Sound Obsession

I've said it before and I'll say it again - 2013 was an epic year in music and the finest in recent memory.  Those who know me best won't be surprised by my top pick, but the rest of my list might be unexpected.  In 2013, after years of bashful flirtation, I dove headlong into "metal" without pause or irony.  There was an abundance of excellent metal albums this year - many recorded and produced by an always rock-solid Kurt Ballou (of hardcore punk heroes Converge, and proprietor of GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts).  Otherwise, 2013 continued a trend of "retro" with contemporary artists continuing to referencing the sounds of the 70's, 80's and 90's - even some former heroes from those decades made solid comebacks.  These are my favorite albums of the year.*  Enjoy. . . .                1.  Queens of the Stone Age: ...Like Clockwork (9/10) "Risk nothing, get nothing" claimed   Queens of the Stone Age founder and

In recent years I've had trouble coming up with ten albums I really liked.  This year I had trouble paring down about thirty albums.  Suffice it to say, 2013 was a great year for music.  The following are my honorable mentions - ten albums that I really enjoyed, but didn't quite make my final "top ten."  Some came very close, but I had to make some tough decisions.  This is basically my runners-up list - not ranked, but ordered alphabetically.* Enjoy. . . . ASG: Blood Drive (6.5/10) 6. I hadn't heard of Wilmington, North Carolina, stoner/sludge rockers ASG until earlier this summer.  Turns out Blood Drive is their fifth album and it sounds like a lost gem from 1992.  All the hallmarks of that era are preserved and resurrected brilliantly here as if Creed and Nickleback never existed to piss all over them - the angst, the beauty, and the riffs.  Vocalist Jason Shi displays uncanny range, emulating both Perry Farrell's nasal rasp and Mark Lanegan

Queens of The Stone Age Date:  December 14, 2013 Venue:  Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY Southwest desert rockers Queens of the Stone Age, now approaching two decades led by lone band-founder Josh Homme, played the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, this past weekend.  QOTSA have spent the greater part of the year on a nonstop world tour supporting their independently released sixth album, ... Like Clockwork - their most successful LP to date, debuting at #1 on the Billboard chart in June, and collecting three Grammy nominations this month. As QOTSA cruelly skipped DC this year, my wife surprised me on my birthday with tickets to their headlining gig in New York (we also caught their short festival set in Philadelphia this past September).  So we braved the snowy arctic weather and made the trip up the coast to see the Queens in Brooklyn (ha!) first hand. Queens of The Stone Age "The Vampyre of Time and Memory" ...Like Clockwork is an entirely different kind

Well, it's that time of year again - time for album lists!  I've compiled a few lists that I plan on posting in the next few weeks.  Today it's "Duds, Disappointments, & Overrated" albums of 2013.  Next will be "Honorable Mention," then my "Top Ten" favorite albums of 2013. All the albums listed below are ones I actually anticipated, bought (or in some cases streamed on Spotify), and spent solid time with.   Some of them I initially enjoyed but grew out of.  Some of them just didn't click, but could suddenly break through at some point in the future.  Unlikely, but I have been known to change my mind about these things.  Note, for scale, the number "1" spot is the most   disappointing .* Enjoy. . . .             1.  Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Mosquito (3.5/10) The Yeah Yeah Yeah's are among the best bands to come out of the garage rock revival of the early 00's.  Karen O is a powerhouse, and the last decade sa

Phantogram Date:  December 5, 2013 Venue:  930 Club, Washington, DC T he 1990's saw an abundance of electronic acts featuring hip-hop beats and sultry female vocals - Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Bjork, Sneaker Pimps, Morcheeba, Olive, Esthero and so forth.  All these groups operated, more or less, within the genre of "trip-hop" - a style that leaned heavily on the boom-bap aesthetics of hip-hop, dub, and jazz but, in most cases, smoothed out the rough edges.  At the time, music critic Simon Reynolds  accurately identified that "trip-hop [was] merely a form of gentrification."  The genre had the intangible hallmarks of "cool" without much of the danger, inevitably becoming the soundtrack for sophisticated coffee shops, cocktail bars, and car advertisements worldwide. Phantogram The last decade has seen trip-hop wane, supplanted by cutesy synth-pop drawing flagrantly from new wave, new romantic, indie rock, and shoe gaze - styles that

Bombino Date:  December 3, 2013 Venue:  The Hamilton, Washington, DC Tuareg guitarist and rising star Bombino, known as Omara Moctar to his mom back home in Niger, played The Hamilton last night to a packed house.  Riding a wave of good will and critical acclaim, having released an excellent album called  Nomad earlier this year (produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys), Bombino has been on tour for the better part of 2013.  Bombino opened for Robert Plant earlier this summer at the posh suburban amphitheater Wolf Trap but, with a $50 ticket price and a 50 minute road trip during rush hour, I opted out and kept my fingers crossed for a headlining gig closer to home.  My hopes were answered. I'm no expert on nomadic Tuareg music (yet), often called African "desert blues," but I am familiar with the commonly known touchstones:  Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Toure, Tuareg super-group Tinariwen, the Festival au Desert held yearly outside of Timbuktu (sadly no

Heads up!  Beastmilk Climax full-album stream. Cool albums rarely get released in December, because, frankly, who can compete with Yuletide gems like this ?  Well, ditch your Santa hat and throw on some black leather - fuckin' Beastmilk is here. "He chose, poorly" - guessing that milk went bad Beastmilk (rad name right?) are a Finnish post-punk goth rock band, fronted by a British dude named "Kvohst," who are about to drop (or have already dropped, depending on your locale) their debut album Climax produced by King Midas studio-wiz Kurt Ballou.  These guys synthesize equal parts Danzig, Morrissey, The Cult, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division, and Bauhaus - but with more balls. Climax is streaming in full for free here , and available for paid download ( iTunes , Amazon etc.) and streaming (Spotify etc.) now.  CD and LP available December 10.  Watch the video for "Death Reflects Us" here . 

High on Fire, Kvelertak Date:  November 12, 2013 Venue:  Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington, DC My relatively recent dive into the pool of brutal rock & roll madness known as heavy metal proved fruitful earlier this week as I attended one of the most epic live shows of my life. No joke. No exaggeration. Oakland stoner metal titans High on Fire and Norway's "black & roll" powerhouse Kvelertak simply decimated the Rock & Roll Hotel Tuesday night. I had considered not writing a review at all, as there really aren't enough words to describe how ridiculously good this show was. Being as that I've got this blog to feed, I'll try anyway. . . Kvelertak I arrived midway through opener Doomrider's set. The Boston-based stoner/doom foursome just put out a new record produced by Kurt Ballou called Grand Blood (Ballou and Doomrider frontman Nate Newton are bandmates in metalcore band Converge). Despite looking great on paper, I just can