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 t...

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 diffe...