Your top ten LPs of 2013

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As it's coming up to the end of 2013 and with no releases I'm looking forward to before 2014, I thought it'd be interesting to see what other people's favourite albums were for this year. The below list is my favourite ten albums of the year, in no particular order (except Chvrches, which was my favourite).

Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe
London Grammar - If You Wait
Disclosure - Settle
Haim - Days Are Gone
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
AlunaGeorge - Body Music
Foals - Holy Fire
Arcade Fire - Reflektor
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Foxygen - We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

1. DARKTHRONE – The Underground Resistance
2. NOCTURNAL GRAVES - …From the Bloodline of Cain
3. CARCASS – Surgical Steel
4. GOATMOON – Tahdon Riemuvoitto (compilation)
5. NINE INCH NAILS – Hesitation Marks
6. SACRIPHYX – The Western Front
7. ABORYM – Dirty
8. NECROMASS – Calix.Utero.Babalon
9. HELCARAXE – Children of Ygg
10. GALGENBERG – Blutgrund/Galgenberg (compilation)

Oh, and I’m eagerly looking forward to new material from Alcest, Entombed, Agalloch and Tool (hopefully) for 2014. I'm wondering if Alcest have dropped all traces of black metal all together now and will just be a shoegaze type band. The new album cover for “Shelter” looks fairly “un-metal like” for lack of a better way of putting it. Not a bad album cover though.

PS I forgot about Watain's "The Wild Hunt" as well and that's definitely in my top ten. I suppose I'll have to revise my list before year's end anyway.

Here's my rough list thus far, might change it soon.

1) Carcass - Surgical Steel
2) Darkthrone - The Underground Resistance
3) Ghost - Infestissumam
4) Motörhead - Aftershock
5) Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies
6) Dark Tranquillity - Construct
7) Tyr - Valkyrja
8. Sepultura - The Mediator Between the Head and Hands Must be the Heart
9) Death Angel - The Dream Calls for Blood
10) Orphaned Land - All Is One

Enigmatic Oddity, can I just say that I am completely in love with Disclosure's Settle, so it's cool to see them up here, alongside collaborators London Grammar and AlunaGeorge. I've been enjoying AlunaGeorge's singles, and contemplated buying their album, but lack of funds has prevented me. Actually, a couple of albums that were on my wish list, I ended up not purchasing because of money issues. I got Arctic Monkeys' AM, but while there are some strong individual tracks on it, overall the CD left me cold for the most part. I hear good things about KoL's Mechanical Bull and M.I.A.'s Matangi.

One album I did get and was rather pleasantly surprised about, was Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines. It's not a brilliant album, even when compared to Thicke's older work, but it's also not start-to-finish tackiness and dodgy content, as might be expected from the two lead singles 'Blurred Lines' and 'Give It 2 U'. It's actually quite balanced.

I did like M.I.A's Matangi; it was much better than her third album, which I didn't like at all. I didn't like it anywhere near as much as her first two though. The highlights for me on it were the tracks Warriors, Y.A.L.A., Bring the Noize, and Bad Girls. It's a pity Bad Girls is the best track on there given it came out about two years ago.

AlunaGeorge's album is a really fun album, and does feel similar in many ways to Disclosure's album, not so much stylistically but in its overall cohesiveness and confidence in its identity. Both are throwbacks to genres popular in the 90s, and have received huge hype in the leadup to their release from indie blogs despite being fairly safe and mainstream. It does have a few weaker tracks such as Kaleidoscope Love and Body Music, but the vast majority of tracks are strong and feel like they could be released as singles.

London Grammar sort of crept up on me. I hadn't been looking forward to its release; instead I played it on recommendation from Google after I'd been listening to a lot of Disclosure's music. I love the understated, sparse sound that really just lets the singer's distinctive breathy, deep vocal take centre stage. Many people have compared the sound to the xx's, a comparison I wouldn't object to. But the release is more akin to the xx's first, more melodic album. I've been listening to the deluxe version of the album, and I can't recall any song that feels superfluous or that I feel the desire to skip over.

If you're listening to a lot of music and finding that lack of funds is stopping you from getting all the music you want to listen to, you should consider subscribing to a streaming service such as Spotify or Google All Access. It may well end up working a lot cheaper for you, as it does for me. How good a solution this is for you depends on your internet connectivity, though.

I might consider doing that. Fortunately, though, the library in my old hometown tends to get the latest releases fairly quickly, so sampling abums from their collection is a good alternative.

I'll keep in mind what you said about Matangi and Body Music. I should acquaint myself with London Grammar a bit more first. 'Help Me Lose My Mind' has certain qualities that distinguish it from the other tracks on Settle.

I was thinking this was released in 2012 for some reason. Not as good as their debut but it will definitely be up there in my next revised top 10 list.

Agreed, it's not as good their debut, but it's still great nonetheless. I added the new Sepultura album due to it blowing me away.

I don't buy that many albums every year; my last one was probably the recent Backstreet Boys CD this past August.

Would you say it’s Sep’s strongest effort with Derrick Green?? I haven’t checked out the one before either but I remember not being too impressed with “A-Lex” though I’m a big A Clockwork Orange fan..

Definitely. This is the Sep's strongest effort since Derrick was vocalist, it's the mixture of old and new.

Alphabetical order, but not order of preference:

Black Sabbath - 13
Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Carcass - Surgical Steel
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP 2
The Field - Cupid's Head
Manic Street Preachers - Rewind The Film
New Order - Lost Sirens
Queens Of The Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
Russian Circles - Memorial

Kayo Dot - Hubardo
Karol Conka - Batuk Freak
Gramme - Fascination
Parquet Courts - Light up Gold
Hookworms - Pearl Mystic
My Bloody Valentine - M B V
M.I.A. - Matangi
Mazzy Star - Seasons of Your Day
Melt Yourself Down - Melt Yourself Down
The Creature Cocoa - Marginalia

My revised list of 20

1) Carcass - Surgical Steel
2) Darkthrone - The Underground Resistance
3) Ghost - Infestissumam
4) Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies
5) Clutch - Earth Rocker
6) Dark Tranquillity - Construct
7) Tyr - Valkyrja
Sepultura - The Mediator Between Head and Hands must be the Heart
9) Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
10) Death Angel - The Dream Calls for Blood
11) Watain - The Wild Hunt
12) Motörhead - Aftershock
13) Kevlertak - Meir
14) Voivod - Target Earth
15) Rotting Christ - Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy
16) Huntress - Starbound Beast
17) The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer
18) Kylesa - Ultraviolet
19) Soilwork - The Living Infinite
20) ChthoniC - Bu-Tik

13 by Black Sabbath and Hail to the King by A7X are the most overrated albums this year.