of a gluttonous city swapped for hope and glorious resurrection.  Burial announced tracks 2 and 3 were a riposte to bullying, a candle to those who feel like they have nowhere to turn.  It succeeds magically (director Lana Wachowski's speech a fitting ending).

3. Vampire Weekend - Step

I love everything these guys have done this year.  It's so exciting to see a band mature the way they have.  I enjoyed Contra but it held my attention in spurts.  What a wonderful representation of Koenig and co 'Step' proves to be.  The stage is set with a nostalgic reverb piano riff but what makes this so GREAT?  The lyrics.  Essentially a balance sheet on age vs youth, it acheives a sweet spot with balance and poetic beauty.

2. The Knife - Full Of Fire

The first time I saw the short video for this track it was difficult to comprehend in one sitting.  What is this song even about?  Class struggles?  The internet age? Gender inequalities and the 21st century fight for sexual equality?   The ever diluting of valuable ideals and truths? Even if this is a tickle on social change what matters to listener A is the verve and tenacity of what the Dreijer' acheive here.  It's a song that makes you stand up, shock, shake you to your core, makes you dance and ends up leaving you wondering why more acts aren't so daring and provocative.

1. Phosphorescent - Song For Zula

A voice that sounds like stepping on shattered crystals (in the most respectful way), a transition chord template which has been heard a million times (U2 for one in almost all their tracks).  Song for Zula hit home as soon as I first heard it.  Being grabbed straight away with a line that not only references a great Johnny Cash track but calls it out as folly.  It's bitter but also heartbreaking just as the rest of the song, which adds swelling orchestration to its armoury but ends with a graceful denouement which exits at the back of the stage but leaves the lasting impression as the crowd leave the hall.

It's my favourite song of the year.