Sound Obsession

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 a...

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 o...