You didn’t think I forgot about this, did you?
It may have taken a bit longer than usual, but after a great
deal of re-listening and reflection I can definitively say THESE are the albums
in 2012 that caught my ears, piqued my interest, and took up space on both my
iPod and computer. And now, without
further adieu…
Best Release: Sleigh Bells- Reign of Terror (*****)
From the stereo to my ears, no album conquered 2012 quite
like Reign of Terror. Coming off 2010’s speaker blasting Treats, Sleigh Bells opted to twist
their noise-crunk sound into something immense, personal, and sweeping. Reign
Of Terror is a warzone of a record; between Derek E. Miller’s spikey
Slayer-sized riffing, its cold 808 drums, and Alexis Krauss’ girl-group vocals,
this LP is the gritty chronicle of living in desperate times. From pep rally in Hell clatter of “Crush” to
the proto-thrash of “Demons,” Sleigh Bells expand their sound in jagged,
splashy fashion, giving their particular brand of noise-pop an incredible focus. Nowhere is this more apparent that on the
suicide-valentine of “You Lost Me” a track that marries chiming Def Leppard
arpeggios with a story of tragic devotion. In many ways, Sleigh Bells have crafted an
album that explores America’s culture of violence, how pain and anguish is
packaged through our media and mythmaking. Krauss and Miller’s metallic dream-pop musings
aren’t simply for novelty, but in fact present the perfect mechanism to examine
how fear, addiction, and combat have become so darn stylish (Must be the
Ray-Bans). Between its M16 samples and smutty
bubblegum sheen, Reign Of Terror’s
unyielding dread and grand scope make it 2012’s crowning musical achievement.
Key Cuts: Crush, Demons, You Lost Me
Best Debut: Gary Clark Jr.- Blak & Blu (***½)
There weren’t many debuts that caught my ear in 2012, but
Gary Clark Jr. kept me interested. The
blues man splatter on Blak & Blu
invites Jimi Hendrix comparisons by the truckload, but Clark doesn’t play on
60s nostalgia to captivate audiences.
Blistering blues chops aside, Blak
& Blu works because of Clark’s surprisingly nimble voice, caramel
smooth one moment and deep-bellied the next.
It gives the more R&B inflected numbers, like the album’s purple
haze-hued title track, more credence when juxtaposed with the real barn-burners,
of which there are many. For instance, the
hard riff workout on “When My Train Pulls In” is simply punishing, taking its
time to ramp up before Clark’s expressive fretwork pierces through the mix. Make no mistake—Clark slings a mean axe, from
the janky, broken-down twang of “Next Door Neighbor Blues,” to the fuzz-rock
bravado of “Glitter Ain’t Gold.” He’s a
musician’s guitarist, one that plays from his gut instead of the studio booth. True, the album is a bit bloated and a tad
too eager to crossover (Clark’s worst songs remind listeners of the neo-Hendrix
promise Lenny Kravitz never delivered) but he’s soulful, which makes up for even
the most egregious, and cheesy, editing errors.
For all its warts, Blak & Blu
is a promising start for an artist that’s destined to play for a long, long
time.
Key Cuts: When My Train Pulls In, Glitter Ain’t Gold, Next
Door Neighbor Blues
Best Rock Release: The Gaslight Anthem- Handwritten (*****)
When you’ve got Brendan O’Brien behind the boards, you’re no
longer in the underground; you’re in the major leagues. This is a good thing for The Gaslight Anthem,
because Handwritten is too impressive
to keep hidden. Gritty and sentimental, Brian
Fallon’s songs act like mini movies, as powerful as a supped up Trans AM
barreling down Thunder Road. “45’s”
soaring vocals and searing guitars cut like hot knives, while the hard-hitting
“Biloxi Parish” finds Fallon perfecting the art of the anthem. Long time fans will notice the bluesier
touches and foggy atmospheres that punctuate
Handwritten, but the biggest difference is in the storytelling. Handwritten
chronicles Fallon’s quest to reconcile the past with the man he is today. While past Gaslight Anthem LPs relied on
American icons like Marilyn and Elvis to evoke a sense of Golden Era
romanticism, Handwritten places
listeners in the shoes of Fallon’s characters, painting vivid portraits of what
it means to deal with loss and love. The
results are mesmerizing and personal, from the flange soaked lullaby of “Mae”
to the twisting guitar duals and high tension of “Mulholland Drive.” Records like these don’t stay hidden, and
Fallon reminds listeners that you don’t always need to over think music, you
just need to feel it. In the end, Brain
Fallon makes records the way they used to: With a whole lot of
heart—handwritten.
Key Cuts: “45,” Mulholland Drive, Biloxi Parish
Best Punk/Post-Hardcore Release: Every Time I Die- Ex Lives (*****)
Coming from the punk/post-hardcore end of the spectrum
really means you’ve got attitude, enough grit and chutzpah to douse your songs in
gasoline and light the fuse. After the brittle,
ambling New Junk Aesthetic, Every
Time I Die return with the soul-crushing Ex
Lives and enough “everything-be-damned” fire to roast the world. And it shows, the arrangements are schizophrenic
slices of chainsaw-inspired hardcore and southern rock crunch while Keith Buckley’s
serpentine scream rounds out their sound.
Ex Lives is simply bone-crushing,
from the behemoth-sized weight of “Underwater Bimbos From Outer Space” to the
banjo inflected, hardcore bull-rush of “Partying is Such Sweet Sorrow.” Buckley gives the performance of this life,
no longer relying solely on his deafening rasp to recount twisted social
nightmares, but also implementing his rather nimble mid-range to give his punk
rock sermons some sass. The biggest
surprise, however, is how Every Time I Die have really expanded their sonic
palette without sacrificing their aggression.
“Indian Giver” orbits and blasts doom-laden riffs with ethereal psychedelic
flourishes, while “I Suck (Blood)” sets a new bar for sludgy breakdowns. Unafraid to charge full speed ahead, Ex Lives shows that Every Time I Die continue
to take the hardcore scene by their own, aggressive terms.
Key Cuts: Underwater Bimbos From Outer Space, I Suck
(Blood), Partying Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Best Metal Release: Converge- All We Love We Leave Behind (*****)
Hard to believe Converge formed their punishing brand of
hardcore-meets-thrash more than twenty years ago, especially after releasing All We Love We Leave Behind. Musicians that work within extreme music
genres tend to arrange music that’s more conservative as they get older, losing
aggression and replacing it with atmosphere, as if the two are mutually
exclusive. Converge, on the other hand,
play like a band during the peak of their powers, continuing to preserve their
intensity as the years pile on. The
slash and burn riffing is as furious as a heaven-sent swarm of locusts, while
their cyclonic drumming churns and stops on a dime. “Aimless Arrow” twists and scratches skyward
while the all-out hardcore blasts of “Trespasses” and “No Light Escapes” hit
with savage intensity. When Converge
shift gears however, the results don’t lose any less bite. “Sadness Comes Home” sports titanic, heaving
riffs before speeding off into a spiraling-oblivion, reaffirming the fact that
Converge’s sound is as gargantuan as their ambition. Yet what’s most refreshing about All We Love… is its enormity. In an age where heavy music is pristine,
mechanical, and sterile, Converge reminds listeners that fury and feedback go a
long way, creating brutal vistas along the way.
The result is a group, 20 years in, still making some of the best and
uncompromising music of their career.
Key Cuts: Aimless Arrow, Trespasses, Sadness Comes Home
Best Electronic Release: Death Grips- NO LOVE DEEP WEB (*****)
Electronic music is not known for harrowing aesthetics, but
that’s the first thing that comes to mind with Death Grips’ newest album NO LOVE DEEP WEB. Their second LP of 2012 (after the chopped up
punk noise of The Money Store), MC
Ride and Zach Hill twist their keyboards to mirror the real life End of Days disaster they
see unfolding before them. NO LOVE is acrimoniously stitched
together with lacerated vocal samples and terrifying vitriol as the duo
implements a mish-mash of stuttering 808s and synthesizers that sound like
overloaded circuit breakers. MC Ride’s
death-howl flow is here too; whether it’s exploring his tortured anguish on the
manic “Come Up & Get Me,” or his fire and brimstone sermon on “Lock Your
Doors.” This isn’t electronic music for
background accents; NO LOVE is a
nightmarish Frankenstein, every synthetic sound warped and blasted into an uncompromising
expansiveness sorely needed in today’s tepid electronic scene. Instead, Death Grips aim to shake listeners
out of complacency, whether it’s the metallic clank of “Stockton” or the
phantasmal-glitch rumble of “Bass Rattle Stars Out The Sky.” Raw, immediate, and explosive, NO LOVE DEEP WEB is a force of nature
for the digital age.
Key Cuts: Come Up & Get Me, Lock Your Doors, Stockton
Best Produced: Kanye West Presents: G.O.O.D. Music- Cruel
Summer (***½)
Aside from the Kim Kardashian stories, the Taylor Swift interruptions,
and the leather kilts, Kanye West continues to intrigue because of his Renaissance-style
vision for hip-hop. Cruel Summer culls together some of the bright up and comers on his
G.O.O.D. Music label, and Yeezy directs them with a master’s sense of perspective
for a rather thrilling set of collaborations.
Blending opulence and arrogance, Kanye works his studio magic to create
a record fascinated with refinement but with enough crushing grooves and
modernism for the clubs. The wobbly flow
of “Clique” and the pitch-shifted murk of “Mercy” act as the perfect stage for
egos like Jay-Z, 2Chainz, and Pusha T to twist their punch lines around their
personalities. Crystal clear, and space-age
clean, the whole experience on Cruel
Summer plays like one of Kanye’s beautiful, dark, twisted, fantasies,
blending 90s style excess with pristine vibrant keyboards. Yet Kanye doesn’t just steal the show behind
the boards, he makes his presence felt often on the mic, whether it’s over the
aggressive buzz saw hooks of “Cold” or trading quips with Ghostface Killah
on the gunshot-piano climb of “New God Flow.”
While the record’s second half loses momentum and cohesion, the sheer
recklessness and confidence of Kanye’s vision makes Cruel Summer one hell of a ride.
Key Cuts: Clique, New God Flow, Cold
Best Comeback: Bloc Party- Four (*****)
Who expected Bloc Party to ever put out a record this
angry? Cut with a relatively live feel, Four is Bloc Party’s triumphant comeback
after the lukewarm reception of 2008’s electronic-leaning Intimacy. While the group
hasn’t necessarily traded in all their keyboards and effects pedals, Four plays out like a much more groove-obsessed
post-punk record, while incorporating spacey atmospheres and rusty
dissonance. From the rubberband rhythms
on “Octopus” to the fuzzed-out blitzkrieg of “We’re Not Good People” Bloc Party
explores a sound that’s primal, immediate, and surprisingly heavy. However, that doesn’t mean they’ve let this
newfound drive squeeze out their more confessional offerings. Lead singer Kele Okereke’s falsetto is still
one of the brighter portions of Bloc Party’s arsenal, especially with his lilting
delivery on the shimmering late album cut, “The Healing.” While fans of Silent Alarm may balk at the bigger, beefier use of distortion,
they’ll be missing out a Bloc Party record that sounds less like a computer and
more like a 4-piece again. Drummer Matt
Tong is simply relentless, whether it’s on the dizzying heights of “So He
Begins To Lie,” or machine gun space-funk of “Team A.” All in all, Four reminds listeners that no amount of bad press can knock down
Bloc Party, especially when they sound this confident.
Key Cuts: Octopus, The Healing, We Are Not Good People
Best EP(s): My Chemical Romance- Conventional Weapons
(*****)
If you’ve forgotten what dangerous and desperate rock n’
roll sounds like, look out for Conventional
Weapons. Originally scrapped from
their 2009 sessions with producer Brendan O’Brien, My Chemical Romance is presenting
this “album-that-could-have-been” in 2-song E.P.s over the course of several
months. Yet the real shocker is how
these songs were shelved in the first place in favor of the synthed-out
futurism of Danger Days. The band returns to their bloody-soaked brand
of post-hardcore, paying homage to punk heroes like The Stooges and MC5 with a
truly liberated batch of songs.
“Tomorrow’s Money” barely hangs together with car crash drumming and Ray
Toro’s blistering lead work, while “Kiss The Ring” sports hyper-macho swagger
and enough sleazy riffs to burn down L.A.
Though the songs tread on MCR’s usual “us-against-the-world” pulp
fiction, Conventional Weapons out
shines the technicolor Danger Days
because of how these songs attack our disposable culture with startling
precision. Whether it’s Gerard Way’s come-at-me
sneer on “Boy Division,” or “AMBULANCE’s” movie-ready anthem of devotion, MCR
continue to explore how the enduring power of love can conquer even the darkest
world. Bold, black, and still alive, Conventional Weapons finds MCR firing on
all cylinders.
Key Cuts: Tomorrow’s Money, AMBULANCE, Kiss The Ring
Most Ambitious: Kendrick Lamar- good kid, M.A.A.D. city
(****)
Hype is a dangerous double-edged sword, but thankfully for Kendrick
Lamar, it works to his advantage. good kid, M.A.A.D. city is the kind of
open narrative statement that hip-hop is starving for amidst the Lil Waynes and
T-Pains of the world. Mentored and
produced by the famed Dr. Dre, M.A.A.D.
city is a sprawling concept record detailing the trials and tribulations of
Lamar’s rise to fame from Compton, CA, set against smoky atmospheres, soulful
production, and an ever-evolving cast of characters. “The Art Of Peer Pressure” uses brooding
string arrangements cut through Lamar’s late night anxiety with switchblade
precision, while the blissful “Poetic Justice” goes down easy like fine cognac. Though rags to riches stories aren’t anything
new, Lamar’s ability to tell a multi-character story within the confines of such
a sonically accessible album is impressive.
He knows when to place his tonged twisting skills to the test (“Backseat
Freestyle”) and when to let the gravity of his narrative overtake listeners
(“Swimming Pools (Drank)”). While Lamar
struggles to turn M.A.A.D. city into
a classic, especially considering the absence of a bona fide crossover hit like
“Nuthin’ But A “G” Thang” or “Jesus Walks,” there’s plenty here he should be
proud of—it’s not everyday debut albums are this deep, affecting and sincere.
Key Cuts: The Art Of Peer Pressure, Poetic Justice (Feat.
Drake), Swimming Pools (Drank)
Most Experimental: Childish Gambino- Royalty (****½)
Oh, to have Donald Glover’s expansive resume. The comedy writer-turned-actor-turned-rapper continues
to mesmerize with his latest mixtape under the name Childish Gambino,
Royalty. Listening to these cuts feels like
stumbling onto a psychotic version of Glover’s Google search history. All his brainiac, blog buzzing, pop-culture
addled fantasies are on display, from the blinking club bang of “One Up” to the electro-Kavinsky swiping on “R.I.P.,” painting him as Jay-Z and
Ryan Gosling within three songs of each other.
His tastes are diverse though, suggesting he had a great deal of fun
assembling this mixtape, from the Tina Fey guest verse on “Real Estate” to RZA’s
brass-band digital breakdown on “American Royalty.” While the public jury still might be hung on
what Glover can bring to the table in terms of substance and storytelling, his
fearlessness is certainly engaging. The stuttering,
chopped and skewed punch lines on “Toxic” nick Britney’s biggest hit for a
surprisingly dread filled atmosphere, and hell,
even junk king Beck Hansen shows up with his smooth drawl for a verse on “Silk
Pillow.” While Glover is certainly
making a name for himself as a kid with quick wit, it’ll be fascinating to
watch him work his magic in the future because for Childish Gambino, limits
don’t seem to exist.
Key Cuts: One Up (Feat. Steve G. Lover), R.I.P. (Feat. Bun
B), American Royalty (Feat. RZA & Hypnotic Brass Orchestra)
Most Eclectic: fun.- Some Nights (****)
Pop music should be inclusive and accessible, which is why
fun.’s major label breakthrough Some Nights is so refreshing. Dabbling in fuzzed-out beat making, carnival-style
whimsy, and Nate Ruess’ ever-impressive register, Some Nights was a 2012 smash
that virtually everyone could enjoy. “We
Are Young” is a lighter waving anthem filled with hip-hop clatter and naked
sentimentality, while the trip-hip bounce of “All Alone” provides playful
yearning and a cotton candy hook. The Grammy buzz is well earned
though, because Some Nights hangs its hat on expert songwriting instead of an exploitation of genre trends. From the choir-backed “All
Alright” to the album’s vocoded title track, Ruess comforts and
reminds listeners of the splendor found in self-defining life moments. For Ruess, the adventure is just a lonely
night away, even if mortality is fleeting.
He embraces self-revelations like adrenaline straight to the heart
(“Man, you wouldn't believe/The most amazing things/That can come from/Some
terrible lies...”), extolling the virtues of saying “YES” over pinch-harmonized
guitars and lush production. While pop
music typically exudes positivity, it doesn’t always hit the personal kind of
reflection Some Nights explores, which make this bombastic set of songs such a
fascinating listen. For lack of a better
way to say it, pop music is rarely, if ever, this kind of fun.
Key Cuts: We Are Young, All Alone, All Alright
Most Crapped On: The Offspring- Days Go By (**)
Some men decide to buy an extremely extravagant car as they
get older, a vessel to park not only their fading youth but to blast their
homemade demo tape from the college band they used to play in. If you’re The Offspring, however, you call up
Bob Rock and make another record. To
their credit, few 90s punk revivalists have aged well, but time has been
especially cruel to Dexter Holland, his voice shriller than ever. Yet the real problem comes with passion: Days Go By is mechanical, slick, and
tame, everything that doesn’t support the adrenaline-addled energy of The
Offspring’s best material. Most of the
album is a mid-tempo malaise, and the jokey electro-blitz of “California
(Bumpin’ In My Trunk)” makes you think they should have won a Pulitzer for
“Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” in 1999.
Still, the band shows flashes of their old selves, even for a brief
moment, with the staccato crunch of “Dividing By Zero.” Too little, too late though. Days Go
By deserves the criticism: When you’re covering your own songs (I’m looking
at you “Dirty Magic”), it’s time to hang things up for good. So long and thanks for all the jams
Offspring, you gotta keep your dad selves and your old lives...yup, you guessed
it—you gotta keep ‘em separated.
Key Cuts: The Future Is Now, Dirty Magic, Dividing By Zero
Biggest Surprise: Gallows- Gallows (****)
Frank Carter WAS Gallows.
His vulture scream was as recognizable as the group’s strident and angular
take on hardcore punk, and that voice helped create some of the most engaging
punk records of the past decade.
So when it was confirmed that Carter was leaving, and that his
replacement was ex-Alexisonfire growler Wade McNeil, there was cause for
concern. Surprisingly, Gallows is a wholly different beast that
stretches the band into new and exciting territory.
“Victim Culture’s” sledge-hammer stomp and “Last June’s” swervy hardcore
splatter finds the band locked, loaded, and ready for war. Though not as terrifying as Carter, McNeil’s
biker snarl adds an intimidating facet to the Gallows sound that simply feels
bigger and brasher. While
there are moments of all out-white noise fury, like on “Vapid Adolescent Blues,”
some of the record's brighter moments are on the second half anthems like the
call-and –response depravity of “Odessa.”
Though the group trades some of their more angular sounding arrangements
for a chunkier, faster slice of the hardcore pie, Gallows displays a band that’s revitalized by their line-up change,
rather than hampered by it. Frank Carter
might have been Gallows, but McNeil & Co. have proven that Gallows is so
much more than one man and one era in time—it’s a beast with a mind of it’s
own.
Key Cuts: Victim Culture, Last June, Vapid Adolescent Blues
Biggest Letdown: Frank Ocean- channel ORANGE (***)
For a record that’s topped out nearly everyone’s End Of The
Year List, channel ORANGE is expected
to be a GREAT album—and it isn’t. There’s
no denying that Frank Ocean, the most velvety member of Odd Future Wolf Gang
Kill Them All, is blessed with a blissful set of pipes, but his debut is simply
too disorganized to take seriously. From
the celebrity bloc party of John Mayer and Andre 3000 to the bloated
interludes, channel ORANGE distracts
more than it immerses. The frustrating
part is that there IS a great album in there—it’s just buried. “Pyramids” may be the most inventive,
multi-suite soul song of all time, its glacial movements and cool synthesizers
feelings more at home on a Radiohead record.
Elsewhere, Ocean’s free-verse inspired delivery on “Crack Rock” shows
his drive to take future soul somewhere new and exciting, into the spacey
abstract where slow jams rarely orbit.
Between the PlayStation samples and digital mist, channel ORANGE is certainly expansive, but it plays like a
collection of Ocean’s thoughts and sketches rather than a statement of
purpose. Though interesting in scope,
Ocean’s debut simply confirms what we already knew about him—his potential is
only as powerful as the producer that edits him.
Key Cuts: Thinkin’ About You, Crack Rock, Pyramids
Biggest Blog Buzz: Lana Del Rey- Born To Die (***)
You couldn’t escape 2012 without talking about Lana Del Rey
(a.k.a. manufactured pop queen Lizzy Grant), and with good reason: She was as
divisive a pop-star as we’ve ever seen.
The “Gangster Nancy Sinatra” was a bit of a tabloid target from her
barely-there GQ spread to her strange fling with Axl Rose. Yet it was Born To Die that really set the
Internet on fire, lambasting her for a less that pristine set of pipes and her
comatose stage presence. It’s
understandable, mainly because Born To Die is a classic exercise in style over
substance. Lana puts on a Scorsese-sized
production: Metallic trip-hop beats and
movie score strings rest against a backdrop of Hollywood glamour and enough
drugs and cheap thrills to make anyone seem numb on Sunset Boulevard. The problem is it’s hard to buy into Lana’s
mystique and easy to digest her product, which ultimately makes her blasé. There are slow burn home runs like the
funeral piano crawl of “Video Games,” or the buoyant come-on of “Diet Mountain
Dew” but it’s hard to know where the allure starts and the anguish begins. For all the spectacle that’s present, there’s
little tension, and Lana’s darkness is never really earned. This lack of sincerity ends up making Born To
Die feel more like a commercial—interesting to take in but dangerously
disposable.
Key Cuts: Video Games, Diet Mountain Dew, Radio
The Record That Should Have Caught On: P.O.S.- We Don’t Even
Live Here (****½):
Stefon Alexander’s
lack of name recognition is a bit criminal at this point. Whether it’s from his spitfire work with the
Doomtree collective, or under the moniker P.O.S, Alexander is simply the most
energetic presence in hip-hop today.
Combining blitzed out synthesizers with punk rock percussion, We Don’t Even Live Here continues to
illustrate Alexander’s undying passion for authenticity and his love of glitched-out
noise. “**** Your Stuff” is a volatile
cocktail of anarchist tongue twisters, while the graveyard clatter of
“Lockpicks, Knives, Bricks & Bats” and the relentless bang and buzz of “Bumper”
show Alexander’s zeal for urgency. We Don’t’ Even Live Here ultimately
amounts to the strongest musical call to arms in years, an album that reflects
the pastiche instincts of our modern world while preserving something uniquely
human in spirit. In an age of
cookie-cutter celebrities, manufactured nostalgia, and a never-ending cycle of
tragedy addiction, it’s refreshing to hear Alexander rap about what it means to
be a human being in the face of such a disposable culture (especially from a
genre that’s known to perpetuate it). So
if you want your hip-hop to say something, check out P.O.S—Stefon Alexander has
something to say.
Key Cuts: Bumper, **** Your Stuff, Lockpicks Knives Bricks
& Bats
Worst Release: The Mars Volta- Noctourniquet (0)
If you’re a Mars Volta scholar you’ll probably be determined
to like this disaster of an album.
Nothing I type about how it’s a fractured malaise of pretentious art
rock noodling, wrapped with dubstep twitches and spastic wailing will deter you
from liking this album. For all I know,
you’re into this too. Fair enough.
Key Cuts: Say, how’s that At The Drive-In reunion going?
WILDCARD: Deftones- Koi No Yokan (*****)
Tragedy can really affect people, and for the Deftones it
has focused them. While the smash-and-scream of 2010's Diamond Eyes carried a sense of frustration
around their fallen brother Chi Cheng, Koi
No Yokan finds them reflective and contemplative. Taking prog-rock cues from bands like Pink
Floyd and Radiohead, the Deftones marry spacious soundscapes with their mammoth
sized riffing to create a truly otherworld experience. Whether it’s the crushing grind of “Swerve
City” or the robo-thrash breakdown of “Leathers,” the Deftones have created one
of the more immersive albums since 2000’s White
Pony. Chino Moreno is still one of
the most underrated vocalists in heavy music today, continuing his
impressive streak with the soothing space coo of “Entombed” and his almost rabid
delivery on the lurching “Poltergeist.”
Above all though, the album’s real achievement comes in the form of
“Tempest” a swirling maelstrom of polyrhythmic drumming, hypnotic rhythms, and
dream-like vocals. Replacement bassist
Sergio Vega intimated that Koi No Yokan
translates from Japanese to mean “the premonition of love,” or “love at first
sight.” That’s not too far off
base. After the tragedy the Deftones
have endured, Koi No Yokan is the
sound of a band exploring what’s next for themselves, their music, and the things they love. As such, listening to Koi No Yokan bloom and develop should thrill fair weather and fanatic Deftones fans alike.
Key Cuts: Swerve City, Leathers, Tempest
Bayside- TBA:
While technically not confirmed for a 2013 release, all signs
indicate the follow-up to El Camino
will arrive at some point this year. The duo has said they are going in the
studio this spring to work on new material and that may be the smartest move
for one of the hottest acts in the industry. Though they’ve deviated from a
their early sound, the past two records have been fantastic and can only be
built upon.
Cage The Elephant- TBA:
Paramore- Paramore (April 9):
Vampire Weekend- TBA (May
6):
Atoms For Peace- Amok
(February 25): Thom Yorke and Flea
for the price of one LP? Count me
interested. While the spacey “Judge,
Jury & Executioner” sounds like an anxious computer at some cosmic dive bar,
expect some red-hot grooves this time around.
There’s life outside of Radiohead and the Red Hot Chili Peppers for
these two famed musicians, let’s hear what that sounds like.
Jimmy Eat World- TBA: Edgier and brasher, Jimmy Eat
World are promising a record that really goes for the throat in 2013. Recent Twitter posts suggest the album is in
its final mixing stages, but the real surprise is to see where they go after
the emotive, and Marshall stacked fuzz of 2010’s Invented.
Queens Of The Stone Age- TBA
(April/May): Josh Homme has a party
on his hands because Dave Grohl is laying down drum tracks and everyone from
Trent Reznor to Nick Oliveri are laying down vocals. Whether the new Queens record will continue
to explore the angular robot-rock of Era Vulgaris is anyone’s guess, but it
sounds like they’re having fun making it.
Sleigh Bells- TBA: Sounds like Alexis Krauss and
Derek Miller are antsy. After their 2012
world-conquering tour, the Internet’s favorite bubblegum-pop by way Slayer
contingent are reportedly hard at work on their follow up to the bone-crushing Reign Of Terror. Viva la feedback.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Mosquito
(April 16): Mayhem comes in many
forms for Karen O; gone are the post-disco Blondie trappings of It’s Blitz! and enter the tribal, dubby,
“Sympathy For The Devil” swagger of Mosquito. If the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ live previews are any
indication, this record should be a real barnburner.
